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!!!!!