A very quiet day back at the office today after a whirlwind trip to London. The filing frenzy came upon me and now stuff is sensibly arranged, I can find it, and my desk looks shiny and bare.
Raising the bar was a great success. Everyone turned up, and there were no technical hitches. Speakers were all excellent, and workshop leaders managed to be universally interactive and keep to their time constraints, no mean feat. Dr Paul Ayris welcomed us to UCL and spoke about their work on Investors in People. Anne Poulson and Ian Snowley offered us an unofficial masterclass as they reviewed their own careers and focused on leadership and personal motivation to succeed. We enjoyed a range of workshops - first up I got to hear Jacky Berry speak on managing stress for improved performance, which featured a case study of the BMA. Jacky was good-humoured and her empathy came through as she tackled this difficult area. We heard about the wonders of bug lists and the perils of orange creates, before we broke for a relaxed lunch featuring some lovely fruit and cheese - a welcome additon to the usual conference menu. (Though not a patch on Peebles of course!) I didn’t get to hear fellow conference planner Helen Blanchett run her session on scenario planning, but it sounded lively!
Afternoon saw workshops from Caroline Williams from Intute on managing change, and Veronica Fraser on influencing skills, as well as parallel sessions from Lesley Robinson on making a business case and Ayub Khan on achieving personal goals. (I was sorry not to be able to be at all of these!) Both Caroline and Veronica were thoughtful, well prepared and informative. Bruce Madge rounded the day off with a thoughtful assessment of marketing based on his experience at the London Upright MRI Centre. He managed to sweep through marketing, USPs, medicine and art and still leave time for a leisurely and pleasant chat to leave people feeling inspired. I even let him have a free plug for The Bearded Pigs, but he wasn’t makin’ any bacon any time soon.
All this plus the airy cloisters and the contribution made by our bijou exhibition - CDG, PTEG, Intute, Netskills and Sue Hill Recruitment. The conference planning team rewarded themselves with a well-earned bottle of Pinot Grigio before deciding to run a similar conference in 2010, keeping the same title, so we can spread the word and let others experience such high calibre speakers and enriching programmes.
The best was yet to come. Having boarded the 1800 from King’s Cross, I decided I couldn’t face one more train sandwich and oppted instead for a proper meal in the on-board restaurant. Chap sits down opposite me, I make the usual pleasantries such as ‘how far are you travelling’ and ‘how was your day’, then we progress on to ‘what’s your line of work’. He’s a writer. ‘Oh, what kind?’ I ask. Children’s books - this sounds highly promising. To cut a long story short, my dinner companion is none other than highly respected author Marcus Sedgwick, on his way up to a festival in Melrose. I try to get the fan bit over with fairly quickly (having read just two so far, The Foreshadowing and Blood red, Snow White and we then have a great chat about books, reading, readers, writers and publishers. Too bad I didn’t have a notebook to hand… anyhow, Sedgwick is a capital fellow and I shall certainly be looking out for his future releases.
