Guest Writer: Heather Stewart

Chickens & Hockey

Now normally these 2 items would not mix well (unless the eggs are hard boiled!) but they did for Legal-Island last week. We began the week by visiting Ballycraigy Primary School to see the Chicken and coop that we sponsored so the school could get fresh eggs and teach the children a thing or two about where our food comes from. This coop was made by a friend of the school and consists entirely of recycled materials including, as you can see in the pic, a washing machine door as a window!
I was then back in Ballycraigy Primary School towards the end of the week to help train their hockey team which we sponsor, lots of great new talent again this year. They can't wait for the end of season tournament.

Onto what we are all doing this week:

Our CEO, Barry, has a busy week ahead. Today he's meeting Andrew Cuthbert from Omnisoft for lunch in between meetings with staff. On Tuesday he's in London for a marketing seminar which means a very early start and a late return home. On Thursday he's attending a seminar on mapping work flows before shooting over to a meeting of the First Thursday Mediation Club. On Friday afternoon he's leading the Senior Team meeting before heading into the weekend and doing whatever he has planned for the weekend. More work at a guess.

Scott is chairing the HR Symposium in Dublin on Wednesday and will attend the Strategy Team meeting on Friday. In between, he hopes to be working from home on Thursday.

Kerry will be meeting with Laura Kerr from YENI on Thursday to discuss her Learn to Earn volunteer day coming up next week.  Later on that day she will be attending the First Thursday Mediation club which will be lead by Peter O’Reilly former Director of Mediation NI.  Kerry has a show round of the new Titanic building in Belfast on Friday to consider it for potential NI events.  

Ainsley is meeting Brian Nelson of Forth Data on Thursday morning, followed by Gareth Dunlop of Fathom in the afternoon. 

I will be running my first event of the year on Wednesday and it starts with a bang, we have 130 delegates at our Ireland's HR Symposium.

Donna is taking her turn at the hockey training this week, the kids can't wait to see her back!

Also in the training centre we have Schrader today and then the Patient and Client council on Tuesday and Social Services Training on Thursday and Friday

That is one busy week for us all here, we'll see you on the other side!

Guest Writer: Donna Kirkpatrick

Unless you have missed the hoards of pancakes in all the shops you wont be aware that tomorrow is Pancake Tuesday - in case you don’t know Pancake Tuesday came about as women used to clear all the food out of their cupboards and make pancakes before Lent began . Here at Legal Island we are using everything we have got in our training larder to fill people up on high quality events in NI and ROI.



So other than eat pancakes this week, here is what else is happening...

Our CEO, Barry, has a busy week networking and fine dining this week (must be fancy pancakes).

He's in internal meetings pretty much all day. Tomorrow he's meeting one of our IT consultants for lunch. Tuesday evening and he's starting his wine quaffing course. We're worried for he is not known for being able to hold his drink. Wednesday and he's off for an In-Camera Dinner with the Justice Minister. Thursday it's a dinner at the Northern Ireland Assembly Association. On Friday he's meeting his old mucker from O'Reilly Stewart, Linus Murray before going into a meeting about the education conference which is coming up shortly.

On Wednesday, Heather has an Innovation team meeting & on Wednesday she is going to Ballycraigy Primary to see their new chicken coop that we donated money to pay for.

Thursday – back to Ballycraigy Primary in the afternoon to start the hockey (burn off all the pancakes).

Kerry is hosting two events in the training centre this week - Professional Workplace Investigations on Tuesday and Redundancy Selection on Wednesday.

Jayne has a meeting with invest NI on Tuesday morning. On Thursday and Friday she will be in Londonderry/ Derry for the C03 Leadership Conference at Derry City Hotel.

Scott has a meeting with Kirsty McManus of the CBI on Wednesday and is on annual leave on Friday. Scott hope to work from home on Tuesday.

In the Training Centre this week we are welcoming the Public Health Agency and Schrader.

Busy week as always

Just in case you are wondering, my favourite pancakes are R.J. Kerr's toasted with real butter... nothing fancy but real tasty!

Monday 13 February 2012

Guest Writer: Vanessa

It’s Valentines Week and love is in the air here on the Island (well not exactly love – we keep up to date with the latest equality legislation – but dignity is in the air doesn’t have quite the same ring to it!)

Our CEO is back today from a weekend in London and will have to hit the ground running with a busy week ahead. Today he has staff meetings in the morning and in the afternoon is meeting Neil Mitchell from focused partnerships and then James Neilly from the Belfast Cookery School.

On Wednesday he's delivering some mediation training alongside Gerry Rooney before hosting an evening get-together of entrepreneurs on "The Four Hour Work Week". On Thursday evening he's attending Mark Reid's employment law seminar in Derry/Londonderry.

 

Scott is in Dublin on Wednesday, meeting several 2012 speakers, including barrister Paul Joyce, Dermot Casserly from Beauchamps and Killian O’Reilly from O’Rourke Reid. On Thursday he will be attending the LRA seminars on ‘Employment Law – The Future for NI’. After lunch, he will be meeting Lucy Haugh from Fold Housing.

 

The training centre is busy this week, Schrader are in tomorrow and on Wednesday, Kerry will be hosting the 2^nd day of our highly rated two day Internal Mediation course.

Heather has Gillian from TinyLife coming in on Tuesday to receive a cheque for £220 the first donation raised from our Rate 2 Donate scheme.

 

For the rest of us it’s business as usual – making the magic happen!

Guest Writer: Peter

Julie’s Back!

On Thursday we bade farewell to John Hardy, our maternity cover Email Service Manager and this morning welcomed Julie McCloskey back onto the ‘island (sounds a little bit like Ship Wrecked, but without the scheming!).

This week is a busy week:

Barry, our CEO, is in the office all day today but out networking big time tomorrow. He's meeting Fiona Keenan, our company coach, in the morning before seeing Orlagh O'Neill from Carson McDowell for lunch. In the afternoon he's meeting Catherine Vint from the ICO. On Wednesday he's helping to deliver some mediation training before flying to London on Friday.

Jayne will be talking Risk Audits with Patricia O’Rourke from BITC on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, she’s attending Investors in People – Maximising the Value of Investors in People, a half-day training session before the renewal of our IiP. On Friday, she’s volunteering at St Brigid’s Primary School.

Scott will be chairing the HR Network meeting at A4e on Tuesday. On Wednesday he has meetings with Pensions expert David Graham and Patricia Black, HR Manager at Northgate Managed Services. Scott hopes to work from home on Thursday and Friday.

Donna is also flying our volunteer flag this week, on Tuesday for YENI on the LET programme in Ballycastle – interviewing students as practice for them in the future. She’s also got the Northern Trust using our Training Centre on Tuesday and Schrader on Thursday. A busy week for our Office Manager!

And last, but certainly not least (she’d say save the best ‘til last) our NI Conference Manager Kerry has her first conference of 2012 on Wednesday – Internal Mediation: ResolvingWorkplace Disputes (it’s sold out, but we will be running it again soon!).

Here we go again…