Guest Writer John

As the leaves turn brown and the mornings become noticeably colder, the team at Legal-Island continue with the hard work of the Autumn season.

Barry is busy all day today planning more events for GB, so that should keep everyone busy in 2011. Tomorrow he is meeting Mark Fitzmaurice of Dale Carnegie for breakfast before chairing our Annual Review conference in Manchester.

On Wednesday he is meeting the CEO of Belfast Health Trust Pat McCartan whilst on Friday he's meeting Maureen Butler to talk about education issues. Throughout the week he is busy working on our EFQM application and drafting his notes for his presentation at our Northern Ireland Annual Reviews on mediation. And all of this at the usual speed of 100 miles an hour!

Jayne will be leaving with Barry today for the Manchester Annual Review tomorrow, and on Wednesday she is meeting Laura Kerr from YENI (that's Young Enterprise Northern Ireland for those not up to speed on the lingo), along with Heather and Scott, and they will be discussing volunteer work in schools in relation to enterprise.

Scott has another busy week of networking ahead, starting in Dublin on Tuesday when he will be meeting with Barrister, Cliona Kinmer, the Tax Expert Ken Killoran from Mazars, HR Guru Niall Saul and finally Carol Fawsitt from Hayes Solicitors.

On Wednesday, he will be heading up to the big house on the hill for an in-camera session with Permanent Secretaries in relation to the spending review, which has been organised by the Chamber of Commerce.

Finally, on Friday, he will be attending the LRA (thats the Labour Relations Agency) for the launch of their 09/10 Annual Report.

Tune in next week for more updates when your blogger will be the vivacious Vanessa!

Monday 18th October 2010 - Guest Writer Peter

Another hectic week ahead on the 'Island as silly season gets into full swing! With so much still to do with Annual Review's fast approaching, Barry is still fitting in some high quality networking (what's new?)!

He’s meeting Norman McCudden from Infosecure consulting on Monday morning and then, in the evening, Peter McBride from NIAMH and Fiona Keenan for dinner. On Tuesday he has a 1 hour on-line with his performance coach before meeting Adrian from Team Solutionz about new conferencing software. On Wednesday he’s at an Equality conference in Dublin. On Friday he’s attending the IOD lunch at the Holiday Inn before taking off to Donegal for the weekend in his MG if both that and the weather holds. We’ll see.

Scott is chairing the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network on Tuesday and will be going to Dublin that evening to help at our ‘Transfers of Undertakings’ event at the Westbury Hotel in Grafton Street. On Thursday, Scott will be attending the Equality Authority’s 10^th anniversary conference.

Ainsley is off to meet Nic Charlton from Nic Charlton Design on Tuesday morning as we search for someone to provide backup for our 'main man'. He'll also be out of the office on Friday on annual leave...some of us have the life of it!

Wednesday see's our Transfer Regulations event, the last of the ROI conferences before the Annual Review of Employment Law conferences begin on 4th November. Good luck Heather.

Don't forget, you can get all the very latest information from Legal-Island by 'following' us on Twitter or 'befriending' us on Facebook.

Here's to a fantastic week ahead.

Guest Writer Ainsley

You could hear a pin drop in the office this morning.

Had it not been for the frantic tapping of keyboards or the occasional telephone call, I would have been worried about my hearing! The murmurs that usually accompany Monday mornings in the office had been replaced with a quiet atmosphere of anticipation.

This is because we are now firmly in the middle of our 'silly season' where the events come thick and fast and we build towards our 'Annual Review of Employment Law' events in November. This week marks the busiest week of the year (in terms of number of events) and by 5pm on Friday we will have run 7 great events, catering for the needs of around 150 delegates in 3 jurisdictions.

Jayne is busy preparing for our second 'Annual Review of Employment Law' event in GB, which is taking place tomorrow in the MacDonald Burlington Hotel, in Birmingham. The London gig last week was a great success with some excellent feedback from the delegates - hopefully more of the same to follow this week.

Barry is also in Birmingham tomorrow and will be chairing the Annual Review event. On Wednesday, he's meeting Noel Brady for lunch and on Thursday he's attending an InvestNI breakfast seminar. On Friday he's in Dublin meeting among others, Sarah O'Donnel from Certification Europe.

Heather is busy preparing for our Republic of Ireland events this week which begin with Conducting Workplace Investigations and Annual Update on Payroll Matters on Wednesday, followed by Getting the Best out of Employees: Building Performance on Thursday.

Kerry's organising our three Northern Ireland events this week which begin tomorrow with Delivering Workplace Investigations and TUPE Update 2010 (which has now Sold Out), followed by Section 75: Guiding you through the New Equality Agenda on Thursday.

The TUPE event has proved very successful, particularly with the recent addition of the UK's TUPE 'guru' Professor John McMullen, a Partner in the GB law firm Short Richardson & Forth LLP and Visiting Professor of Law at Durham University. 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.

Finally, Scott will be Chairing the TUPE Update seminar tomorrow and on Thursday, he will be attending the Employment Lawyer's Group meeting in Belfast.

Here's ho-pin for another great week!

Guest Writer Bronagh

Hope your having a good day so far! Reporting on Legal-Island's Blog is me, new start Bronagh McCotter. I am happy to report on this week's staff movements as well as help with event bookings, now that I've got into the swing of things! Having only joined on 23rd August, I feel I'm now settling in but how the time has just gone as we are already in the month of October! For this week I am working an additional morning coming in on Wednesday to assist with the demands of event bookings and am looking forward to it as well!

After last week's exciting photo shoot, Legal-Island's marketing team inform me that the new staff images update will be on the web site by the end of the week! So we are all looking forward to seeing those online.

Both Barry and Jayne are in London this week for the first of the Annual Review and Employment Law events. We wish them a safe journey.

Donna would like to welcome the Public Health Agency to Legal-Island Training Centre and hope they enjoy their experience with us today!

Mean while the rest of the team will be busy this week in other areas, including other areas of Ireland! Heather and Julie will be in the Stillorgan Park Hotel this Thursday at the Data Protection conference while Scott is facilitating the Discipline & Under Performance workshop in the Training Centre with Lorraine Toolan from EEF. Scott will also be meeting Penna and others to discuss next year's Northern Ireland HR Conference, so this should keep Scott busy and out of trouble for this week anyhow!

Ainsley, Marketing Department, is out on Wednesday afternoon at Parkhill College Company Programme with Youth Enterprise. He's out again this week at the Business in the Community in W5. Apart from that, Ainsley will be available in the office for the rest of the week.

And finally, John Hardy joined the Marketing Department two weeks ago. We would all like to extend to John a warm welcome to Legal Island and to the team!