Guest Writer Kerry

Major excitement today.......it was like London fashion week here in the office...and we were only getting our new photos taken for the website!

From the various outfit changes (actually that was just Barry), a last minute dash to rectify a wardrobe disaster, a few mini tantrums when the schedule changed, to the copious amount of lip gloss we had it all.

Although as you'll see my old picture isn't bad I still look forward to choosing my new one!

On a more serious note Barry has a week chockablock with networking. Today he's meeting Gerry Ormsby from Skills for Justice and then Martin O'Brien, barrister for dinner. Tomorrow morning he's at the Merchant hotel for a Freshstart Breakfast meeting. On Wednesday he's meeting John Brolly from the Irish News for breakfast before attending our Winning Tenders event in the Hilton Belfast. Later that day he's meeting lawyers from O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors and John Stevenson Education Consultant in the evening. On Thursday he's meeting old friend and former colleague Maura McCallion form Law Centre NI. In between times he may even get some work done!

A a number of staff are meeting with Laura Kerr from Young Enterprise NI on Tuesday to see what the next stage will be for each of us that have signed up with this volunteer program.

On Wednesday Legal-Island welcomes Independent Healthcare Providers to our Training Centre in Antrim.

Also on Wednesday Heather will be hosting Health & Safety - A Focus on Bullying and Stress in the Workplace in Dublin.

Ainsley is off to Ballymena on Wednesday to meet with Young Enterprise to discuss the 'Company Programme' he is getting involved with for Parkhall College.

Scott will be chairing our Equality Law Update for experienced practitioners on Thursday at the Hilton in Belfast and afterward will be meeting Emer Hinphey from Thinkpeople about her role at the Annual Reviews of Employment Law on 10 and 23 November.

And finally Jayne is preparing for our first GB Annual Review of Employment Law taking place in London next Tuesday.

Guest Writer: Scott Alexander

Got some great news last week - Professor John McMullen, a Partner in the GB law firm Short Richardson & Forth LLP and Visiting Professor of Law at Durham University, has agreed to speak at the TUPE Update seminar on 12 October.

John is regarded as the leading expert in the UK on the Transfer of Undertakings and he also has an international reputation in that field. He is the author of ‘Business Transfers and Employee Rights’, the leading work on transfers of undertakings. So we look forward to welcoming him here to Northern Ireland.

This week Scott will be meeting with Emer Hinphey of Thinkpeople and Nicola Shaw of BDO about their roles at this year's annual reviews of employment law. Both were recenly guest writers of our employment law email service 'Weekly Review of Developments' emails. Scott will also be meeting with Joe Blair of MBS about our joint 'Customer First' training programmes and Scott will be attending an LRA conference on Thursday entitled 'Employment Relations in the New Decade'.

Barry’s got a busy week of meetings and networking as always this week. On Tuesday he’s meeting trainer Richard O’Rawe. On Wednesday he has a conference call meeting with Hammonds and dinner that same evening with some educationalists at Corr’s Corner in advance of the education law conference the following day. On Friday he has a team sales and marketing meeting before flying off to Edinburgh to see his friend’s musical “John Paul Jones” at the Queen’s Hall.

Jayne is at our Education Law Update Event at Corrs Corner on Thursday. She is also meeting with George Wilson from the Centre for Competitveness on Friday.

Heather will be in Dublin on Thursday managing our events 'Discipline and Underperformance at Work' and 'Essentials of Employment Law'.

13th September -Guest writer Barry Phillips

Staff are hard at work this week as we head firmly into our next season of events. It's brochures mailshots brochures time again.

Scott is meeting John Hogg of Enlighten on Tuesday and will then attend a Chamber of Commerce dinner on building links between the public and private sectors.

Jayne is busy preparing to submit the company application for ur European Quality Mark which has to be in on Friday.

I'm busy wading through hundreds of emails as I recover from a two week break. I'm off to London tomorrow to deliver a presentations skills seminar and then I'm busy all week with internal meetings and putting some final shape to our strategic plan.

As always busy times ahead!

6th September: Guest Writer Jacqui

These are exciting times for us here on the Island as we have 4 new Annual Review Conferences taking place in England over October and November, to find out more, go to http://www.legal-island-events.com/. This may well be a "baptism of fire" for our new Administrator, Bronagh, who comes to us with 20 years of experience.



We have Sharon Simpson coming on board today as Housekeeper for our Training suite and she will be ensuring that the offices are in pristine order too. Sharon will be looking after Northern Trust who have availed of the training rooms today.



Other items of interest:



Barry is still on leave in Syria, no doubt having fun while squeezing in some networking!!



Scott will be chairing the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network on 7 September at the premises of Firmus. The HR Network is a loose affiliation of local HR professionals who come together every six weeks or so to discuss issues of mutual interest. The HR Network is open to anyone with HR responsibilities in the Antrim/Ballymena area. Guest speakers this time around are Harry Harpur from The Loop Training and Laura Kerr from Young Enterprise NI.

On Wednesday Scott will be networking in Dublin. He will be meeting with Eversheds sols; Hayes sols; Marian Jennings (chair of Dublin Annual Review of Employment Law conferences); Byrne Wallace sols; and John Horgan.

Then on Friday Scott will be taking time off, as he sees his eldest daughter fly the nest off to university in Scotland.



Heather will be going down to Dublin to view a few other venues in and around Dublin in the morning and afternoon. She will also meet with Scott and Marian for a well deserved lunch.



Jayne will continue working on the EFQM submission this week, taking Thursday off to focus on the paperwork and work from home.



Marketing continue to organise mailshots and set up event information on our websites. The only meeting this week for Ainsley, is on Wednesday morning when he meets with Brian and Alan Nelson of Forth Data to discuss an audit of our internal databases.



Finally, James will be returning to work tomorrow (we hope!!) after he completed a 10k run in Yorkshire yesterday.