Tales from the CDG Tardis

So, fresh (or rather excited but a little exhausted!) after my trip to London and the success of Raising the bar, I now find myself in sunny Liverpool Hope University for the UC&R/COFHE joint study conference. Actually travelled down Saturday to stay with cousins and catch up with my four great-aunties. This involved a pub crawl which took in The Grapes, Rigby’s, The Saddle Inn, Masquerade, The Postie and the Crown Vaults. Soft drinks are a wonderful invention; it’s too humiliating to be drunk under the table by septuagenerians.

Am safely delivered to Hope Park nonetheless and immediately bump into one of the RTB delegates who says how much she enjoyed Thursday’s event. Also catch up with a former colleague and a few other sundry professional contacts.

Bijou gripettes: my room is fine but lacks soap, coathangers, a chair and anything to drink out of. Improvise 3 of these but stuck on the coathanger front. Will have to just be creased or make use of shared iron and put clothes straight on hot off the board.

Liverpool is host not only to the European Capital of Culture but to SuperLambBanana, a joyous spectacle of public art that picks up where Edinburgh’s Cow Parade left off, i.e. same principle (sponsored brightly decorated animal structures, only this time with lambs. That have a pointy back end. For some reason. I plan to snap as many as I see - they brighten up any powerpoint presentation.

We are warmly welcomed by Linda Taylor, Director of Library Services at Liverpool Hope Uni, who gives us the history of her institution which started from just two students training to be schoolmistresses in the mid 19th century.

Joyce Little, Head of Libraries & Information Services for the City of Liverpool then gave a spirited and honest keynote address. She described her service’s mission as being to inspire, inform and entertain; to be the street corner university; to empower residents. The capital of culture offers the promise of lifting what is still a very deprived city, through culture and regeneration. She mentioned some key projects and investment in transforming heritage buildings, balanced with the need to attract new audiences. One interesting comment was that she felt a ‘huge disappointment’ that more has not been invested in electrionic resources for public libraries. Student user numbers are falling in Liverpool’s Central Library, and this is one contributing factor, along with the investment in many LRCs at HEIs in the area.

Dr David Collins CBE, Principal of high-achieving South Cheshire College, spoke next. He emphasised leadership, clarity of vision, values; feels that staff needed to feel secure before they could welcome change; believes that ‘management is more concerned with guidance and support than with regulation and control’. He was vocal ont he topic of meetings: says we should never take minutes, but only record the names of those present, the cost of their time, and any changes or major decisions resulting from the meeting. A sobering thought.  He believes that the time-honoured technique of MBWA needs to have a purpose, and that the purpose should be only to thank or acknowledge individuals for their contributions to the college. We shoul cut down on emails and use more varied means of communication. We should fit structures to people and never the other way around. Above all, we should show that we care.

After a quick coffee break, we reconvened for the first workshop (there was no choice for this one so it was either accept the 3 line whip or skive with impunity!) Debbi Boden and Ronan O’Beirne battled technical hitches (I maintain this was LOLcats breaking in…) to deliver a lively and interactive information literacy session. They considered digital immigrants and natives and digital citizenship, and described their work on the POP-i and LolliPop projects.

Well now, I’ve duly blogged and now I need to freshen up in time for for the rigours of dinner, Hollywood Librarian (for the second time!), drinks and a quiz.

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.

Oh shame among bloggers! I missed a day. This was because I was at the second day of the Abertay Enhancement conference. A colleague asked me this morning whether I felt suitably enhanced; yes, I replied; any more enhanced and I could change my name to Jordan

The second day started with a thought-provoking talk from our Vice Principal, who managed to link Ancient Icelandic sagas to employability (you kinda had to be there). She was joined by one of our students who gave a different perspective on our new graduate attributes.

Then went to a talk by some Computing lecturers who were reporting on some peer teaching they had been getting the MSc IT students to do - this was interesting as I have some input into that module right at the beginning, and I got to see how the whole thing pans out. This session provoked a lot of discussion and nearly overran. Fortunately the next session was shorter and mainly consisted of cuddle your neighbour and stick postits all over the walls.

There were two highlights of the afternoon session: one an inspiring and thought-provoking talk on the connections between research and teaching, and the other a debate. The motion for the debate was “A healthy workforce is a better workforce” and it was comprehensively defeated, to everyone’s surprise! We voted (using TurningPoint) on our views at the beginning and end of the debate and it had to be said the unhealthy corner had put together  a stronger case. “The cutting edge of the relaxation though was one of the memorable phrases friom the healthy corner’s argument, and one that particularly appeals to me.

All rounded off with a glass of wine. It was worth getting alarmingly behind in my emails and getting nowhere with my tasklist this week; I’ve had a chance to think, reflect, chat, make connections, listen, learn, discover and plot wily stratagems.

This afternoon was the first instalment of Abertay’s annual enhancement conference, which runs for the whole of tomorrow as well. It’s a chance to get folk together from across the University to share ideas, good practice, experiences, thoughts and new directions. A sprinkling of guest speakers helps us to find perspective and gain new insights. Our keynote speaker - though this suggests a more grandiose conference than ours - this is really quite homegrown, in a good way - is Prof Brent MacGregor (writing at home from memory, may not get name right!) from Edinburgh Art College. He speaks on ‘Employability: Homer, Marx and the Beatles’ and is both engaging and relevant. He also manages to reference both Marxes (Karl and Groucho) and both Homers (Iliad and Simpson) which I think is quite impressive; the Beatles only get a general mention and John and Paul a nod each - nothing for Ringo or George. (Though I’d love to hear what the drummer of the Fab Four, voice of Thomas the Tank Engine and regular at the Chelsea Flower Show had to say about employability!) He makes me giggle though by mentioning ‘live briefs’ (for the uninitiated that means students working with real world clients) in the same breath as a reference to Mantz Yorke, the highly respected academic. This won’t strike you as the least bit funny. But a guest slot from Mantz Yorke a year or two ago came at a hectic time, got forgotten about periodically and mutated into ‘Pants Yorke’ with no disrespect intended. Underpants just ARE funny, I don’t care how old you are.

Also attend a really interesting session in which one of our sports lecturers reports the results of some research that has been conducted into student attendance at Abertay. We learn that bad times for lectures are: mornings; afternoons; Wednesdays; Thursdays. Our one-man timetabling team (the series Baldrick didn’t make) takes it on the chin but points out that not everyone can have 11.30-1.30 on a Tuesday. Students have work commitments, family commitments, travel problems, and a certain amount of poor motivation - all of this we know - and they want absolutely everything tied in to assessment.

Final slot of the day, by which time a lot of folk have sloped off, sees my colleagues speaking on the links between Information Literacy and employability - they echo a lot of the keynote speech and worry that people will think they just wrote it in half an hour - evidently it’s just proof that great minds think alike! It’s a tough brief but they generate food for thought and receive some interesting questions afterwards.

A stimulating afternoon and always good to get out and talk to people - to be continued.