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…