Goldfish and paracetamol

Annoying day in which I continually seem to be at the wrong end of the conversation and drift through the building in a puff of cluelessness.

Trains not working due to flooding on the line, so day starts with a nice comfy lift and chat with my hubby. Then again we need the extra time to clean up after poorly pussycats.

Help an Msc student with referencing. He has major problems with very basicv things. He claims never to have been aware of any of my classes though I ran several fir his group and know for a fact they were heavily promoted by academic ataff.  Where has he been all year? Why can students not extrapolate from examples to further instances. How many times do I have to demonstrate the order of names? He’s using a copyright online image without permission as well, so I open that can of worms right up.

Look at a colleague’s holiday photos from Australia. Miss most of the explanation of the picture where people’s feet appear to be being massaged by fish. Some sort of fish spa apparently. Always wondered what sushi was made of: clearly the answer is ‘little piggies’.

Attend 3 meetings relating to 3 different summer school programmes, and develop headache and mild panic about what needs done for all of these and what order they should be tackled in. Then again have a useful discussion with member of our academic support service, looking at what we are each covering and how it all fits together. This is definitely progress.

Won’t even broach the depressingly numbing topic of document storage management - manage to escape that meeting early as double booked.

Subscriptions and renewals just won’t behave and lead to team-wide headaches. No one ever sends the right or the complete information. Crucial people never where you want them and prices never what you expect. Gah. It’s a miracle we can get access to anything at the moment.

Lots bubbling under on the CDG front - submitting our ideas for the Umbrella conference programme; pulling together some last minute event reports for Impact (forced to resort to quoting this blog…)

The end of the day is in sight, am going to knock off shortly and take in a free tasting at the local deli, handily on the way to the station…

In which we raise the bar and meet a writer

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.

Of receptions and ratoncitos

Well, I’m just back from our big two day Council meeting. It has felt like a full week! On Sunday I travelled to London to stay over the night before the meetings began. I dined alone in the Tavistock - not my idea of a great night out but even I am too inhibited to approach strange single male diners! On Monday morning (which dawned beautifully warm and sunny) I was interviewed by Elspeth Hyams for a piece that may later appear in CILIP Update. I hope I didn’t say anything too radical or self-damaging… apparently I talk very fast (she should meet my friends Kate and Rachel)… had to have photos taken too, ouch.

Monday afternoon we had our divisional reps’ meeting and the first instalment of full Council. Great turnout - the table full on all four sides, must have been around 25 of us? Great that people have travelled to London and come ready to represent their divisional committees and share best practice.

Monday night was my big night - the Presidential Reception at the British Library, Lovely location, fine weather, great turnout of group officers and past officers, past presidents from the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s and noughties, a few old colleagues, my director of service (all the way from Dundee!) Stayed off the wine till after the speech (wise decision). Was not booed and hecklers although present were not fully audible at the front. Yummy mozzarella and basil thingyboos. It was all rather fabulous and I got to dress up and do a lot of hugging, which I enjoy To be honest it was quite a lot like getting married (naturally I made a speech at my own wedding, I wasn’t one of those silent blushing brides… I spoke then about everything we need to know, we learned in kindergarten).

Tuesday it was down to the serious business of Council, hard to contain every different topic and decision in my head, great that many people joined in discussions. Somehow there never seems enough time. Another glass of wine with a couple of colleagues put the final seal on the meeting before I rushed off to get my train.

Train was random - no naps for me - sat next to a rather chatty guy who was an international baseball umpire. Random. And on my second connection from Edinburgh to home, I ended up next to a student from Abertay, where I work (never seen him before so he must have skipped my information literacy classes!

Day off today, much needed recovery. Still in dressing gown at midday (result). Cats attempting to disturb the peace by bringing in the first ratoncito of the year - ratoncito being our code word for any small creature brought into the house, alive or dead. This one had wings and may eventually have used them to get away, or else perhaps we will find it again under the sofa. All in a president’s day…

Photos are at http://www.flickr.com/groups/398516@N22/