Guest Writer - Ainsley

 "Talk and tea is his specialty, said Giles. Come along inside... We'll see if tea and buns can make the world a better place." The Wind in the Willows

Talk and tea was our specialty on the 'Island last week, as we held a coffee morning to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. Two things were immediately clear when the above sight greeted staff on Friday morning - 1. Lots of people had gone to a great deal of trouble to make something which could generate some cash for a very worthwhile cause and 2. We were going to need a lot of tea to get through this lot!!

Amazingly (or perhaps unsuprisingly, depending on how well you know us), we had a very credible stab at finishing the lot and all that remained was one slice of pavlova, two scones and a handful of 'top hats.' The moans and groans of overeating were replaced some time later with whoops of delight at the final total of £60.00 that was raised for Macmillan! A great effort by everyone and hopefully our tea and buns will go  towards helping make the world a better place, for the people Macmillan supports.


Having taken the weekend to digest all this, we're now fit and raring to go for another week - and it's a busy one!  Barry has already kicked us off this morning, meeting Gary MacFarlane from the Chartered Institute of Environmental Health and will follow this with his usual meetings today. On Wednesday he's at the InterTradeIreland All-Island Innovation Conference at Queen's University and on Thursday, he's attending a Mediation Council meeting at 4pm. Apart from that he's here all week.

Jayne is also attending the Innovation Conference on Wednesday and Pamela will be joining me at the first day of the conference tomorrow.

Scott will be chairing our Annual Review of Equality Law Update 2011, on Thursday and will then be meeting Adam Brett from McGrigors. He hopes to work from home on Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday of this week and is meeting Sarah Bondi, HR Manager at NACCO, in Craigavon on Wednesday.

Kerry will be managing two events at the Hilton Hotel in Belfast on Thursday - the Equality Law Update and our equally popular Essentials of Employment Law event. There are a few places remaining on these if you're quick!

Heather will also be hosting two events this week, with Conducting Workplace Investigations and also Creating Confident Managers taking place on Wednesday at the Radisson Hotel, Dublin Airport.

All we need now is a change in the weather, for the icing on the cake!!