Andrew Brown, a nice enough chap (I know him from way back), asks:

But is there any point in whining babies and toddlers attending Mass, if they can’t stay calm and not disturb other people? They gain nothing from the experience, and in any case don’t need to be there.

Of course there is.  We should tolerate whining babies and toddlers because, well, we were whining babies and toddlers ourselves once upon a time.  And the church hopes that some day these babies will grow up to be the next generation of churchgoers.  Without them, the church is finished.

And it's worse than that.  Brown admits that he stayed at home watching the baby while his wife went to church with his other children.  For many couples, stopping going to church because of a baby means that they never go again.  So as well as losing the next generation, the church risks losing some of the current generation too.  It's a price that simply isn't worth paying.  Let the babies cry.

Cultivating the next generation is a major focus for all membership organisations, including the professional accountancy institutes.  Facing a shrinking membership base as a result of the lack of any protection from competition for the services most accountants do or, indeed, any protection even of the term accountant, the accountancy bodies have started diversifying into new service offerings.  They've also looked to other countries as a source of growth.

Let's hope they succeed; if they don't, life for accountants will get decidedly uncomfortable - and expensive - in the years to come.

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Filed under: Institutes, Other blogs with tags acca, andrew m brown, icaew, protection of term accountant, telegraph