The sun is finally shining on a Sunday afternoon, birds are singing and the spring flowers are pushing their way through the earth in to bloom…. bliss. Sadly not a lazy Sunday afternoon for me, as I have only recently returned from Yorkshire this lunchtime and I am hoping to catch up on some work before going back to the office tomorrow.
Keele Week was good fun and also a lot of hard work for students and teachers alike. While the students were revising for the examinations, a different group came together to undertake the management course. The course was lead by Carol Cutler, Richard Harbord, David Magor, Allan Traynor and myself. We asked the four groups to develop a recession busting action plan for a fictional authority (Oxbourne BC) and then lobbed in a few set backs along the way (such as a local business with 5 000 employees going bust). At the end of two and half days the four groups came together and presented to the “board” their plans. All were insightful and there were a lot of very good ideas put forward that had merit. The winning team were “red team” and they have each won a conference package prize, although as we are changing the format a little this year, there will be no presentation from the winning team at the annual conference. I found it valuable and the comments from the delegates all seemed to have found some elements very useful.
Keele was rounded off with the Thursday night dinner held in the renovated rooms in Keele Hall and a fantastic evening was laid on. Of course the “entertainment package” was well worth waiting for with Britain’s got no talent, proving this point with attempts on the world record for eating Ferrero Rocher chocolates - a gallant failure from Phil Triggs who only managed two (but counted these on his abacus all the same), Susan Boyle-Chapman made an appearance and wowed the judges but it was Fraud lecturer John Rosenbloom who won the night with a (quite good really!) rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” following an arbitrary decision from the Institute’s own controversial judge Mr David “how did Simon Cowell make his millions?” Magor.
Following the contest “Fern Cotton-Lee” and “Holly WilloWatson” handed over to “Almost no Girls Allowed” to belt out their recent hit “Promise.” I think the less said about certain male council members’ affiliation for heels and long wigs, probably the better. I have posted some pictures to “prove the point” for those of you of strong constitution who were not present!
This week I have been able to have a couple of days at work (as a bank holiday got in the way) where we had our use of resources challenge from our external auditors. It is certainly going to be tough to maintain our high score of last year, but once we all got together and started brain storming the progress and outcomes delivered, it was pleasantly surprising as to how much we have done in the past year. Fingers crossed that the auditors thought so anyway!
Thursday afternoon I left work early to drive up to Chester-le-Street for Friday’s Northern Counties seminar and informal dinner. The seminar had over a hundred delegates and it really seemed a worthwhile day, discussing aspects of the recession and other topical Revs and Bens matters (despite the IT proving challenging all day with the mic’s not sure if they wanted to work or not! Reg Bascombe (Northern Counties President) did an excellent job of handling the unpredictability of these presentation aides! The venue for both the seminar and dinner was the Riverside Ground, home of Durham County Cricket in Chester-le-Street. It was the most gorgeous setting with Lumley castle up on the hillside overlooking the ground.
We were staying at a charming hotel in Beamish where suits of armour greeted you as your first visual as you walked through the door and on Thursday night (as we were waiting to go to the dinner) we were besieged by about 200 youngsters having their school prom. To say that some of the girls outfits looked like they had fallen off a Christmas tree would be an understatement! But they all looked like they were determined to have a great time and there couldn’t have been any limos available for hire in the area as getting out of the car park due to the presence of umpteen limos was quite a challenge. Some as big as coaches! We were even treated to an appearance by “The Stig” as one young man was dropped off by the helmet clad driver in his silver Porsche! (See picture below).
Saturday saw us wend our way down to Hollins Hall for the Yorkshire and District Annual Dinner. This successful association put on a great evening through the hard work of the executive officers lead by President Lisa Rawson and Social Secretary John Clark. With dinner (including an enormous yorkshire pudding – well what else would you expect ?), all speeches, toasts, the quiz (we came second, pipped by one point, much to the Chief Exec’s chagrin) and raffle out of the way, we did get down to some serious dancing and had a great time on the dance floor until the wee small hours. My thanks to the association for entertaining us so well yesterday. We had a great time. Lisa raised over £250 for her charity the Bluebell World Children’s hospice in Sheffield - thanks to the generosity of the guests.
This week sees yet more AGMs and trips to the west of the country and in to Wales. I look forward to bringing you up to date on these and other matters as they unfold!
Keele Week was good fun and also a lot of hard work for students and teachers alike. While the students were revising for the examinations, a different group came together to undertake the management course. The course was lead by Carol Cutler, Richard Harbord, David Magor, Allan Traynor and myself. We asked the four groups to develop a recession busting action plan for a fictional authority (Oxbourne BC) and then lobbed in a few set backs along the way (such as a local business with 5 000 employees going bust). At the end of two and half days the four groups came together and presented to the “board” their plans. All were insightful and there were a lot of very good ideas put forward that had merit. The winning team were “red team” and they have each won a conference package prize, although as we are changing the format a little this year, there will be no presentation from the winning team at the annual conference. I found it valuable and the comments from the delegates all seemed to have found some elements very useful.
Keele was rounded off with the Thursday night dinner held in the renovated rooms in Keele Hall and a fantastic evening was laid on. Of course the “entertainment package” was well worth waiting for with Britain’s got no talent, proving this point with attempts on the world record for eating Ferrero Rocher chocolates - a gallant failure from Phil Triggs who only managed two (but counted these on his abacus all the same), Susan Boyle-Chapman made an appearance and wowed the judges but it was Fraud lecturer John Rosenbloom who won the night with a (quite good really!) rendition of Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Boxer” following an arbitrary decision from the Institute’s own controversial judge Mr David “how did Simon Cowell make his millions?” Magor.
Following the contest “Fern Cotton-Lee” and “Holly WilloWatson” handed over to “Almost no Girls Allowed” to belt out their recent hit “Promise.” I think the less said about certain male council members’ affiliation for heels and long wigs, probably the better. I have posted some pictures to “prove the point” for those of you of strong constitution who were not present!
This week I have been able to have a couple of days at work (as a bank holiday got in the way) where we had our use of resources challenge from our external auditors. It is certainly going to be tough to maintain our high score of last year, but once we all got together and started brain storming the progress and outcomes delivered, it was pleasantly surprising as to how much we have done in the past year. Fingers crossed that the auditors thought so anyway!
Thursday afternoon I left work early to drive up to Chester-le-Street for Friday’s Northern Counties seminar and informal dinner. The seminar had over a hundred delegates and it really seemed a worthwhile day, discussing aspects of the recession and other topical Revs and Bens matters (despite the IT proving challenging all day with the mic’s not sure if they wanted to work or not! Reg Bascombe (Northern Counties President) did an excellent job of handling the unpredictability of these presentation aides! The venue for both the seminar and dinner was the Riverside Ground, home of Durham County Cricket in Chester-le-Street. It was the most gorgeous setting with Lumley castle up on the hillside overlooking the ground.
We were staying at a charming hotel in Beamish where suits of armour greeted you as your first visual as you walked through the door and on Thursday night (as we were waiting to go to the dinner) we were besieged by about 200 youngsters having their school prom. To say that some of the girls outfits looked like they had fallen off a Christmas tree would be an understatement! But they all looked like they were determined to have a great time and there couldn’t have been any limos available for hire in the area as getting out of the car park due to the presence of umpteen limos was quite a challenge. Some as big as coaches! We were even treated to an appearance by “The Stig” as one young man was dropped off by the helmet clad driver in his silver Porsche! (See picture below).
Saturday saw us wend our way down to Hollins Hall for the Yorkshire and District Annual Dinner. This successful association put on a great evening through the hard work of the executive officers lead by President Lisa Rawson and Social Secretary John Clark. With dinner (including an enormous yorkshire pudding – well what else would you expect ?), all speeches, toasts, the quiz (we came second, pipped by one point, much to the Chief Exec’s chagrin) and raffle out of the way, we did get down to some serious dancing and had a great time on the dance floor until the wee small hours. My thanks to the association for entertaining us so well yesterday. We had a great time. Lisa raised over £250 for her charity the Bluebell World Children’s hospice in Sheffield - thanks to the generosity of the guests.
This week sees yet more AGMs and trips to the west of the country and in to Wales. I look forward to bringing you up to date on these and other matters as they unfold!
