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"