Guest writer - Pamela Park

Wow, what a week on the Island!

Last week was full of big things as we hosted the Mediation Symposium. Our key note speaker flew in from New York, the Northern Ireland Justice Minister gave the opening address and we had a grand total of 27 speakers/facilitators contributing to the event including two Presidents (Law Society and MII).

In Dublin, Heather hosted 4 events across 2 days in the iconic ‘Croker’.

This week is as busy as ever as we prepare for another 3 events in the north. It’s full steam ahead! Flat to the mat! Pedal to the metal! Or whatever you want to call it?

Movements for the week .....

Our CEO and MD, are part way through their Train the Trainer course in Dublin with another two days accounting for Monday and Tuesday of this week. On Monday evening Barry will be taking to the skies again in the Legal-Island hot air balloon which is taking part in the Irish Balloon Championship 2011.

On Wednesday Barry's back in the office meeting publisher Claude Costecalde. On Thursday he's at a seminar in the morning learning how to speed read (a timely course for someone still with 500 pages to read of War and Peace perhaps?). In the afternoon he's at the CIPFA conference at the Europa. On Friday he's free all day; for the moment at least.

Scott is chairing a meeting of the HR Network on Tuesday. The guest speakers will be Colin Maxwell and Mark Reilly from The Belfast Telegraph’s NI Jobfinder. Also in attendance will be John, our Email Service Manager. He's going to spread the good news about our Employment Law Email Service.

On Wednesday, Scott will be facilitating the Discipline & Underperformance workshop with Lorraine Toolan from the EEF. This event has sold out and promises to be a great day of learning.

Scott will be working from home on Thursday and will be attending Legal-Island’s strategy day on Friday. In the evening Scott will be attending a talk at the University of Ulster on the development of international criminal law, specifically in relation to the special court for Sierra Leone experience.

It’s another busy week for Kerry as she prepares to host three events:

• Winning Tenders in Northern Ireland

• Discipline & Underperformance

• Delivering Workplace Investigations

Heather continues her hard work on our volunteering and fundraising activities as she meets David Fitzsimons, Volunteer Now regarding the Investing in Volunteers for Employers (IIVe) UK Standard. She is also meeting Lisa Brockerton from YENI regarding volunteering opportunities for Debbie and herself. On Friday Heather has organised a coffee morning in aid of McMillan. Some of us have volunteered to make buns and cakes for this, will it be the Legal-Island Great Bake Off!

For the rest of us, we’re in all week and will be attending Legal-Island’s strategy day on Friday.

Guest Writer - Donna Kirkpatrick

The tip for the day on my desk calendar says "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one" and that basically will be the theme for the week here in Legal-Island.

On Wednesday 21st September we will be hosting the first ever Mediation Symposium in Northern Ireland at the La Mon Hotel and Country Club. Kerry Taggart will be in charge of hosting the event and with numbers of 110+ it looks like it will be an event not to be missed. Can you afford not to go?

Barry will be in the office all day on Monday. On Tuesday his first meeting is at 8.30am with Gerry MacFarlane. He will then be picking up one of the
speakers for the Mediation event at the airport, followed by a meeting in Belfast at 1pm and another meeting at 4pm. On Wednesday Barry will be attending the Mediation Symposium and will be at a training event in Dublin on Thursday and Friday with Jayne.

Ainsley will be attending a Customer Relationship Management event in Belfast with Jayne and Barry, followed by a Young IOD event at the Lexus showroom in Boucher Road with Jayne.On Wednesday Ainsley will be meeting Johnny Megarry from Nicholson Bass, followed by Fiona Keenan at the Hilton before meeting Brian Nelson from Forth Data. A new Lexus would certainly help Ainsley get to these meetings in super fast time!

As well as doing the super task of managing the Mediation Symposium on Wednesday, Kerry will still have time to meet with Ciaran Sheehan on Tuesday.

Scott will be chairing a meeting of sponsors and partners on 20th Tuesday to discuss the first draft programme of the NI HR conference 2012, which has been designed by Penna. Before that he may be picking up internationally renowned mediator Ewan Malcolm from the airport. Ewan is a keynote speaker at Legal-Island's Mediation Symposium on 21st September. Scott will be facilitating one of the sessions at the Symposium and hopes to be able to work from home on Thursday and Friday.

Heather will be speeding off to Croke Park this week for 4 of our ROI events - Discipline and Underperformance, Essentials of Employment law, Post Primary Dealing with Underperformance (which has now sold out) and Internal Mediation (Day1).

Jayne is meeting Ciaran Sheehan on Tuesday at 1pm and she will be attending the CRM event with Ainsley followed by the young IOD event at the Lexus showroom. . On Wednesday she will be seeing Fiona Keenan and then will be attending a CO3 mentoring event. On Thursday and Friday she will be attending a Train the Trainer event with Barry - busy girl,that will be 2 Lexus's we will need to order!

In the Island House training centre, we are delighted to be welcome Invest NI.

So if your empty mind needs opened you know the place to come to!

Guest Writer: Kerry. I'll Started so I'll finish........

Well today was the first day of the Legal-Island Monday Morning Quiz.  And wow did we get a shock!  Jayne our MD turned straight into Magnus Magnusson and by 9.31am the colour had drained from most of the staffs faces realising it wasn't going to be quite what we had imagined.  Two thoughts I've had on this is: Thank goodness I'm not competitive and secondly the table has to turn sometime when Ms Finlay takes to the chair!!!!  Oh and can we do a spot quiz with the CEO?  That might be fun....

Our movements for the week are:

It's variety week this week for our CEO Barry Phillips. On Monday he's meeting HR person and around good egg Linzi Conway in the morning and working with company consultant Richard O'Rawe in the afternoon. On Tuesday he's in the office all day likewise Wednesday when he'll be having a brainstorming meeting with a team from Stratagem. On Thursday and Friday he's doing the last two days of his certified mediation course including a video assessment at the end of the week.

Jayne, MD (aka Magnus), has internal meetings on Tuesday.  On Wednesday she is meeting Strategim at 10am has a Finance meeting on Friday.

Scott, Head of Training & Development, has internal planning meetings this week and hopes to work from home for two or three days.

Heather, Conference Manager ROI, has a meeting with Michelle from the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel Dublin on Monday and is in Cork for Essentials and Discipline on Wednesday.  Good luck with the first ROI events of the season and safe journey!!!

I will be completing the last two days of my certified Mediation course on Thursday and Friday and doing the final preparation for next weeks NI Mediation Symposium. 

That's all for this week.  Here's hoping Jayne hasn't heard of the Mastermind sudden death play-off....

Guest writer: James

The big news from last week, which just missed the Legal-Island Monday blog, but made the local and national papers was the launch of the Legal-Island Balloon at Northern Ireland's first Hot Air Balloon Festival in Moira.

Thanks to Barry and his needle and thread there were no fatalities.  It's remarkable the trust some people put in our CEO!  I notice Barry himself stayed steadfastly on terra firma...

This week at the Island: we are underway with our 1st, Season 2, event - Certified Mediation which runs over 6 or 8 days.  Our intrepid CEO is playing the role of delegate and will emerge at the end of the course with even more qualifications to his name.  Kerry too will become our 3rd certified mediator at Legal-Island following the course - we're the people to talk to if you want to know about Mediation!

Before Barry gets stuck into Mediation on Wed, Thur & Fri he's meeting Heather Bell from Queen's University and Raymond McFeeters from the NAHT - something is brewing for sure.  Tomorrow he's meeting former InvestNI client executive Alison Flynn for lunch.

Scott will be attending the open space event at Penna's premises on Wednesday, designed to create options for the NI HR Conference 2012.  After that he will meet with the education consultant John Stevenson.  He's off to the motherland on Friday as he's escorting his eldest daughter back to university in Scotland.

Jayne and Ainsley will be early to bed on Tuesday as they are on the 1st flight out of Belfast to attend a seminar in London.  We're expecting great ideas to flow from this event with Peter Thompson - the self styled 'UK's most prolific information product creator'.  Jayne is back, bright-eyed, on Thursday for a meeting with Centre for Competitiveness regarding a Customer Service Award.  On Friday it's benchmarking with BITC.

I'll sign off with wise words from my choice of Monday morning tune - "what you give is what you get returned".  The only description of karma that makes any sense to me.