InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "We gonna make biscuits?"

Fraser rose when Jason came in. "Hello. I caught the tail-end of the practice. How's the shoulder?"

Jason rotated his shoulder in show. “I’d say good as new, barely even know anything happened.” He felt strong at practice today. Although that could also be the fact he was using quidditch as an outlet.

“I should be ready to go at full speed for the match against Wigtown, and bludgers willing for the Annual Broom Race too.”

"Let's hope you manage to steer clear of Rabbie and Moose and are ready for your race." Fraser smiled. It would be good for the team, too. There were entirely too many injuries across the season and we haven't even gotten to the playoffs. "I hear the Magpies are talking about a Pink Block showing against Wigtown, like Kenmare and Wimbourne. I'm interested in helping."

Jason best thought of Fraser in his role of commissioner and more recently for the BIL hearings about the proposal to strike the war season. He had thought the asterisk season was a good compromise. He wasn’t sure what the game was here. Moreso, when today started off with Lex wearing pink.

So he did his best to school his face into a neutral expression, but he was curious. He could remind himself to be open minded. “What are you thinking about?”

"To start with? Finding out what you think would actually be helpful. I have some ideas but I want to listen before I speak." Fraser couldn't help but think of Jason at Hogwarts. Half of Montrose's starters had flown against him and graduated with him. It was odd to think of themselves as thirty-two, not twelve.

Jason had come a long way since he was twelve. “I think I would like to know your motivations first and why now? If we could start there?” There could be a fine line between actual supporter and purist family keen to put on a color and pretend all was good with the world.

Fraser nodded. "There are a lot of ways I could answer that. There's a simple answer that says 'because I think you're right and I want to be on the right side of history.' Or, I can tell you that your testimony moved me and Finch-Fletchley's audacious plan for Banchory made me think that things can change. Or, I can tell you about my father's advice about the family. Or about being a half-blood in Slytherin during the eighties. Or the other side of that, which is how nobody gives my grandmother credit for anything she did for muggleborns during the war, because clearly she was making sure she had a clean escape route for her beloved half-blood grandson."

Fraser frowned. He hadn't really thought of all of it together in a while. It wasn't his style. He'd rather focus on things he could do, but this time he had to help Jason get there. "I know I got off lightly. I didn't go to Azkaban, I didn't have any family members die. Ernie came back, even if he's not all recovered yet. But in 32 years I have never seen anything more distorting and harmful to the national character than our desire to classify each other based on some dead socialite's ill-conceived notions of 'blood purity'."

"'Why now?' Is easier. You asked management for Montrose to publicly show unity and support for those with muggle heritage. That was brought to Aunt Una and that's why now." He waited there, to see what Jason thought of that. He suspected that Jason hadn't really considered ownership when he asked for unity.

Jason had considered ownership. He had worried that ownership might come out against it. He also didn’t have the same relationship with ownership the same way he did with the other players and staff. He had needed to make sure the base was mobilized enough that it wouldn’t matter what those on top said. But he listened to Fraser, listened to his reasoning.

“All right.” It was clear to him that Fraser had thought things through, that this wasn’t simply some token gesture. Or at least he hoped. And that was when the gears shifted a little. He needed to be Jason founder and board member of Uplift first, quidditch player second. “The aim of the Uplift Foundation is to create an equal playing field and sustain a vital, prosperous community where justice and opportunity are extended to everyone.

“Right now the ask to wear pink is in direct response to Monte Cameron, a muggleborn and Azkaban survivor, being attacked at work by a co-worker and having those facts used to hurt him. It is not an isolated event by far, but it was a public. We will not stand for that anymore. So, while wearing pink would be an appropriate action, it worries me that no one from ownership or the BIL has come forward to condemn such actions. There is certainly an opportunity for action there.”

Jason could have paused there. But Fraser had first asked him what he thought would actually be helpful and he had ideas. “In the bigger picture of things, in the aftermath of the war, there are far too many people dealing or not dealing with trauma.” And too many of his teammates fell into this group “We need more counselors, therapists, and healers ready to do this work. Funding a training program through the Montrose Clinic might be an interesting solution.”

Fraser nodded. "The second point first. The Mental Health Practice at the Montrose Free Clinic, specializing in War Trauma. We can get the Minister on board, I think. 'Making Britons Better', we can say. He likes hearing his own ideas. I can definitely draft something and bring it to the Macmillan Foundation, to jumpstart it. The main thing I feel like we need to find is a Healer to be the director. If Uplift wants to stay involved, we can arrange it with an Uplift member on the board, so that we don't lose track of your vision." Fraser grinned, "Find someone for that role who is willing to work, though." Fraser was about to move on and had one more thought. "How would you feel about having Ana Abercrombie involved? I know she's your partner's wife, but she's also got a lot of experience with both Montrose and Macmillan charity work. Not sure she'd accept, but she's good at this kind of thing."

Jason nodded. “I will reach out to my group and see who we can utilize. I would certainly be interested in maintaining that partnership. I might even be able to identify someone for director.” He made a mental note to reach out to Augustus Pye in the next couple of days and see if he had any good recommendations. Pye was more on the physical trauma side, so he might not be the best option, but Jason could float the idea, see where it landed.

"Next. BIQL can't make a statement before the next quarterly meeting, unless you want one from the chairman. It's on the agenda for the next working meeting, and the fight is going to be 'how do we come out against fighting between players?' versus 'how do we come out against class-based bullying?' Expect that in the end we'll compromise and come out against everything. It's tough because everyone knows what happened, one way or another, but the Falcons didn't report anything and both players were on the same team. We are likely to come out against both. That may be the best I can do. BIQL is by nature a shop full of compromises. Might be better if we get a second scottish commissioner to cover Banchory and Wigtown, but that's not this quarter."

Jason didn’t particularly like that answer, but that was bureaucracy. He would follow up on that meeting, maybe even speak to Dunbar.

Fraser ran his fingers through his hair, pushing it back from his eyes. "Owners, I can do more, but I have to do it the owner way. Owners are like horses. If you try to push from the side, you don't get anywhere, but if you push or pull from the front or back, you might move the horse.

"It takes a lot for most owners to speak out, but they are really good at subtle signals. Puddlemere made a big splash today by introducing Monte Cameron as their new backup keeper. Smith didn't have to make a production of it, but did a big public welcome as a rebuke to the Maloofs, who really have no idea what they stepped into. I put that fiasco on their manager, for not seeing that coming when they signed Cameron.

"So, because owners won't speak against other owners, your best bet is to get public recognition. And expect it to be slow. Sunday, you could get Jupiter and me wearing ally pins, and/or hosting Monte or the Uplift board in the Montrose owner's box. That's up to you and Monte, I don't want it to look like he's a political quaffle, but if he's willing, we'd welcome him. We could make pins available in the stadium. Montrose could host a reception for Uplift, although that wouldn't be at a game or immediately. If we were visible allies this week, Aunt Una could wear pink for the opening match of the Neep, and talk about it to the press in ways that the Prophet couldn't ignore.

"Don't think that because nobody has issued a press release on the topic that every team doesn't have one or two drafted. I hope we can arrange for all of them to reach into the 'support for Uplift' folder in the file cabinet."

"So, that's a lot, some subtle, some not-as-subtle. We don't have to do all of it, but we do want to do helpful things."

As Fraser continued to speak, Jason ran through scenarios in his head. He didn’t want to speak for Monte, but if they could use them? If they could actually get things to change? Well, he would certainly be speaking to him about that.

“I am open to these ideas. Where they involve hosting Monte and Uplift, I will need to speak to him, but if Montrose wants to extend a formal invitation to Uplift, it is certainly something we can discuss without having to wait for a quarterly meeting.” Which was a little cheeky, but also the reality that they largely worked out of their board member’s homes right now.

“And I am going to guess we’re going to have the public on our side soon enough, if not already.” Jason was sure that Hamish MacFarlan would be just delighted. “The other big question, what is in place to address harassment and hostile work environments and how does that get enforced? I have been lucky to not experience anything to that nature at Montrose, but would like to know there is a policy in place.”

"OK, well, let's start with 'On behalf of the Macmillan family and the Montrose Magpies, the Board of Directors of Uplift are invited to be our special guests in the Montrose Box for Sunday's match against Wigtown.' I don't know how that works if you're playing, but we'd certainly do something before the match and have a press release announcing our commitment to work with Uplift on long term projects related to mental health through the Montrose Free Clinic. Who else is on your board, by the way?"

“Our working board is Nobby Leach, Hermione Granger, Mary Cattermole, Jeremy Goodwin, with Emerson Harper and Caroline Knightly. And myself.” Jason thought it was a better good foundation with varying points of view and different skill sets. “We also have some other big name supporters.”

"Harassment and hostile work environments is tough, because the all the structures are based around problems between teams, not on one team. We can certainly come out against bullying and birth-discrimination, but there's no enforcement mechanism. Basically, we can tell the Falcons 'don't make us all look bad, you idiots,' but that's as far as we can force things. Don't know if you've talked to Dunny Oglethorpe, but he'd have a good handle on the complaint process, such as it is.”

“He is on the list of conversations to be had, but admittedly rallying a visible effort has been top priority this week.” Jason had a growing list of tasks to take care of both personal and professional. Maybe that time turner mention wouldn’t be the worst idea. “I think that is all I have to offer at the moment. When we first started you mentioned your own ideas? Anything else you’d like to add?”

"Only thing I haven't mentioned is that we can officially accept your uniform modification so there's no question of it being 'unofficial'. The rules of quidditch allow a team to have variants for commemorating events of note or to allow teams to honor individuals. It was meant to allow players to wear blue stars if a family member was overseas fighting Grindelwald, and you can see old pictures of the teams in the 1940s wearing stars on the sleeves of their robes, but this fits fairly within the scope of the written rule." Fraser smiled. "Merc isn't the only one who can dig out old rules that are still on the books."

"Anything else, I think, will come as the relationship develops. It's why I think the board thing will be good. It'll give us all a chance to talk and get to know each other at the start. Hopefully your board will give us a good report." He grinned and stood. He didn't want to take more of Jason's time than he already had and he knew he had things to do to get things in motion for Sunday.

Jason mirrored Fraser standing when he did. “Uplift are certainly ready to act.” He extended a hand to shake, a grin on his face. This had gone differently than he expected, but definitely in good way. “And the gods willing we’ll see a neon pink Magpie on Sunday. Or even a whole flock.”

Fraser took his hand and shook it. "Go forth and make history, young man. And don't forget to win the match."