Guest Writer: Julie - 28 February 2011

March is upon us and Spring is in the air!


This is the first of one of our very busy weeks in the South with 4 events in total taking place in Dublin over the 2nd and 3rd of March. On the 2nd of March we are hosting 'Employment Law in the Public Sector' followed by ' Stress and Bullying at work'. ' Mastering the HR Function' and 'Education Law Update 2011' will take place on the 3rd of March. It's quite a busy week for Heather and she will be joined by Kerry on Thursday to help co-host the 'Education' event.


Schrader will be using the Legal Island training centre today right through until Wednesday and then on Friday the 'Public Health Agency' will be using it in the morning time.

Staff movements for the forthcoming week are as follows:

Barry - is having lunch with David Pierce from 'Todd Communications' this afternoon but other than that he will remain on the Island today.
On Tuesday he's in Dublin hearing a mediation appeal and meeting a representative from 'Certification Europe'. On Wednesday he's meeting Pip Jaffa from the 'Parents Advice Centre' and Mary Montague from 'Tidestraining'. On Wednesday evening Barry has a round table dinner with a minister as a guest of the Chamber of Commerce. On Thursday he's in London at another EBA seminar and on Friday he's still there networking.

Scott - This week Scott Alexander will be meeting Penny Thornberry from 'P Thornberry Solutions' and Tom Evans and Alan Scott from 'DEL'. He also hopes to attend the Legal Island ' Employment Law in the Public Sector' event in Dublin in association with McCann Fitzgerald solicitors.

Heather - is hosting the Dublin events this Wednesday and Thursday and on Friday she is attending a WIB & Network Ireland event at the Guinness Store House.

Kerry - is attending an 'Effective Business Writing Course' on Tuesday morning in Antrim.

Ainsley - will be attending Parkhall College on Wednesday afternoon for the 'Young Enterprise Group'.

Jayne - is meeting with Sarah Bondi from NACCO on Wednesday to chat about EFQM. On Thursday she is attending an event with EWN to celebrate International Woman's Day with Ruth Badger (formerly an apprentice candidate), this will take place in Dundalk. On Friday Jayne will be attending a Marketing meeting In-House.


Onwards............

Guest Writer: Vanessa

Welcome to another busy week on The Island. We are holding two events in our Training Centre this week - a seminar on Redundancy on Wednesday which sold out a number of weeks ago and a repeat of the Customer Service course that we ran successfully for the first time last September.

As far as the activities of our staff go - when have we ever let the grass grow under our feet?!

Barry has 5 days of intensive networking ahead of him this week beginning today with meetings with David Gaston, Noel Brady of NB1 and Peter McBride CEO of Niamh. On Tuesday he's meeting Brian Speers of CMG Solicitors in the morning, Dave Vincent of KDS and then David Brittain of the DOENI. On Wednesday he's meeting Melanie Donnelly from Full Circle. On Thursday he's in London attending a seminar delivered by the Entrepreneurs' Business Academy. On Friday he's hoping to have a meeting with Squire Sanders Hammonds before heading off to the Royal Opera House to see the operat they're all talking about at the moment "Nicole". Lucky pup!


Scott will be meeting with Tom Evans and Alan Scott from DEL this week and also Karen Thompson from the Belfast Telegraph along with Peter. Scott is also going to be helping out at the Customer First event on Thursday.

Jayne is attending a Management and Leadership Conference at the University of Ulster on Wednesday with Heather and Ainsley. She is back at Ballycraigy Primary School on Thursday taking a hockey lesson. On Friday she is attending the SOCITM event at the Park Avenue in Belfast - this is an event we are co-sponsoring with Noel Brady and CIPFA.

Peter and Ainsley will also be volunteering at Ballycraigy this week, coaching the football team.

Guest Writer: Peter

Last week saw the successful Winning Tenders in Northern Ireland conference keenly attended by various SME's and large private sector companies. The event was so popular we'd to change the venue!

We don't have any conferences this week, but that doesn't mean there's any slacking on the 'Island...

Here's what's going on this week:

Barry is in the office all day today signing off a few events. On Tuesday he's meeting Brian Speers, President of the Law Society, Ciara Fulton from Tughans and John Brolly from the Irish News. He also has a coaching session with Richard O'Rawe in the afternoon. On Wednesday he's up with the early birds for a breakfast meeting of BNI at Dunsilly Hotel, then meeting Mick Doggat for lunch. On Thursday he has an evening dinner at Parliament Building’s. Barry has a Friday free at the moment, but as we all know, that’s likely to change.

In a comedown from last weeks ‘networking’ at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Scott will be attending the tribunal users’ group meeting at the Office of the Industrial Tribunal and Fair Employment Tribunal on Thursday.

Kerry is meeting with the daughter of Michelle Groves who facilitates our Professional Workplace Investigations Workshops. Claire is completing her final year at UUJ in Events, Leisure and Culture management and is coming in to discuss a proposed business plan she is undertaking in her last semester rather than a dissertation.

Although not on the same scale as Barry, Ainsley has quite a busy week in terms of meetings. On Monday afternoon he’ll be meeting Rachel Morgan and Niall Gormley of DCP PR, on Tuesday morning he’s got our (conveniently located and reasonably priced) Training Centre booked for his meeting with Brian Nelson of Forth Data. Wednesday afternoon is slightly more light-hearted when he’s off to meet with his Young Enterprise team at Parkhall College.

On Thursday, Heather is volunteering with Ballycraigy Primary School, helping out with the coaching of their hockey teams.

Jayne and Heather will don their old clothes on Friday when the head off to help paint the Antrim Counselling Centre on Friday, again as part of our volunteering initiative.

A busy week all round!

Guest Writer: Ainsley

HONK! HONK! went the horn in the office this morning. We have a horn that gets honked every time we have an important announcement or success to report - and today was no exception. The early morning din signalled our first booking of the year for our GB event: Age and Retirement - The New Law

This is an important moment because all of us on the Island have been preparing for our 'assault' on London, Birmingham and Manchester for some time - hopefully this is the first of many bookings.

Keeping our feet firmly on the ground, we still have a lot of work to do this week in NI and ROI. Wednesday and Thursday bring trips to Galway and Athlone respectively, for our education event: Dealing with Teacher Underperformance. The latter is sold out but there are still a few places left for Galway.

Also on Thursday we have our first full day NI event of the year, with Winning Tenders taking place at the Hilton Hotel, Templepatrick. We had originally intended to run this event at our Training Centre, but huge popular demand forced us to source a bigger venue. There are still one or two places left, but only if you're quick!

This week our CEO, Barry will be meeting Laura Coulter, mediator, today and is hearing a mediation appeal tomorrow. He is also meeting Trayc Keevans from Morgan McKinley tomorrow as well as Hannah Carney from Dale Carnegie. On Thursday, he's meeting the company performance coach, Fiona Keenan, as well as Robert from BITC and on Friday he's meeting Alan McVey from Iron Mountain. In the evenings he's finishing off 'Winning' by Clive Woodward - a fabulous book about how he led a team to rugby World Cup glory. It's stuffed full of great business tips apparently, so watch this space!

Also out and about this week is Scott, our Head of Training and Development. He will be in Dublin meeting Pat Brady from ByrneWallace Solicitors and also McDowell Purcell Solicitors on Wednesday, followed by a meeting with representatives from Irish Life on Friday.

Our ROI Conference Manager, Heather, is our social butterfly this week, meeting Richard Fee today who runs the charity Eye Feel Good, followed by Elaine Magee of Antrim Borough Council tomorrow, to talk about volunteering opportunities. On Thursday Heather will be discussing 'Growth through mentoring' with Women In Business and on Friday she will be meeting Katie Setterfield of CLIC Sargent, with me.

As well as meeting Katie on Friday, I will also be at Parkhall College on Wednesday afternoon to continue the Young Enterprise Business Programme and on Thursday morning I am meeting Phil Boyd from Boyd Communications.

Independent Health Care Providers are using our Training Centre, tomorrow so Donna will be busy preparing for their arrival, followed by a trip to Ballycraigy Primary School with Kerry to play hockey on Thursday.

Right, I think that's it for this week. Hopefully my incessant tapping of keys will soon be drowned out by yet more horns!!

Have a great week.