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Guest Writer - Barry Phillips

For us here at Legal-Island, the first week in September is officially the start of the 'silly season'. This is when bookings start to pour in for our big five events (fingers crossed) and we all keep our heads down and charge forward best we can. Every year we say we can't maintain the pace. But we do and almost without fail we put on a better Annual Review than ever before.

This week most of the staff are busy with internal meetings, performance reviews, or simply tasks they're hoping to clear before the rush starts.

Our training centre is booked all week bar and reservations for the next few months are coming in nicely too.

Wednesday is likely to be our most important day this week because this is the day we're expecting our first e-learning module to be delivered by our developers.

Bring it on!

Guest Writer - Kerri Bradley

GREASE LIGHTNING, GO GREASE LIGHTNING!

Legal-Island staff had such an exciting weekend... On 
Saturday, we all headed off to Belfast on our staff day out. 
We had a delicious high tea at Ten Square. We then went to the Waterfront to watch Grease the musical, with Eugene proving a big hit on the day, especially for Scott. Staff then headed to Benedicts to enjoy a cocktail making class, coctail challenge and a three course meal. We get spoilt here on the Island. See some pics of our fun day out!

Boys v Girls Cocktail Challenge:  Unfortunately the boys won but Debbie scored 10/10 for her cocktail making, I don't think any of the boys matched that skillful score!!!  Made all Debbie's organising worthwhile... Well done Debs!

 

Staff movements this week:

Barry: Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has a busy week of meetings 
including Gerry Gilpin, John Andrews and Joe Blair not to mention 
one-to-ones with staff. Apparently he’s back in training for his next 
tri-athlon which means early starts for him at the Antrim 
swimming pool.

Scott: Scott has internal meetings today and tomorrow. He says he has almost recovered from drinking Chartreuse liqueur after the cocktail challenge on Saturday. Chartreuse was lovely, according to Scott:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chartreuse_(liqueur)

However, it left the old boy somewhat delicate. “Never again until next time,” he vowed. And certainly not after four cocktails, three beers and two glasses of wine. Drink sensibly, kids, when you’re on a work’s outing.

Scott’s right arm is sore after two competitive games of donkey against Maxine Murphy-Higgins’ 10 year old son, Josh, the day after drinking Chartreuse. Scott was beaten in both games. He haw, he haw, he hawlays gets beaten at donkey but not usually by 10 year olds.

Scott has meetings scheduled this week to meet Ciara 

Fulton from Tughans in Belfast and Sheena Murphy, an 

employment solicitor based in Holywood. He hopes to 

work from home on Thursday.

Heather: Heather will be volunteering for CLIC Sargent at the NI Open in Galgorm on Friday.

Training Centre: Schrader will be using the TC on Tuesday and Thursday.

 Hope you have a lovely week!

Kerri

Guest Blogger - Scott

Just back from holidays with Legal-Island's Faccenda Fowler and my wife, Avril:

Avril's on the left, by the way. That beautiful sunny day is in Scotland, unbelievable as you may think.

Also got to see Hearts beat Hibs at the famous Edinburgh castle. Tynecastle, that is, home of the mighty Jambos, who now have amassed -11 points in their quest to maintain premier league status at the end of 2013/14 season.

I'm in the office today, tomorrow and Wednesday, with a wine tasting in the office tomorrow afternoon. On Saturday, it's team bonding time, as Legal-Island staff hit Belfast for lots of fun at Grease and cocktails afterwards.

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has a busy week making up lost ground after his holidays. No doubt he'll be wading through hundreds of emails sent to him whilst away honeymooning. This week he also has a meeting with the Belfast Speakers' Circle and Frank Cassidy of ASCL.

MD Jayne is in the office all week. She has the usual internal meetings plus a few extra, Friday morning off to Orchardville Society to meet the board.

Conference Managers, Heather and Kerry  will be attending the ‘Review of National Occupational Standards for Event Management’ on Wednesday at the Titanic Building, Belfast.

 

Guest Writer - Julie

It's a bit of quiet week here on the Island, what with a number of staff on leave.  So I thought I would let you know about our travelling chicken " Faccenda Fowler ".

Many of you will know that we keep free-range hens in the grounds of our head quarters.  Lovely little Mexican hens that lay turquoise eggs that we use for marketing purposes. (The eggs, not the hens).

Inspired by this genius piece of marketing we have adopted another hen, who goes by the name of Faccenda Fowler. Each week Faccenda will be posting a photo of herself in a different location on our Legal Island Facebook page.
As per photo, why not log on to our Facebook page and see if you can find/guess where Faccenda has been on her recent travels.....

Staff movements for the week are as follows:

Debbie - On Tuesday Debbie is meeting with Sorcha Chipperfield from Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children to hand over the cheque for all the money rasied at our successful Family Funday.


Heather - has a breakfast meeting at BITC on Wednesday morning.


Peter F - alongside Pamela and Peter G are visiting our website designers this week to learn how to use the new content management system.  The new site is going live on Thursday evening, so there's alot of excitement around the office this week (we've all had a sneak preview - it looks fantastic!).


Have a good week!

Boys V Girls: Let the games begin........

Now that the Family Fun Day has passed this week has seen the return of the boy’s v girl’s challenges here at Legal Island.

We made our way out to the battlefield at 12pm today to play Boules!!

Great fun was had by all and huge congratulations go to the boy’s team who have taken the victory this week, they are now in the lead overall, beating the girls 7-5 but I’m sure the girl’s can make an excellent comeback!!

Pictures of today’s challenge can be seen below.

This week’s staff movements:

Allison is in Belfast for most of Friday as she has meeting with Social Enterprise NI, MaST Ireland and Pinnacle Computing.

Pamela is in Belfast on Tuesday morning at Clever Fulton Rankin shooting a video of Michael Black to complement the 6 monthly case law review that we email out to our Premium email service subscribers.

Last week Scott attended the LRA conference on employment relations at the Stormont hotel in Belfast. It was very good and well run, with an excellent panel of speakers from across the globe. This week Scott is meeting Maryna Wylie – Secretary of the Healthcare People Management Association (NI Branch) and Assistant Director Resourcing in the Northern HSCT at 2.00pm on Tuesday.

Then Scott is off back home to Edinburgh and is back on 19 August. Scott hopes to see his beloved Hearts beat the village idiots this weekend in the Edinburgh derby at Tynecastle Park. That should cut Hearts’ deficit to -12 points and their goal difference to something as high as zero. Come on everyone, “One Pat Fenlon, there’s only one Pat Fenlon...” Let’s hope lucky Pat is still there on Sunday.

He’ll also be going on the ‘Harry Potter’ steam train from Fort William to Mallaig, hopefully stopping at the Glenfinnan viaduct: http://www.westcoastrailways.co.uk/jacobite/Jacobite_Details.html

And maybe a wee traipse up the Ochills or the Pentlands (hills to the north and south of Edinburgh. Very north of Edinburgh, in the case of the Ochills, but the ones you see when you look south from Edinburgh in the case of the Pentlands).

Not the most obvious things to do when you’re in Edinburgh during the world’s biggest arts festival but he’s been there before and is a jaded old fool.

Onwards...

Guest Writer – Peter G

FAMILY FUN DAYYYY! We are all currently still feeding off the adrenaline that was our Family Fun Day, which took place here at Island House Training Centre on Friday. It was a fantastic day which was enjoyed by over 550 visitors from the local community. Our visitors enjoyed the 4 bouncy castles, Aunt Sandra’s chocolate workshop, zumba dancing, a BBQ from Moe’s Grill, Mickey, Minnie, Buzz Lightyear and a fantastic array of stalls painting nails and faces....You name it, we had it!

It was a great day which raised an amazing total of £1649.28 for the Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children! A massive thanks must go to each everyone who contributed to the event, especially Debbie and the other members of the Legal-Island team and McGee's Butcher's who donated the meat for our BBQ.

Please see below for a selection of pictures from the day.

This week's movements are as follows:

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has a busy week before taking a few days' leave soon. He has meetings all day today. Tomorrow he has a meeting with ASDON in Lisburn and with Trainingsolutionz on Wednesday. On Thursday he's back in the office and out again Friday helping with the great Antrim river clean up.

Scott is a red-looking 51 years of age tomorrow and will be taking the day off, in line with our policy of every employee getting an extra day off on their birthday. That means his pink haired daughter, Kirsty, will have the shortest work placement in history – just one day – before she gets a break.

Kirsty is a rebellious child and dyed her hair pink specifically so she would clash with her old man’s napper, a frightening shade of crimson after spending the Legal-Island family fun day directing traffic. A lovely hot and sunny day proved a blessing to everyone but Scott, who really should have known better than to go outside in temperatures of more than 12°C without a hat and sunscreen. He is Scottish after all and is old enough to remember the damage done by the strange big yellow thing in the sky from 1976. Just as well he spent a while dressed up as Mickey Mouse on Friday or he would have looked even more like a proboscis monkey.

Scott is back in the office with daughter in tow on Wednesday and Thursday, thereby tripling Kirsty’s work placement in just two days. On Friday Scott will be attending the LRA conference on international perspective in employee relations at the Stormont Hotel in Belfast. Kirsty might just need another day off. And they say kids are pampered nowadays...

This week we are all very busy as places are starting to fill up at our NI and ROI Annual Reviews, as well as all of our other season 2 events. We are also heading down to a river clean at the Six Mile Water with local companies Text Help, Robinson Cleaning Services and The Six Mile Water Trust. We are praying the thunder and lightning leaves us to get on with it!

Guest Writer - James

 GLADIATORS... Are Yooo Ready!
Now there's an idea for the next Boys v Girls challenge ?

This shows two of the 'kids' limbering up for the 2012 Family Fun Day and would you believe it the 2013 bigger and better FFD is coming to you...  this Friday!

The last thing on Debbie's to-do-list is arrange for a continuation of our summer until at least Friday.  I'm sure she has it covered.


In the absence of any other noteworthy news today about a certain arrival I'll press on with the important stuff.

Barry, our CEO, has a busy week ahead.  He has internal meetings all day today; tomorrow he's busy with performance reviews; Wednesday he gets to demonstrate his public speaking prowess as a Best Man in Antrim (very mysterious...); Thursday it's back to the office for more meetings and all hands to the pump for Friday's FFD.  Rumour has it the Legal Island balloon was spotted overhead with Barry clinging bravely to the floor, but, credit where it's due, he did complete the Glenarm triathlon in a record-breaking time.

Scott is again in the office most of the week.  He has a performance review due for tomorrow morning followed by meetings with Joe Blair of MBS and Conor Brady and Alan Scott of DEL.  He may work from home on Thursday now his beloved Hearts are no longer playing in Ballymena.

Jayne has Board Training at Arthur Cox Solicitors on Wednesday morning and on Thursday Schrader will be occupying our training centre.

Well, I can't wait any longer for this baby so I'm 'going to press'.  I'm sure some other media will cover it...

Hope to see many of you at the Family Fun Day and make sure you give generously to a very worthwhile cause being supported this year: Northern Ireland Cancer Fund for Children

Until the next time,
James

Guest Writer - Pamela Park

So we all enjoyed a long bank holiday weekend and some sunshine but we didn't get the news I was waiting for, the arrival of the Royal Baby.

Some of us have been taking sweepstakes on when he or she will be born and what their name will be.

I voted for the 14th July so that's me out.  Maybe Vanessa will be victorious with her date of the 17th which is also a special day for her to celebrate.

Networking and Movements

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has a busy week of networking ahead. Today he has internal meetings. Tomorrow he’s meeting Frank Cassidy from ASCL and Paul Donnelly from Hallmark. On Wednesday he’s taking part in both company training seminars as well as his first ever tri-athlon in Glenarm in the evening. On Thursday he’s meeting Andrew Irvine CEO of Belfast City Centre Management, Stewart Miller of Northgate and Andy Hill of Dokoo in Hollywood. On Friday he’s in a planning meeting all day with the MD.

Jayne, our MD, has her usual meetings this week, training seminars on Wednesday including one on Performance Management with George Alexander for all managers and the planning meeting with Barry on Friday.

The Marketing and Sales team will facilitate a training session with all staff which involves two book reviews. We will review ‘The Snowball Effect’ by Andy Bounds and ‘Influence’ by Robert Cialdini and discuss the learning points from each.  We hope to share ideas among the whole company in how we can use these to improve and develop.

Heather will be meeting with Donna Atkinson from DEL to discuss the YES programme on Friday.

Many of the team are off on leave, but for those that are in it’s all systems go as we continue to plan for second season and 2014.

Here’s to another great week!

Guest Writer - Arnold Majcher

Summer has come to Northern Ireland. For the next couple of days we are going to enjoy temperatures reaching around 26C!!! Thankfully we got our fridge fixed in time. Here at the Island we are all waiting for a long weekend to catch some sun and relax (for a few it will be very long weekend). Those who are not taking any days off are going to work on our season 2 events and the Family Fun Day which is taking place on Friday 26th July so come along with your family to join us.  If last year has anything to go by it promises to be a great day!

Networking:

Jayne has her usual Monday morning meetings and then she is attending Strategy this afternoon and potentially Tuesday and Wednesday. Thursday she is meeting Employers for Childcare in the morning and Veronica Morris in the afternoon.

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has a busy week ahead. He has three more days of strategy starting today. He's also signing off two events this week as well as meeting committee members of the Belfast Speakers' Circle Tuesday evening.


Scott welcomes his nephew, Gerard, over from France this week, along with a student friend, Nicolas, who is looking to improve his English and play golf. Quite how he expects to improve his English by either playing golf or spending time with Scott is anyone's guess but there are several eye-opening experiences planned, from Belfast bus tours (before the bonfires are lit) and historical re-enactments to Benone beach, to a bunch of hexagonal rocks outside Bushmills and, of course, golf at Royal County Down, Newcastle. Nicolas is 16 years old and plays off a handicap of 8, which is quite good, apparently. No-one likes a show-off, though, especially if they're young.

Scott can't wait to see their little teenage faces light up with smiles instead of pimples when he meets them off the plane on Wednesday and tells them that the people of Northern Ireland are so pleased to have French visitors they've put up red white and blue bunting in celebration.

Onwards!!!

Bye Bye Glastonbury (Guest writer: Jacqui)

“Spot the MD”, no nor could we!!  Jayne, our MD went off to experience Glastonbury for the first time, where she was not looking forward to camping, however I'm sure once she got into the surreal world of Avalon, she found her inner hippy, and I, like others here on the Island wait to hear all about it with bated breath. 

 

Besides waiting to hear about Jayne’s adventures, this is what everyone else is doing this coming week:

 

Our CEO has an easy week by his standards. Other than a meeting on Wednesday with GrantLeboff he’s in all week and at his desk. 

He’s due to do his first tri-athlon in 2 weeks so every day he’s swimming 40 lengths at the local pool before coming to work for 8a.m.  Maybe not such an easy week after all….

 

Scott is meeting George Beattie of Parkhall Integrated College today regarding mediation training. Scott will also be leading discussions at an internal meeting on developments regarding the Annual Reviews of Employment Law in November.

 

Scott hopes to work from home on either Tuesday or Wednesday before starting a series of strategy meeting days on Thursday and Friday and into next week.

On Tuesday the boys and girls below will have the final part of the Inspire to Aspire Programme on Management and Leadership which is facilitated by Linzi Conway.

 

 

 

In the afternoon Pamela will meet with the Web Bureau to discuss a new and exciting project that is under wraps for now – watch this space.

 

Jayne will be right back into the thick of it upon her return on Wednesday morning, as she along with Barry and the Marketing& Sales department are having a session on how to devise our marketing and social media strategies, which will be spearheaded by Grant Leboff.

 

On Thursday, Donna and Heather have been invited to visit the very funky and new offices of Triplicate Design, who are based in Belfast where the ladies are hoping to gain some inspiration to transfer onto the Island.

 

It may well be the start to the summer holidays (62 glorious days, for those of you with children!!), however it's always full throttle here on the Island and the only place that will be a quiet this week will be our Training Centre…

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Writer - Jayne Finlay

It's that time of the year again - the Legal-Island Learning and Development Week (formerly known as Training Week).

Twice a year the company battons down the hatches and all staff get involved in Learning and Development to take the company and staff to a better place.

This year the diary for the week looks like this:

Monday

Kerri and Scott update us all on Employment Law with a few quizzes thrown in for good measure (go winning ROI team!) followed by James and an update on the contacts database. We then head into an "IoD Convention" experience by watching on video a number of thought leaders who will inspire and provoke us to make change. Who doesn't love a bit of Sir Tim Smit from the Eden Project and Roger Black and co winning their way to gold in the 4 x 400 relay at the Tokyo 1991 World Championships to inspire and motivate - in all honesty if you want to watch 2:57.53 of inspiring and motivating television you won't go far wrong by watching Roger Black, Derek Redmond, John Regis and Kris Akabusi run to victory.

Tuesday

Jacqui, Kerry, Peter G and Vanessa give us an overview of their jobs, followed by Peter F, Peter G, Pamela, Heather, Kerri, Arnold and Debbie all taking part in the Introduction to Management ILM course.

Wednesday

Cancer Focus NI join us for a talk on the cancers which affect females and males.

Thursday

Report back on Employee Voice workshop, followed by a Core Skills session and Ideas Swap. 

Friday

The week is rounded off with another days training on Introduction to Management ILM course.

Busy busy as ever - I can already hear the sighs of relief which re bound to emerge on Friday!   Have a great (and who knows hopefully sunny) week!  

Guest Writer- Donna Kirkpatrick

There isnt anything major happening in NI today, I think there must be a bit of "a do" in Fermanagh as there was a bit of chat about it on the radio this morning but other than that it is just another Monday - although we are having buns today to celebrate the birthdays and engagement in the office, bet they wont put that on BBC Newsline tonight though!

From Fermanagh to Antrim, here is what is going on with the Legal-Island team this week:

Scott has internal meetings from Mon-Wed. He will be chairing the final Legal-Island event of the spring season on Thursday, ‘All about Absence’, at the Hilton Hotel in Belfast. On Friday, Scott hopes to be working from home.

On Tuesday Jayne will be attending an  IoD Committee meeting from 8.30am – 1pm. On Friday, she will be meeting Mark Mason from Collective Business. The rest of the week for the newly engaged lady will be taken up with internal meetings.

Kerry will be hosting the last event of the NI season, All About Absence event at the Hilton, Belfast on Thursday and Allison and Kerri will be going along as well. I was trying to think of another big event which is happening today in Belfast, but for the life of me I cant remember. Aw well, I wont get any stars or stripes for having a good memory!

Our CEO has a busy week. He has meetings all day today. Tomorrow he has a strategy meeting and a dinner in Derry/Londonderry in the evening. On Wednesday its more internal meetings before attending an InvestnNI growth seminar on Thursday a.m..  In the afternoon he's meeting Paul Donnelly from Hallmark. Friday and it's R&D all day.

A certain famous Barack OBama said in Belfast this morning

"And like I said when I visited two years ago, I am convinced that this little island, that inspires the biggest things - its best days are yet ahead,". Do you think it is Legal-Island he is talking about, probably not, but it is good to dream!

Guest Writer - Heather Stewart

Well I have to start the post off with some devastating news.... the boys have evened the scores up on the boys v girls challenge by producing a winning paper aeroplane. But never fear our female comrades we are only lulling them into a false sense of security before we outplay them at Boules this week!

Our movements this week are:

Our CEO Barry has an easy week by his standards. He's meetings all day today and a couple tomorrow. For the rest of the week he'll be busy in our R&D department. By all accounts, chitty chitty bang bang is about to be rolled out of the shed so watch this space for news.

Scott is in the office Monday and Tuesday and has several meetings. He’s currently working on four second season programmes: Annual reviews of employment law and annual reviews of equality law in both NI and ROI.

On Wednesday Scott is in Dublin for meetings with customers and to host the HR network meeting, which this time around is being held in St Vincent’s University Hospital. One Thursday Scott will be chairing our ‘All about Absence’ event at the Radisson Golden Lane in Dublin. Let’s hope everyone turns up.

On Friday Scott will be working from home.

Jayne will be meeting Arlene from Mindmill on Tuesday, then discussing Annual Review in Northern Ireland on Tuesday afternoon. Thursday morning will see her at the Belfast HR Network at Arthur Cox and finally on Friday morning Jayne will be at the Dunadry Hotel for BITC Connect with Respect update

Our training centre will be holding Antrim Grammar School GCSE and A-Level art exhibition so please feel free to come down and have a look around between 4pm and 6pm.

Finally I hope you enjoy what fine weather we are having as much as our delegates in the picture below did last week at the Data Protection conference in La Mon Hotel and Country Club. Scorchio!

Guest Writer - Vanessa Porter

It’s June and as part of our ongoing monthly art exhibition Legal-Island has been transformed into a veritable Narnia of foxes, dogs and a stag courtesy of Crumlin based sculptor Jason Hale www.jasonhalesculptures.co.uk

 

 

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has an interesting week ahead of him. Today he has internal meetings pretty much all day and tonight he’s chairing a meeting of the Belfast Speakers’ Circle.  On Tuesday he’s meeting Stewart Miller of NGA and on Wednesday he’s attending a meeting with the Principal of the local secondary school to see what can be set up between them and Legal-Island.

This leads us to Thursday, when he will be chairing Legal-Island’s Data Protection Conference. Finishing off the week, on Friday he’s in our R&D department working on a couple of new projects.

Jayne (still getting used to that sparkly left hand!) has a meeting with Paula Milligan on Wednesday morning, and is meeting Martin Gilchrist on Thursday afternoon with James. Other than that she is in all week with usual weekly meetings and is happy to be on a half day on Friday.

Scott is Skyping with Kanthi Ford of kfv consulting today, connection permitting. Less technology will be required for his meeting on Tuesday with Michael Wardlow of the NI Equality Commission and PR guru, Sheila Davidson.

Scott hopes to work from home on Wednesday and will be in the office on Thursday, when he and Kerri Bradley (née McOscar) will be working on an employment law presentation for the staff training week at the end of June.

On Friday Scott will be meeting Barry Fitzpatrick in Belfast to discuss the programme for this year’s NI equality law update.

In our Training Centre this week we have the Public Health agency in today and Mindwise (a new customer) will be in on Wed and Thurs.

Peter F will help Kerry with the hosting of our DataProtection in the Workplace conference on Thursday. We still have places remaining at this conference, so if you’re interested in attending, the full programme and booking information are available on our DataProtection webpage.

This weeks Boys v Girls challenge is Paper Plane building – whichever team creates the plane that covers the most ground (air?!) wins – Debbie is judging and we’re on a bit of a knife edge with the boys only 1 point behind overall.  Scott has already been googling best plane designs!

 

Happy flying!!!!!

Islands in the Stream ... Love Abounds - Guest Writer: Allison

What a week that was … ready and roaring for action was how to best describe the 'Boys v Girls - Football Challenge'.  Kerry and Heather took it in turn to jig about on the goal line like very professional bouncy things.  However, Peter ‘the cat’ Fitzpatrick had arms and legs all over the place.  He defended that net like his life depended on it.  Just as well his goalie skills are superb - because he missed his penalty shot.  If the rest of the boys had seen him let anything in they’d have lynched him.  Result: 3-0  More activity news; Arnold won the pedometer task with an incredible step count of 76,765. We girls are now only one challenge ahead of those pesky boys - sock pulling up time!

Our MD Jayne is ditching her car this week and floating to meetings on a sparkling, soft, fluffy cloud.  This is because she became engaged to the lovely Allen at the weekend.  Her ring is beautiful, incredibly classy and would not be out of place on the hand of a Dowager Duchess - very Downton Abbey.  Congratulations from all of us here on the Island! She will attend a Coaching Course on Thursday at Malone Lodge with Donna. Then Jayne will rev up her cloud on Friday morning for an Iod Committee meeting at Ridell Hall - later meeting Mark Maguire from Invest NI with our Accountant James.

 I'm sure you'll all agree that the new Mrs Kerri Bradley looks stunning in her fabulous dress?  All Islanders heartily wish them many happy years of wedded bliss.  The weather on the day could not have been more perfect.  Our CEO, Barry, attended his PA’s wedding reception; giving his Russian wife the first taste of how the Irish can party during nuptials. The following day, working as a tour guide, she told a bus full of Ukrainians that the Irish do a very strange thing at wedding parties “they all sit in a line on the floor and move their arms around whilst singing “Don’t rock the boat baby - very unusual!” 

Barry will be trying hard not to rock the boat this week when he has internal meetings all day today. He’s delivering an internal workshop to staff tomorrow. On Thursday he’s at an Innovation Conference in Derry/Londonderry and on Friday he’s back in the office.

What about the rest of us?  Both Peters are off to visit The Web Bureau this afternoon for the first design phase of our new website – on track to go live in July!  Pamela is meeting David Boyle from the Arches in Randalstown on Wednesday to discuss our delicious duck derby event.  Kerry is hosting the Mock Industrial Tribunal event in our Training Centre on Thursday 30^th May.  Incidentally, the morning of which see’s Heather at The Princes Trust Antrim Team Graduation.

Guest Writer: Peter

What are we going to do now the football season is all but over? God forbid we’ll have to go back to being sociable at the weekends...

Just like a certain famous footballer, we're looking forward to getting out teeth into things this week:

Jayne, Peter G, Vanessa and Heather are heading off to the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel, Golden Lane, on Wednesday afternoon for our Conflict Resolution at Work event on Thursday. There are almost 90 people booked to attend and only a handful of places remaining if you’re interested?

Our CEO Barry has a short week ahead of him. He has meetings all day today. Tomorrow he is working in our R&D department. Wednesday he’s meeting Paul Donnelly from Hallmark. Thereafter he’s on leave.

Scott must ponder life alone this week, as his assistant, Kerri, leaves to prepare for marriage. Let’s hope she gets her words on Saturday better than she did at today’s weekly meeting, where she not only forgot IiP and Bermudan favourite, Eric Jenkinson, but how to pronounce Derry, or is it Londonderry? A town so good they named it twice and Kerri managed to mangle both of them.

Whilst Kerri is away preparing for her nuptials, Scott hopes to work from home on Tuesday and Friday, mainly on this year’s annual reviews of employment law, to be held in November. Scott will be attending the Elliott Duffy Garrett drinks reception on Wednesday evening but he’ll have to go for soft drinks as he’ll be driving to Dublin later to be ready to chair our ‘Conflict Resolution at Work’ event on Thursday.

Scott will also be drawing on his inner self at the event in order to act out the part of a disgruntled employee in a role play. The happy chappie will have to act his socks off – Scott is a joy-bringer in life and work and knows nought of the life of a taciturn and work shy employee. We’ve never seen Scott grumpy, oh no! Always has a smile, that’s our Scott. No typecasting there. Not a bit of it.

Debbie is refereeing the Boys v Girls penalty shoot out on Tuesday – if the boys don’t win this one we’ll never hear the end of it!

Our Training Centre in Antrim has external companies in on Monday and Tuesday this week.

Guest Writer - Kerry Murphy

May is National Walking month and all staff have been “armed” with a pedometer.  It is intended that we wear it for one week and it will measure the distance that we have covered in miles/Km.

Donna will be checking in with us on Wednesday to see how we're getting on and by next Monday the walking champion will be crowned.  Of course we are expected to be honest but I have seen some very suspicious activity going on so far not to mention the odd walks and random laps of the office!  

I have even heard of someone going for a 'jog on the sofa' tonight as they demonstrated by furiously shaking their pedometer coupled with a mischievous laugh. 

Staff movements for the week:

Our CEO Barry has a “mainly in the office for meetings week” ahead of him. Apparently he’s finishing off business books like there’s no tomorrow at the moment. He’s just finished” Will it Make the Boat Go Faster” by Ben Hunt-Davis  and he’s firing through “Six Thinking Hats” Edward De Bono too. Watch out world..!

Jayne, our MD, is out this afternoon meeting Orchardville Society. Tomorrow she is attending a BITC engagement workshop in the morning followed by the HR Network in the afternoon. On Wednesday she will be part of the hosting team at the HR Conference at the Ramada. On Friday she will be attending the Young Leaders Conference at the Mac.

Scott has to slum it at the Merchant Hotel in Belfast on Tuesday, where he will be attending a dinner meeting of HR experts to discuss the role of HR during the Troubles. Thursday sees Scott co-chairing the NI HR conference with Paul Fieldhouse of Hyperion Growth. Thursday sees Scott attending the Strategy Team meeting and on Friday Scott hopes to work from home.

Pamela will be attending a Practical Multimedia Production Workshop at WOMENs TEC all day Thursday.  Watch for the next Stephen Spielberg!

I will be hosting at the 5^th Annual HR Conference, Ramada, Shawsbridge  on Wednesday along with Kerri who not only will be helping out but attending the day itself as a delegate, Allison is coming along to welcome and organise the exhibitors in the morning and Peter G will be hosting and manning our Legal-Island stand until lunchtime.  A great day of multi tasking!

Training Centre clients this week:

BITC on Tuesday, Schrader on Wednesday and Thursday and Coaching on Friday.

We'll update you next week with the total number of Legal-Island miles walked !!!

Have a great week!