Guest Writer - Jayne Finlay

SPRING TIME...well nearly!

It's the first Monday in March and I'm feeling quite spring like today! For once the sun was shining on the way to work and while there is undoubtedly still a nip in the air, so long as it's bright I have to say I don't mind so much! 

It's another busy week on the Island - what's new with that I hear you say - especially after last week's busy time in Dublin where the HR Symposium team did Legal-Island proud by welcoming 120+ delegates to The Shelbourne Hotel to hear from speakers including PWC, Deloitte, Symbio and Towers Watson. Here is what some of our happy customers had to say:

"Top level of attendees, plenty of opportunities to network, abundant opportunities to interact with presenters, convenience of excellent central location..."

"I thought it was a very good opportunity and a great event for the future. I would definitely go with a colleague in future years so that more could be covered." 

Great job!

Back on the island then and here is what the team is up to this week...

Apart from a lunch time meeting today Barry, our CEO, has a clear diary all week. This will no doubt come as some relief for this week he has two events to sign off and a risk audit to finish.

Peter G from the marketing department will be volunteering with Arnold, Scott and James at the Giants Causeway on Wednesday taking part in a shoreline clean up with the National Trust.

Donna and Sharon will be looking after the Social Services as they train in the training centre today then New Model Business Academy on Thursday. Donna will be at the Women in Business/ IoD event on Thursday.

Scott is facilitating the Discipline & Underperformance workshop on 6^th March, alongside Lorraine Toolan of the EEF. On Wednesday, Scott will be helping with the clear up of the Causeway Coast at part of his volunteering duties. On Thursday, Scott will be chairing a meeting of NI HR conference speakers at the offices of Carson McDowell. Scott hopes to work from home on Friday.

Jayne is on Common Purpose Meridian Course tomorrow then off to join Donna at the Women in Business/ IoD event at La Mon on Thursday.

Ainsley is volunteering at Ballycraigy on Wednesday afternoon, apart from that he is in the office all week.

Have a great week everyone!

Guest Writer: Heather Stewart

Chickens & Hockey

Now normally these 2 items would not mix well (unless the eggs are hard boiled!) but they did for Legal-Island last week. We began the week by visiting Ballycraigy Primary School to see the Chicken and coop that we sponsored so the school could get fresh eggs and teach the children a thing or two about where our food comes from. This coop was made by a friend of the school and consists entirely of recycled materials including, as you can see in the pic, a washing machine door as a window!
I was then back in Ballycraigy Primary School towards the end of the week to help train their hockey team which we sponsor, lots of great new talent again this year. They can't wait for the end of season tournament.

Onto what we are all doing this week:

Our CEO, Barry, has a busy week ahead. Today he's meeting Andrew Cuthbert from Omnisoft for lunch in between meetings with staff. On Tuesday he's in London for a marketing seminar which means a very early start and a late return home. On Thursday he's attending a seminar on mapping work flows before shooting over to a meeting of the First Thursday Mediation Club. On Friday afternoon he's leading the Senior Team meeting before heading into the weekend and doing whatever he has planned for the weekend. More work at a guess.

Scott is chairing the HR Symposium in Dublin on Wednesday and will attend the Strategy Team meeting on Friday. In between, he hopes to be working from home on Thursday.

Kerry will be meeting with Laura Kerr from YENI on Thursday to discuss her Learn to Earn volunteer day coming up next week.  Later on that day she will be attending the First Thursday Mediation club which will be lead by Peter O’Reilly former Director of Mediation NI.  Kerry has a show round of the new Titanic building in Belfast on Friday to consider it for potential NI events.  

Ainsley is meeting Brian Nelson of Forth Data on Thursday morning, followed by Gareth Dunlop of Fathom in the afternoon. 

I will be running my first event of the year on Wednesday and it starts with a bang, we have 130 delegates at our Ireland's HR Symposium.

Donna is taking her turn at the hockey training this week, the kids can't wait to see her back!

Also in the training centre we have Schrader today and then the Patient and Client council on Tuesday and Social Services Training on Thursday and Friday

That is one busy week for us all here, we'll see you on the other side!

Guest Writer: Donna Kirkpatrick

Unless you have missed the hoards of pancakes in all the shops you wont be aware that tomorrow is Pancake Tuesday - in case you don’t know Pancake Tuesday came about as women used to clear all the food out of their cupboards and make pancakes before Lent began . Here at Legal Island we are using everything we have got in our training larder to fill people up on high quality events in NI and ROI.



So other than eat pancakes this week, here is what else is happening...

Our CEO, Barry, has a busy week networking and fine dining this week (must be fancy pancakes).

He's in internal meetings pretty much all day. Tomorrow he's meeting one of our IT consultants for lunch. Tuesday evening and he's starting his wine quaffing course. We're worried for he is not known for being able to hold his drink. Wednesday and he's off for an In-Camera Dinner with the Justice Minister. Thursday it's a dinner at the Northern Ireland Assembly Association. On Friday he's meeting his old mucker from O'Reilly Stewart, Linus Murray before going into a meeting about the education conference which is coming up shortly.

On Wednesday, Heather has an Innovation team meeting & on Wednesday she is going to Ballycraigy Primary to see their new chicken coop that we donated money to pay for.

Thursday – back to Ballycraigy Primary in the afternoon to start the hockey (burn off all the pancakes).

Kerry is hosting two events in the training centre this week - Professional Workplace Investigations on Tuesday and Redundancy Selection on Wednesday.

Jayne has a meeting with invest NI on Tuesday morning. On Thursday and Friday she will be in Londonderry/ Derry for the C03 Leadership Conference at Derry City Hotel.

Scott has a meeting with Kirsty McManus of the CBI on Wednesday and is on annual leave on Friday. Scott hope to work from home on Tuesday.

In the Training Centre this week we are welcoming the Public Health Agency and Schrader.

Busy week as always

Just in case you are wondering, my favourite pancakes are R.J. Kerr's toasted with real butter... nothing fancy but real tasty!

Monday 13 February 2012

Guest Writer: Vanessa

It’s Valentines Week and love is in the air here on the Island (well not exactly love – we keep up to date with the latest equality legislation – but dignity is in the air doesn’t have quite the same ring to it!)

Our CEO is back today from a weekend in London and will have to hit the ground running with a busy week ahead. Today he has staff meetings in the morning and in the afternoon is meeting Neil Mitchell from focused partnerships and then James Neilly from the Belfast Cookery School.

On Wednesday he's delivering some mediation training alongside Gerry Rooney before hosting an evening get-together of entrepreneurs on "The Four Hour Work Week". On Thursday evening he's attending Mark Reid's employment law seminar in Derry/Londonderry.

 

Scott is in Dublin on Wednesday, meeting several 2012 speakers, including barrister Paul Joyce, Dermot Casserly from Beauchamps and Killian O’Reilly from O’Rourke Reid. On Thursday he will be attending the LRA seminars on ‘Employment Law – The Future for NI’. After lunch, he will be meeting Lucy Haugh from Fold Housing.

 

The training centre is busy this week, Schrader are in tomorrow and on Wednesday, Kerry will be hosting the 2^nd day of our highly rated two day Internal Mediation course.

Heather has Gillian from TinyLife coming in on Tuesday to receive a cheque for £220 the first donation raised from our Rate 2 Donate scheme.

 

For the rest of us it’s business as usual – making the magic happen!

Guest Writer: Peter

Julie’s Back!

On Thursday we bade farewell to John Hardy, our maternity cover Email Service Manager and this morning welcomed Julie McCloskey back onto the ‘island (sounds a little bit like Ship Wrecked, but without the scheming!).

This week is a busy week:

Barry, our CEO, is in the office all day today but out networking big time tomorrow. He's meeting Fiona Keenan, our company coach, in the morning before seeing Orlagh O'Neill from Carson McDowell for lunch. In the afternoon he's meeting Catherine Vint from the ICO. On Wednesday he's helping to deliver some mediation training before flying to London on Friday.

Jayne will be talking Risk Audits with Patricia O’Rourke from BITC on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, she’s attending Investors in People – Maximising the Value of Investors in People, a half-day training session before the renewal of our IiP. On Friday, she’s volunteering at St Brigid’s Primary School.

Scott will be chairing the HR Network meeting at A4e on Tuesday. On Wednesday he has meetings with Pensions expert David Graham and Patricia Black, HR Manager at Northgate Managed Services. Scott hopes to work from home on Thursday and Friday.

Donna is also flying our volunteer flag this week, on Tuesday for YENI on the LET programme in Ballycastle – interviewing students as practice for them in the future. She’s also got the Northern Trust using our Training Centre on Tuesday and Schrader on Thursday. A busy week for our Office Manager!

And last, but certainly not least (she’d say save the best ‘til last) our NI Conference Manager Kerry has her first conference of 2012 on Wednesday – Internal Mediation: ResolvingWorkplace Disputes (it’s sold out, but we will be running it again soon!).

Here we go again…

The Island Waddle! Guest Writer: Ainsley

Everyone is waddling this morning!

Either there's an audition for Happy Feet 4 that I wasn't aware of, or everyone's feeling the strain from the ten mile walk/run on Saturday!

A big congratulations to Heather, Kerry, John, Jayne, Donna, Debbie, Jacqui and Vanessa, who joined up with our friends at Antrim Borough Council to raise funds for the MacMillan Nurses in their centenary year. They did a fantastic job and the money's still rolling in, so we don't yet have a total raised, but there's still time to donate to this fantastic cause, simply drop us a line. Here are some of them, raring to go!

We're sticking close to the Borough Council this week, as a number of us are attending the 'Airline Innovation' event on high performance they are organising on Wednesday. I will be joined by Allison, Vanessa and Heather - with Kerry and Donna attending a related session by David Meade (International Speaker and Entertainer) on 'innovation and leadership.' Kerry will also be busy on Thursday organising and attending Legal-Island's First Thursday Mediation Club.

Elsewhere on the island, Barry our CEO has a week almost completely clear of meetings - so lots of time for him to prepare for the Strategy Team meeting on Thursday.

Our MD, Jayne is in the office all week, writing up Performance Review documentation and continuing with policy work in between the usual internal meetings. Jayne will also be continuing her volunteering at St. Brigids, Ballymena on Friday morning.

Marketing Officer Peter Fitzpatrick will also be volunteering this week, delivering football coaching to Ballycraigy Primary School children. I will be there too to even the sides.

Our Training Centre is also busy this week, hosting Northern Trust today and Schrader tomorrow.

Apart from that we're gearing ourselves up for a busy first season of events, with places selling fast. To make sure you're up to speed, check out what's happening on the Events page of our website.

As Happy Feet's dad said to him, "The word triumph starts with a 'try' and ends with a great big UMPH"

Onwards we waddle. Have a great week.

Our Apprentice, Charlie! Guest writer: Allison Sutherland

There’s no doubt about it, we’re cranking up to full speed here on the Island.  We could do with having our Work Experience person ‘Charlie’ back in the fold to help out as he did such a brilliant job last week.  The thing is, he’s just too busy swatting and honing his skills at Campbell College before taking on Lord Sugar in the next series of “Young Apprentice” – fingers crossed he makes it through to the next round. 

If we’re all particularly cheery and smiley it is because we have been awarded the Gold Star Customer Service Accreditation Award which demonstrates our best practice and ethos for growth.  Well done to everyone involved for all their hard work.  Shouldn’t really boast but if we get many more awards and certificates we’ll be in need of quotes for shoring up the office walls.

There’s much limbering up going on in here, circuits completed of the car park and stretching everywhere you look.  The reason being that on Saturday we’re taking Antrim by storm by joining our friends from the Borough Council for a ten mile walk/run to help raise funds for the MacMillan Nurses in their centenary year.  All sponsorship gratefully accepted.

We’re up to our eyes in Performance reviews this week with both our M.D Jayne and Marketing Supremo Ainsley sporting “Do Not Disturb” notices.  Shhhh!!!

However, by far the best news is that “the girls” have recovered from their winter blues and are laying at a speed of knots.  Now that they have their new spring plumage they don’t stop admiring themselves in the big mirror next to their coop. Mighty fine they’re looking too.

Did you hear about the Environmental enthusiast who removed the engine from his car and replaced it with an Ostrich to power the vehicle?  Everything seems to be working well until it gets to the Motorway.  At high speed, the car breaks down so he calls out one of the emergency vehicle repair services.  The Mechanic arrives, lifts the bonnet and shaking his head says “Ere’s your problem Guv’nor, yer big ‘en’s gone!”


What we're all up to;

Our CEO Barry is meeting business consultant John McKee today for lunch and then attending a seminar delivered by Mark Reid at the Antrim Civic Centre tomorrow evening. On Wednesday he's attending a dinner at Queens before heading to Dublin for meetings all day with amongst others the NCI and Daire Coffey. On Friday he's in the office before leading from the front in the MacMillan 10 mile charity run on Saturday.

Jayne is busy with Internal meetings on Monday and Tuesday.  Then on Wednesday she will be out of the office at an Invest NI Performance Management Workshop in Bedford Street.  She’ll be rounding off the week on Friday by volunteering at St Brigids, Ballymena.  After which it’s all systems go and a swift move onto Belfast for the ReformNET Ladies Day lunch.

Scott is meeting Diane Hill of A4e today to discuss her presentation to the HR Network on 7^th February.

Scott hopes to work from home from Wed-Friday this week and will be a guest at the McGrigors’ Burns Supper on Thursday 26^th January at QUB: Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o' the puddin-race!

An’ aw tha’, etc etc. In all honesty, it’s pretty horrible scran and would be consigned to the dustbin of culinary history, like peas brose and Angel Delight, were it not for the Bard liking the stuff. The rest of us just pretend to enjoy it, like some offal emperor’s new clothes in food form. But it’s a fine excuse for a great night out.

Vanessa and Peter Fitzpatrick are off for a midday bite at the City Hall, where they will receive our Customer Service Gold Award Certificate from the Centre for Competitiveness – proving that there is such a thing as a free lunch!

Heather has a pretty quiet week in relation to being out and about.  She’ll still be up to her eyes (as usual) but based in the office.  Apart from Thursday when she is attending the Business in the Community Opening Door’s Series at Allstate.


I am attending Antrim Civic Centre on Tuesday evening to hear Mark Reid deliver a seminar in relation to Agency Workers.  Then a bit of practice before attempting Saturday's walk.


If Jacqui's tendon holds up she will be roaming Antrim with the rest of us on Saturday morning.

Our Training Centre is still proving to be the best value for money facilities in these here parts as we have guests from Schrader on Tuesday and the Institute of Licensing on Thursday and Friday.  It’s the food that does it, if you’re ever in need of a good feed come to us!