Guest Writer this Week Michelle Horrobin

It's all quiet on the western front here at Legal-Island with many of our staff taking their well deserved Christmas leave after such a busy year! Our Annual Review of Employment Law events were sold out and the feedback has been fantastic.

In recent weeks there have been a few exciting changes happening here;

• Heather has been promoted to Conference Manager for Republic of Ireland - many congratulations Heather!


• Arnold has been appointed to Careman and Conference Assistant - welcome Arnold!


• Our Conference Manager for NI - Kerry - is due back home this week from her 6 month sabbatical touring the world and will be back with us in January. We are looking forward to hearing all about your adventures Kerry!

In sad news our former Careman and Conference Assistant - Joe - has left us to pursue new career endeavors and we wish him all the best for his future!

New Year, New Opportunitites

For 2010 we are all set for our new events in the education sector! We have the following dates planned:

• Northern Ireland: Employment Law in the Education Sector (4 Mar)


• Republic of Ireland: Education Law Update (25 Feb)


• Republic of Ireland: Employment Law in the Education Sector (23 Mar)

All that's left to remain is to wish you all a very merry Christmas and we look forward to seeing you in the New Year!

Week 14 - Guest Writer - Pamela Park

Last week the 2010 Programme of Events brochure for Northern Ireland was sent out to almost 2000 contacts.

For next year we've got events on equality, redundancy, employment law, underperformance, employment law in the education sector, industrial tribunals, human resources, workplace investigations to name a few.

With our great Early Bird Offer you can save up to £100 off an event and if you book and pay online you'll save a further 10%: Please visit the Legal-Island website for more information

The training week was a success with many of us enjoying the mindmapping session delivered by Ann Forsythe.

The Week Ahead

It's the Legal-Island Christmas dinner this week and for many, Thursday/Friday will be their last day of work until 4 January!

Barry mainatins the pace as he tries to cram as much networking in as possible. Today he meets John Conagahn from Carecall. Tomorrow he travels to Dublin to meet Liz Ryan, Mason Hayes Curran; Jane Stephenson, Seminars.ie; Krishna De from Bizgrowthnews and Gerry Rooney from Polaris HR. Back in Belfast on Wednesday he plans to meet with Colin Lauder, Parity; Peter McBride, Carecall and Serious PR in Moira.

This week Scott is meeting trainer Joe Blair on Monday about a customer care workshop that we hope to roll out in January. On Tuesday Scott meets coach, John Henry, and SEO news specialists, Direct News. On Wednesday Scott he has a meeting arranged with partners and sponsors about the PR schedule for the Northern Ireland HR Conference on 22 April 2010. Scott finishes for the year on Thursday and will return to work on 4 January. There is no truth in the rumour that he will need the three week holiday to recover from the Legal-Island Christmas party on Friday!

I will join Scott for the meeting on Wednesday and I plan to meet with Desy from mailroom Ltd on Tuesday - hopefully he'll find many ways that can save us time and money.

A busy week ahead!

Week 13 Guest Writer this week is Scott Alexander

Last week saw the last of our annual reviews completed - the Stillorgan Park hotel in Dublin on Tuesday and the Ramada in Shaws Bridge, Belfast, on Thursday. The evaluation returns from delegates are great, so we must have done something right!

There's always a sense of finality when the last review is gone but we still have loads of follow up work to do: feedback to delegates and speakers, meeting anyone who would like to speak at other events in 2010, requests for a free trial of the employment law email update service, putting the stage in cold storage, sending out notes to non-attenders etc. It's easy to take your eye off the ball but we can't if we want to continue to be successful. Details are important.

Last week also saw us collect our Investors in People Award. The above photo has Jayne Finlay, Events Director, and Barry Phillips, Managing Director at Legal-Island, receiving the award from Sir Reg Empey, Minister for Employment and Learning. Congratulations to all of us! It's not easy investing in people in the middle of the biggest recession since the 1930s. We done to all of the other recipients.

This week is the second our our own in-house training weeks at Legal-Island. We have two weeks a year where we try to put most things to one side and concentrate on planning for next year and "up-skilling" as an organisation through lots of group training sessions. This week we have sessions on finance, performance reviews, mind mapping, marketing and conference procedures amongst others.

Most of us will be attending most of the training events, so we won't be out of the office too often but Scott will be attending the Tribunal Users' Group at the new tribunal offices at Belfast's Gasworks on Thursday and will be meeting solicitors from Carson McDowell beforehand. They sponsor our HR Conference on 22 April 2010 and we have to discuss their topics.

Julie Lynn, our email service manager, becomes Julie McCloskey on Saturday when she gets married. Congratulations to her and Peter for the day when it comes.

Week 12 Guest Writer this Week Barry Phillips

Well we have a big week ahead. Correction. A huge week ahead with two Annual Reviews, one tomorrow in Dublin and the other Thursday in Belfast. I'm meeting Melanie Donnelly, trainer and David Quinlan of Top Traininer Broker.com today and Sir Reg Empey on Wednesday as we pick up our Investors in People award at Hillsborough Castle. I've also got loads of meetings this Thursday and Friday in Dublin before heading to Anglesey for the weekend.

James our financial controller has an exam on Wednesday so good luck to him.
On Wednesday morning Scott will be giving a short presentation on the DEL consultation exercise into the review of disputes resolution procedures in NI to a number of customers of O’Reilly Stewart solicitors at their client breakfast seminar. A 90-page report on the extensive consultation exercise was published last Friday. Draft legislation should be in place by April.

On Thursday he will chair Legal-Island’s final event of the year – the 2nd NI Review of Employment Law – at the Ramada hotel, Shaws Bridge, Belfast

Onwards everyone at full pace as usual.

Week 11: Guest writer Phyllis

Another busy week has just gone by with the first very successful Annual Review in Belfast and two equally successful events in Dublin.

Our brand new conference facilities at Legal-Island were also booked out for 3 days with the clients very pleased with the venue and service provided.

This Wednesday sees the second of our Annual Reviews in Dublin with the event sold out. Jayne, Heather, Barry Pamela and Scott will all be in attendance at the event.

As well as attending the Annual Review in Dublin on Wednesday Barry has meetings through out the week with Harry Harper from The Loop Training, Simon Smith of Simon Smith Coaching, Richard Clement from Pierce Communication and Ann McConnel of Westcare.

A very busy week for all.

Week 9: Guest writer Joe

Last week was a busy week as we had our first Annual Review in the South.
It was at the Red Cow, with over 100 Delegates it went really well.

This week we have our first North Annual Review at the Culloden in Belfast.

Scott is visiting the Belfast Telegraph's new Business Development Manager, John Prentice, on 9 November 2009. On Tuesday he attends the Equality Authority's conference in Dublin about mainstreaming equality. On Thursday he will chair the first of our NI annual reviews of employment law at the Culloden Hotel.

Barry is meeting Elaine Magee HR Director from Antrim Council on Friday of this week to network.

Radek is going to work on migration of old mail server to new machine.

Guest Writer Jacqui

This week sees the first of our five Annual Review of Employment Law conferences taking place at the Red Cow in Dublin and we are pleased to say we are at full capacity. We are busy putting the final touches to what we believe will be a pleasant experience for all involved.

The other Annual Review conferences are filling up quickly too, there are still some places left at the Radisson on the 18th November, Stillorgan on the 24th November and the Ramada in the North on the 26th November.

The Antrim HR Forum will be meeting at Island House this Tuesday at 2pm and Scott will be in attendance.

Barry has a full intinery of meetings on Tuesday, kicking off in the morning with Paul Jenkins who is an Architect, then Katie Doran of Carson McDowell, followed by Alan Braithwaite of Abacus Recruitment, then Linus Murray of O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors and rounding the day off with Bryan Dunlop, a Performance coach.

On Wednesday morning Barry will be attending a Public Sector Conference at the Dunadry Hotel before driving down to Dublin to Chair the Annual Review of Employment Law. Along with Barry will be Scott, Pamela, Heather, Jayne, and Arnold who has come all the way from Poland to join us.

All in all it's another busy week here at Legal-Island, so as we like to say "Onwards and upwards"

Week 8 - Guest Writer James

Last week’s update:

Last week proved a busy week for the conference team in Belfast and Dublin. Our new-style event ‘CPD Fest’ last Thursday certainly covered all the bases for lawyers in need of CPD training. With the emphasis on learning here at Legal-Island we’re sure to do an even better job with next year’s CPD events.

This week’s news:

This week Barry has meetings planned with Willa Mawhinney from Allianz, Tara Mullholland from QFM, David McAvery from Serious PR and Tim Lewis (Recruitment).

Scott attended a joint CIPD/Chief Executive’s Forum breakfast seminar on Monday. The guest speaker was Norris Gilliland, a Director at Peoplematters consultancy in Scotland. Norrie looked at various ways to develop leadership skills, particularly in the public sector/community sector interface and gave various examples of how his ideas had been applied to great effect in Scotland in developing community involvement in public sector initiatives.

On Thursday Scott will be meeting Beverley Lowry, ex-Head of Communications at BA about her role at the Northern Ireland HR Conference on 22 April 2010. He will then attend a Skills for Justice event on developing an integrated training strategy for the legal advice sector in NI.

No events in the programme this week; however, the countdown has started to the first of our five Annual Review Conferences, to be held on 5th November in the Red Cow (Dublin).

That’s T minus ten days folks!

Week 7 - Guest Writer Jayne

Last week we had another busy week with our first full day conference in the new Training Centre here at Legal-Island. Donna Kirkpatrick, our Office Manager, attended the event - Project Management (in conjunction with Parity), and found the course thoroughly worthwhile.

Meetings, Networking and Events:

This week Barry will be meeting with Peter McBride of Carecall. On Friday he will meet with Gail Fairley before rounding off the week with a Thank You dinner for O'Reilly Stewart, to thank them for all their hard work at our first Education Conference which took place in September.

Heather and Scott will be hosting Legal-Island's CPD Fest on Thursday at the Holiday Inn in Belfast. This promises to be a great day. While Jayne will be in Dublin hosting Fixed Term Contracts, Varying Contracts of Employment Law and Data Protection at the Red Cow Moran Hotel.

Scott will also be meeting the Managing Director of Great Place to Work Institute UK on Friday to discuss working together next year and their role in the Northern Ireland HR Conference 2010. On Monday Scott will be attending a joint CIPD/ Chief Executive's Forum breakfast entitled "People Matters - Tomorrow's Leaders".

As always, plenty going on at Island House!

Week 6 - Guest Writer Heather

Last week we had our very first seminar in the brand spanking new Training Centre here at Island House which was a fantastic start. This week we are holding Project Management here in conjunction with Parity which will carry on from our great beginning!

Meetings, Networking and Events:

Barry will be meeting with Linus Murray and Jim McBain in Belfast on Tuesday. On Wednesday he is travelling to Dublin to do CPD training with BCMHanby Wallace Solicitors and meeting Anna Broderick from Eversheds for lunch all of which should present us with plenty of networking opportunities.

Scott is meeting with Joe Blair on Tuesday about the possibilty of running customer care courses in our training centre.

Jayne will be attending a course on High Impact Presentations in Leopardstown.

Plenty of meetings and lots of training this week so...Onwards and Upwards!

Week 5 - Guest Writer Julie

This week sees Legal Islands very first In-House breakfast seminar on 'Twitter', held in our new Training suite. Our very own Barry and Pamela will be speaking at this event. Not to be missed!

Meetings Networking and Events:

Barry will be meeting with David Fagan from Eversheds, Sandra Masterton-Power from BCM Handby Wallace, Garry Goldsmith from Hudson Talent Management, Hannah Carney and Deirdre Mulligan from McCann Fitzgerald and Cliver Byrne from NAPD.
Followed by a meeting on Wednesday with Mike Bennett an education guru.

Scott is busy working on our new programme of events for 2010.

The marketing team of Pamela and Michelle are making preparations for the new Legal-Island events brochures for the first half of next year (2010).

Wednesday is 'Delivering Workplace Investigations' in the North hosted by Heather. Jayne has a busy week ahead hosting the following events in the South, 'Health & Safety, Conducting Workplace Investigations and Managing Training & Development'.

Onwards!

Week 4 Guest Writer Donna

We are extremely pleased at the resounding success of the Education Law Update last week in the Corrs Corner hotel. It was a great day of informing, networking and hosting with praise being given to Jayne and Vanessa for their excellent hosting. Following on from this success, 3 more Education events are planned in 2010 spanning NI and ROI.

Meetings Networking and Events

This week sees the first of our new Twitter seminars at the Holiday Inn taken by none other than Barry " twitterer extraodinaire" Phillips, Dawn Baird and Jim Montgomery. Following the seminar Barry will be meeting with Brian Grimshaw of Sinai Training and Willa Mawhinney from Allianz.

Scott and Pamela will be meeting with the Belfast Telegraph to discuss the 2010 HR Conference. Scott will also be meeting with Pricewaterhouse Coopers.

Wednesday is the Effective Records Management conference in the Holiday Inn. Heather will be hosting and Scott will be attending to meet with one of our new speakers Bev Lowry, former Communications Director for British Airways.

People
Pamela will be meeting with her mentee through the Prince's Trust on Tuesday evening - a face painter from Ballyclare. We wish her all the best for this first meeting - let's hope she doesnt sample the service!

There are no events this week in ROI

A busy week ahead in Legal Island, many trips to Starbucks are planned to fuel our energy levels.

Guest Writer: Vanessa Porter

Meetings, networking and events
This week started with the opening of our new Training Suite and it was all hands on deck to get everything ready for the grand event. This took place on Monday evening and was a great success. There were over 20 attendees and a real buzz created about the new facilities which are now officially open for business and are already getting bookings.

Also this week. Pamela is attending a Dawn Baird Social Media Breakfast on Wednesday and Scott will be at a conference on Ethnic Minorities in Northern Ireland on Friday.

People

Congratulations this week to Heather who has completed her first week as Acting Conference Manager (NI) with four successful events held last week and to Donna who has been promoted to Office Manager.

Conferences

There are four conferences taking place in Dublin this week

• Dismissal & Disciplinary Issues


• Effective Absence Management


• Managing Disciplinary & Grievance


• Mastering the HR Function

There is a lot of excitement around our new Education Law Update which is being held this Thursday just outside of Belfast with Barry, Jayne and Vanessa in attendance.

Guest Writer: Michelle Horrobin

This week marks the start of Season 2 events for us and the build-up to our new training suite opening on Monday - exciting and challenging times!

Of Networking and Meetings...

Knowing someone well means successful business relationships and at Legal-Island it's something all of us strive towards - whether it is us providing useful information and contacts to others or gaining such help in return.

This week Jayne and Barry met with Jim McBain - Northern Ireland Regional Officer for the Association of School and College Leaders (ASCL), and with us launching our very first Education Law Update Seminar on 24th September it proved to be a very useful meeting.

Fresh from her meeting with the Belfast Telegraph meeting last week, Pamela is all set for her Prince's Trust evening for mentors tomorrow - I think she'll make a great mentor.

As for me I have had a very busy and exciting week meeting with PR photographer Carrie Davenport in preparation for the opening of training suite next week, as well as meeting Dawn Baird and Jim Montgomery about our increasing use of Twitter and the promotion of our new breakfast seminars on the subject!

Kicking off Season 2 - a very busy 3 months ahead

Heather and Scott are in Belfast this week with the start of the season 2 events in the North:

• Essentials of Employment Law
• Dismissals & Disciplinary Matters
• Equality Law in NI Update 2009
• Top Tips for Short Presentations

As for Jayne well she is back in Dublin as we have 2 events there this week:

• Essentials of Employment Law
• Dismissal & Disciplinary Issues

With all this going on we are also busy preparing for our Annual Review of Employment Law events and November and I am already starting to put together the brochure for our events in 2010 - it's all go here and I wouldn't have it any other way!!

Guest Writer: Pamela Park

Many of us have just returned from our holidays and this week we'll be concentrating on preparations for the beginning of season 2.

Meetings, networking and events

Scott and I are really excited about our meeting at the Belfast Telegraph offices. We'll be meeting Karen Moore and Paddi Roberts from the Belfast Telegraph; Lisa Bryson from Carson McDowell; Jane Wells from JPR; Liz Torrans and Kerry Canavan from Carecall and Roisin McNamara from Parity. We're coming together to discuss possible speakers and the programme for the next Annual Northern Ireland HR Conference, which will take place next year. Last year's event was very successful so we're hoping to build on that and make this event the biggest HR event of the year!

Barry has got his creative hat on this week as he heads off to an innovation seminar orgainsed by Invest NI and PricewaterhouseCoopers. I am looking forward to all the ideas that he'll bring back with him.