Legal-Island Blog

Guest Writer - Jayne Finlay

2012-03-05T04:19:00.001-08:00

SPRING TIME...well nearly!

It's the first Monday in March and I'm feeling quite spring like today! For once the sun was shining on the way to work and while there is undoubtedly still a nip in the air, so long as it's bright I have to say I don't mind so much!

It's another busy week on the Island - what's new with that I hear you say - especially after last week's busy time in Dublin where the HR Symposium team did Legal-Island proud by welcoming 120+ delegates to The Shelbourne Hotel to hear from speakers including PWC, Deloitte, Symbio and Towers Watson. Here is what some of our happy customers had to say:

"Top level of attendees, plenty of opportunities to network, abundant opportunities to interact with presenters, convenience of excellent central location..."

"I thought it was a very good opportunity and a great event for the future. I would definitely go with a colleague in future years so that more could be covered."

Great job!

Back on the island then and here is what the team is up to this week...

Apart from a lunch time meeting today Barry, our CEO, has a clear diary all week. This will no doubt come as some relief for this week he has two events to sign off and a risk audit to finish.

Peter G from the marketing department will be volunteering with Arnold, Scott and James at the Giants Causeway on Wednesday taking part in a shoreline clean up with the National Trust.

Donna and Sharon will be looking after the Social Services as they train in the training centre today then New Model Business Academy on Thursday. Donna will be at the Women in Business/ IoD event on Thursday.

Scott is facilitating the Discipline & Underperformance workshop on 6^th March, alongside Lorraine Toolan of the EEF. On Wednesday, Scott will be helping with the clear up of the Causeway Coast at part of his volunteering duties. On Thursday, Scott will be chairing a meeting of NI HR conference speakers at the offices of Carson McDowell. Scott hopes to work from home on Friday.

Jayne is on Common Purpose Meridian Course tomorrow then off to join Donna at the Women in Business/ IoD event at La Mon on Thursday.

Ainsley is volunteering at Ballycraigy on Wednesday afternoon, apart from that he is in the office all week.

Have a great week everyone!

Guest Writer: Heather Stewart

2012-02-27T07:18:00.000-08:00

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 meetingAndrew Cuthbert from Omnisoft for lunch in between meetings with staff. OnTuesday he's in London for a marketing seminar which means a very early startand a late return home. On Thursday he's attending a seminar on mapping workflows before shooting over to a meeting of the First Thursday Mediation Club.On Friday afternoon he's leading the Senior Team meeting before heading intothe weekend and doing whatever he has planned for the weekend. More work at aguess.

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

2012-02-20T03:43:00.000-08:00

Unlessyou have missed the hoards of pancakes in all the shops you wont be aware thattomorrow is Pancake Tuesday - in case you don’t know Pancake Tuesday came aboutas women used to clear all the food out of their cupboards and make pancakesbefore Lent began . Here at Legal Island we are using everythingwe 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...

OurCEO, Barry, has a busy week networking and fine dining this week (must befancy pancakes).

He'sin internal meetings pretty much all day. Tomorrow he's meeting one of our ITconsultants for lunch. Tuesday evening and he's starting his wine quaffingcourse. 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'smeeting his old mucker from O'Reilly Stewart, Linus Murray before going into a meeting about the educationconference which is coming up shortly.

OnWednesday, Heather has an Innovation team meeting & on Wednesdayshe is going to Ballycraigy Primary to see their new chicken coop that wedonated money to pay for.

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

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

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

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

Inthe Training Centre this week we are welcoming the Public Health Agency andSchrader.

Busyweek as always

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

Monday 13 February 2012

2012-02-13T03:51:00.000-08:00

Guest Writer: Vanessa

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

OurCEO is back today from a weekend in London and will have to hit the groundrunning with a busy week ahead. Today he has staff meetings in the morning andin the afternoon is meeting Neil Mitchell from focused partnerships and thenJames Neilly from the Belfast Cookery School.

OnWednesday he's delivering some mediation training alongside Gerry Rooney beforehosting an evening get-together of entrepreneurs on "The Four Hour WorkWeek". On Thursday evening he's attending Mark Reid's employment lawseminar in Derry/Londonderry.

Scottis in Dublin on Wednesday, meeting several 2012 speakers, including barristerPaul Joyce, Dermot Casserly from Beauchamps and Killian O’Reilly from O’RourkeReid. 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 FoldHousing.

Thetraining 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 dayInternal Mediation course.

Heatherhas Gillian from TinyLife coming in on Tuesday toreceive a cheque for £220 the first donation raised from our Rate 2 Donatescheme.

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

Guest Writer: Peter

2012-02-06T04:10:00.000-08:00

Julie’s Back!

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

This week is a busy week:

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

Jayne will be talking RiskAudits with Patricia O’Rourke from BITC on Wednesday. On Thursday morning, she’sattending Investors in People – Maximising the Value of Investors in People, ahalf-day training session before the renewal of our IiP. On Friday, she’s volunteeringat St Brigid’s Primary School.

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

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

And last, but certainly notleast (she’d say save the best ‘til last) our NI Conference Manager Kerry hasher 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…

The Island Waddle! Guest Writer: Ainsley

2012-01-30T09:19:00.000-08:00

Everyone is waddling this morning!

Either there's an audition for Happy Feet 4 that I wasn't aware of, or everyone's feeling the strain from the ten mile walk/run on Saturday!

A big congratulations to Heather, Kerry, John, Jayne, Donna, Debbie, Jacqui and Vanessa, who joined up with our friends at Antrim Borough Council to raise funds for the MacMillan Nurses in their centenary year. They did a fantastic job and the money's still rolling in, so we don't yet have a total raised, but there's still time to donate to this fantastic cause, simply drop us a line. Here are some of them, raring to go!

We're sticking close to the Borough Council this week, as a number of us are attending the 'Airline Innovation' event on high performance they are organising on Wednesday. I will be joined by Allison, Vanessa and Heather - with Kerry and Donna attending a related session by David Meade (International Speaker and Entertainer) on 'innovation and leadership.' Kerry will also be busy on Thursday organising and attending Legal-Island's First Thursday Mediation Club.

Elsewhere on the island, Barry our CEO has a week almost completely clear of meetings - so lots of time for him to prepare for the Strategy Team meeting on Thursday.

Our MD, Jayne is in the office all week, writing up Performance Review documentation and continuing with policy work in between the usual internal meetings. Jayne will also be continuing her volunteering at St. Brigids, Ballymena on Friday morning.

Marketing Officer Peter Fitzpatrick will also be volunteering this week, delivering football coaching to Ballycraigy Primary School children. I will be there too to even the sides.

Our Training Centre is also busy this week, hosting Northern Trust today and Schrader tomorrow.

Apart from that we're gearing ourselves up for a busy first season of events, with places selling fast. To make sure you're up to speed, check out what's happening on the Events page of our website.

As Happy Feet's dad said to him, "The word triumph starts with a 'try' and ends with a great big UMPH"

Onwards we waddle. Have a great week.

Our Apprentice, Charlie! Guest writer: Allison Sutherland

2012-01-23T04:35:00.000-08:00

There’s no doubt about it, we’re crankingup to full speed here on the Island. Wecould do with having our Work Experience person ‘Charlie’ back in the fold tohelp out as he did such a brilliant job last week. The thing is, he’s just too busy swatting andhoning his skills at Campbell College before taking on Lord Sugar in the nextseries of “Young Apprentice” – fingers crossed he makes it through to the nextround.

If we’re all particularly cheery and smileyit is because we have been awarded the Gold Star Customer Service AccreditationAward which demonstrates our best practice and ethos for growth. Well done to everyone involved for all theirhard work. Shouldn’t really boast but ifwe get many more awards and certificates we’ll be in need of quotes for shoringup the office walls.

There’s much limbering up going on in here, circuits completed ofthe car park and stretching everywhere you look. The reason being that on Saturday we’retaking Antrim by storm by joining our friends from the Borough Council for aten mile walk/run to help raise funds for the MacMillan Nurses in their centenaryyear. All sponsorship gratefullyaccepted.

We’re up to our eyes in Performance reviewsthis week with both our M.D Jayne and Marketing Supremo Ainsley sporting “DoNot Disturb” notices. Shhhh!!!

However, by far the best news is that “the girls” have recoveredfrom their winter blues and are laying at a speed of knots. Now that they have their new spring plumage theydon’t stop admiring themselves in the big mirror next to their coop. Mightyfine they’re looking too.

Did you hear about the Environmental enthusiast who removed theengine from his car and replaced it with an Ostrich to power the vehicle? Everything seems to be working well until it getsto the Motorway. At high speed, the carbreaks down so he calls out one of the emergency vehicle repair services. The Mechanic arrives, lifts the bonnet andshaking his head says “Ere’s your problem Guv’nor, yer big ‘en’s gone!”

What we're all up to;

Our CEO Barry is meeting businessconsultant John McKee today for lunch and then attending a seminar delivered byMark Reid at the Antrim Civic Centre tomorrow evening. On Wednesday he'sattending a dinner at Queens before heading to Dublin for meetings all day withamongst others the NCI and Daire Coffey. On Friday he's in the office beforeleading from the front in the MacMillan 10 mile charity run on Saturday.

Jayne is busy with Internalmeetings on Monday and Tuesday. Then onWednesday she will be out of the office at an Invest NI Performance ManagementWorkshop in Bedford Street. She’ll berounding off the week on Friday by volunteering at St Brigids, Ballymena. After which it’s all systems go and a swiftmove onto Belfast for the ReformNET Ladies Day lunch.

Scott is meeting Diane Hill of A4e today to discuss herpresentation to the HR Network on 7^th February.

Scott hopes to work from home from Wed-Friday this week and willbe a guest at the McGrigors’ Burns Supper on Thursday 26^th Januaryat QUB: Fair fa' your honest, sonsie face, Great chieftain o'the puddin-race!

An’ aw tha’, etc etc. In allhonesty, it’s pretty horrible scran and would be consigned to the dustbin ofculinary history, like peas brose and Angel Delight, were it not for the Bardliking the stuff. The rest of us just pretend to enjoy it, like some offalemperor’s new clothes in food form. But it’s a fine excuse for a great nightout.

Vanessa and Peter Fitzpatrick are off for amidday bite at the City Hall, where they will receive our Customer Service GoldAward Certificate from the Centre for Competitiveness – proving that there issuch a thing as a free lunch!

Heather has a pretty quiet week in relationto being out and about. She’ll still beup to her eyes (as usual) but based in the office. Apart from Thursday when she is attending the Business in the Community Opening Door’s Series atAllstate.

I am attending Antrim Civic Centre on Tuesday evening to hear Mark Reid deliver a seminar in relation to Agency Workers. Then a bit of practice before attempting Saturday's walk.

If Jacqui's tendon holds up she will be roaming Antrim with the rest of us on Saturday morning.

Our Training Centre is still proving to bethe best value for money facilities in these here parts as we have guests fromSchrader on Tuesday and the Institute of Licensing on Thursday and Friday. It’s the food that does it, if you’re ever inneed of a good feed come to us!

Nobody likes a show off! Guest writer: Kerry

2012-01-16T08:10:00.001-08:00

I know its January and everyone has lots of good intentioned New Years resolutions but really its a sad day when your minding your own business having a pancake with butter and jam for your mid morning snack and the 'health guru' walks into the kitchen, glares over with a disapproving look and says 'and you getting married in 6 months'. And yes everyone its James I'm talking about. Here he is above adding extra seeds and pulses to his already Über healthy salad as proof of his new healthy ways. What a lovely 'my body's a temple' smile he's wearing don't you think? That pancake was tasty I'll have you know!

This weeks movements on the Island:

Our CEO, Barry has a busy week this week. Today he has internal meetings before meeting Peter McBride of NIAMH for dinner this evening. On Wednesday he has an SMT meeting before heading to London on Friday for one of these posh legal dinners where apparently the entertainment is Michael McIntyre. The following day he has an all day seminar delivered by the Entrepreneurs Business Academy.

Jayne our MD has a validation meeting for the CforC Customer Service Award on Wednesday and will be Volunteering on Friday at St Brigids, Bllymena.

Our Conference Manager ROI Heather has her performance review on Wednesday and then will be in Dublin on Friday checking out the HR symposium venue and other potential venues for future events.

Have a healthy week!

What's Up w/b 9 Jan 2012

2012-01-09T03:24:00.000-08:00

Meetings start to build up after the first week back.

Head of Training and Development, Scott Alexander, is in Dublin on Wednesday meeting David Walsh, Netwatch, Catherine Lambe, Musgrave, and Martin Farrelly regarding the HR Symposium on 29th February.

He is also meeting Linda O'Shea Farren, Linda Hynes, Duncan Inverarity and Breda O'Malley.

Meetings of note this week for Marketing Manager, Ainsley Hirst, include Sales Strategy day on Wednesday with Paula Milligan, followed by a meeting with Michael from Centre for Competitiveness on Thursday.

MD Jayne Finley has a Wednesday with meeting Richard O’Rawe , Thursday has Centre for Competitiveness meeting am, splash marketing meeting in pm, Friday meeting with BITC, followed by Time to Read at St Brigid's Ballymena.

Our CEO, Barry, has meetings this week with a number of external consultants as we try to put shape to the company strategy for the year. On Tuesday he's meeting Ken Thompson author of a book on Team Biometrics. On Wednesday he's meeting company consultant Richard O'Rawe followed by a one-to-one with social media and web guru Gareth Dunlop. On Thursday he's doing a bit of consulting himself when he travels to Derry/Londonderry to see good friend of Legal-Island Mark Reid to help him develop his marketing strategy for his new "Law Firm in Derry".

Senior Administrator, Vanessa Porter, has a meeting with Michael O’Neill from C4C on Thursday to discuss the last stage of the Customer Service Award Accreditation.

Posted by Scott

Guest Writer Barry Phillips

2012-01-03T08:10:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everyone!

Oh my! Where did that year go to? It was like everythingwas on fast forward last year it went by so quickly but then time does seem tofly like that at Legal-Island.

We all came back today ready for everything that the yearwill throw at us. We've lots of exciting things planned already including a brand new HRevent for Dublin which is selling well "Ireland's HR Symposium" for 29 February.

This week very few of us are out and about. Instead, we’reall desk bound prepping for meetings, objective setting and performance reviews.It’s about getting the business in shape for the year and the more we do nowthe easier it should be later on.

So fingers crossed, hold tight, here we go…

Barry Phillips, CEO

Merry Christmas Blog! Guest writer: Peter Gilpin

2011-12-19T04:18:00.000-08:00

Having been part of the Legal-Island team for a almost amonth now (I know, time flies when your...working really hard!) I have the privilegeof writing the final blog of the year and reporting on a very civilizedChristmas lunch.

Last week saw our team take the short journey down the roadto the Hilton Hotel in Templepatrick for the annual Christmas lunch. This wasan afternoon of tasty food and great craic, accompanied by a very prestigious awardsceremony. On behalf of us all at Legal-Island, I would like to congratulate Johnon his award-winning smile.....and red face that accompanied it. The Secret Santa’s amongst us proved not sosecret with a table full of detectives finding the source of the exciting giftsshared amongst the group; all of which I’m sure will come in very useful overthe festive period. All-in-all a great afternoon, with some familiar facesattending to share the festivities!

This week, the final movements of the year are as follows:

Barry

Our CEO has a quiet enough week this week for a change. He'sin the office every day until Friday with the exception of tomorrow when he'smeeting Gillian Esquivel for breakfast, attending a prize giving at AntrimGrammar school at lunchtime and then meeting a hoster in the afternoon for acareers discussion. On Tuesday evening he's firing over to Derry/Londonderry tohelp an old friend with his marketing strategy for his new Derry law firm

We are all looking forward to a well deserved feast ofturkey and mince pies, to prepare ourselves for a busy year ahead.

Guest writer: Debbie

2011-12-12T03:51:00.000-08:00

The end of a busy year is approaching fast and i can not wait for Christmas. We had a busy week last week with Strategy Days, Training Week and volunteering our services to paint the premises of Home Start in Antrim. Oh don’t we look the part in this picture!

Now that we have set the brushes down from last week, we are ready to pick them right back up again as we are off to paint the town red on our staff Christmas lunch at the Hilton Hotel on Thursday. Party Time!!

Staff movements for this week are as follows:

Barry

Today our CEO is recovering from both a cold and a weekend in London. He was on a two day coaching course which he managed to do apparently by having Lemsip applied intravenously throughout the weekend.

For the rest of this week he has mainly internal meetings to do although on Wednesday morning he’s attending a BITC breakfast meeting about healthy living in Northern Ireland. On Friday he’s in Dublin all day meeting a few mediators.

Scott

Scott has a busy week in his last before his Christmas break. He will be chairing the final HR Network meeting of the year on 13 December. Guest Speakers will be Dr Alistair Black from Futures NI and Shirley Blair from A&L Goodbody.

On Wednesday, Scott will be in Dublin to meet the HR Symposium speakers at Arthur Cox’s offices. He also has meetings with MOP and McCann FitzGerald.

Thursday is Christmas party lunch and Scott will be meeting Tom Evans from DEL on 16^th December.

Donna

Donna is attending a meeting at Antrim Grammar tomorrow with BITC, Parkhall, Translink and Tidy NI with the intention of arranging a “litter prick” up at the railway crossing in January.

On Thursday she will be at our Christmas lunch delivering presents from our Secret Santa and will be hosting the much anticipate Legal Island Staff Awards ceremony.

She also has the HR Forum members using the Training Centre tomorrow.

Onwards until the countdown to Christmas……..

2011-12-05T04:55:00.001-08:00

Guest Writer: John

Now that our customers have received their essential training for 2011 through our Annual Review of Employment Law events, its our turn at Legal-Island as we take part in our twice yearly Training Week. This gives us a chance to reflect on the past year, plan for the year ahead and get involved in teamwork at the same time.

Monday will see us all receiving the wisdom of Mark McAllister from the Labour Relations Agency as he speaks on 'Dignity at Work', of which some members of staff may claim to have more than others! This is followed by a review of the year and the Corporate Strategy for 2012 in the afternoon.

On Tuesday, we are leaving the office and donning our ragged trousers to become philanthropists for the day, painting the premises of Home Start in Antrim. This is where we get to add a splash of colour to our work and find out who amongst us is the Van Gogh (creative, crazy and lacking an ear?)

We are back in the Legal Island Training Centre on Wednesday, with a packed agenda including

Networking Update, Disc Profiling,Team work - Communication skills, Staff Charter and Customer Charter, Policies – Update on policies for 2012 and Certain software update!

There is no training planned for Thursday as Kerry has an event taking place in the Training Centre- the second day of the Mediation course, which gives the rest of us a chance to catch up on work.

We end the week with a visit from the Ulster Cancer Foundation, who will be following up on our health audits from earlier in the year to check if we have improved our health levels and if we need to go on the naughty or nice list. Jayne will then be giving a presentation on Meeting Faciltiation Skills in the afternoon before we head home for the weekend.

Guest writer: James

2011-11-28T04:49:00.001-08:00

Tomorrow will finish our best ever Annual Review season!

These flagship events are always successful but this year has seen a superb effort by everyone to make sure we continue to improve year-on-year. It's hard to see how we can top it again next year but I'm sure we will.

Last week's event in the Ramada Hotel, Shawsbridge was the biggest event we have ever held in Northern Ireland. Even with the increased numbers to cater for the feedback has been exceptional.

To pick out just one of the comments from a very satisfied delegate:

"The Legal Island Annual Review is the Upper Class of employment law conferences...from the moment you arrive you are greeted with a smile and ushered to your departure area by professional staff and then once you take your seat you are treated to an array of N Ireland's leading employment law practitioners. If you only go to one employment law event a year this has to be it......left with all the information I require to help me through the next year of HR trials and tribulations"

For our last Annual Review at the Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin you will need to be quick to secure one of the last remaining places:

http://www.legal-island.ie/events/all-events/324/annual-review-of-employment-law-2011-only-8-places-left/

Additionally this week we have one or two smaller events as we prepare for our biannual training week involving all staff next week.

The first day of the Mediation 2 day course is on Thursday:

http://www.legal-island.com/events/all-events/329/internal-mediation-resolving-workplace-disputes-2-day-course-only-1-place-left/

At the time of writing there is only one place left!

And on Friday morning we are hosting a free event for local businesses on the topic of Employee Engagement. If you would like to come along please contact kerry@legal-island.com

This week Barry will be attending the Annual Review and then staying on for some networking on Wednesday. He is hosting the first Mediation Club meeting on Thursday evening and then presenting along with Sue Robinson (Firmus Energy) at the Employee Engagement event on Friday morning. A meeting with Richard O'Rawe on Friday afternoon will complete another busy week.

Scott is chairing a powwownow teleconference with Stephen Mearns and Maxine Orr tomorrow. They will be answering questions from delegates that attended the annual review of developments conference last week. Otherwise, he hopes to work from home most of the week.

On Thursday, Jayne will be meeting Caroline Duffy from Poised for Success; Ainsley will be at the BITC Awards Seminar and Vanessa will be volunteering at Restore. On Friday morning Ainsley will attend the Invest NI High Tech Skills seminar.

Apologies to anyone I've left out but I think I've typed enough with my sprained wrist.

20th November 2011 Guest writer Phyllis McMahon

2011-11-21T03:07:00.001-08:00

Time is just passing us by. We have already completed 3 very successful Annual Reveiws with only 2 more to go. The next is on Wednesday at the Ramada Hotel and we have just a handful of places left. The final Annual Review of Employment Law conference of 2011 is at the Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin on Tuesday 29 November. If you haven't booked yet, you're in danger of missing out!

So what is everyone doing this week?

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has a busy week ahead. Today he's in meetings pretty much all day. Tomorrow morning he's conducting mock interviews at Antrim Grammar school with his PA, Phyllis. On Wednesday he's attending our Annual Conference for part of the day whilst meeting Terry McErlane, Frank Cassidy and then visiting Common Purpose. On Thursday/Friday he's back in the office finishing the week with dinner along with Kerry and six other notables who qualified as mediators earlier this year.

Scott is chairing the last of our NI Annual Reviews of Employment Law conference 2011 at the Ramada, Shaw’s Bridge, Belfast on Wednesday. Scott is visiting Scotland on Friday and working from home on Tuesday and Thursday.

Jayne has her usual meetings today, meeting Ray McCabe from Rutledge Recruitment at 11.30am tomorrow. She also has a Certain Events demonnstration on Tuesday afternoon. Hosting at the Ramada on Wednesday. On Friday Jayne is doing her volunteering - Time to Read at St Brigid's Primary School.

Ainsley has his usual meetings today. He is hosting at the Annual Review on Wednesday and on Thursday he and Peter are in London attending an EBA Web Marketing conference.

Kerry is heading up the largest Northern Ireland Annual Review in our 11 year history on Wednesday at the Ramada, Shaw's Bridge with a team of 7 staff.

Kerry will also be attending the Mediators dinner on Friday evening with Barry and the 6 other delegates who attended the 8 day course in September.

Debbie is out volunteering in Antrim Primary School this morning, through the Young Enterprise Scheme.

So as you can see a very busy week for everyone.

14th November: Guest writer Arnold Majcher

2011-11-14T08:59:00.001-08:00

Welcome on board. This week we are extremelybusy because 2^nd of south Annual Reviews will take place in RadissonAirport Hotel. There are still places available for a Final Annual Review eventat Stillorgan Park Hotel but you have to be quick before it will be sold out.

For north there are still places available forRamada Annual Review which will take place on 23^rd November.

Barry

Our CEO Barry Phillips hasanother big week ahead. He's in the office all day today. Tomorrow he'svisiting the local grammar school to help some Oxbridge candidates withinterview skills. On Wednesday he has a finance meeting and is welcomingvisitor, Olivia May to the company. On Thursday he's working on strategy stuffwith the MD, Jayne before heading to Dublinfor meetings all day on Friday.

Jayne

Jayne have her usual internalmeetings on Monday, on Tuesday email service meeting followed by Gold StarCustomer Service Workshop with CforC. Wednesday, finance meeting. ThursdayStrategy meeting with Barry. Thursday night attending WIB awards with Heatherand on Friday she is volunteering with St Columbs Ballymena Time to Read

Ainsley

Ainsley is meeting Michael fromCentre for Competitiveness tomorrow with Jayne and Vanessa, followed by theRadisson for Annual Review on Wednesday.

Heather

She will be at Annual Review onWednesday and she has her last day volunteering in Ballycraigy primary onFriday

Peter

Peter will be working with ourwebsite providers Tibus this week to make a few updates and subtle amends. OnWednesday he is helping out with the hosting of the Annual Review of EmploymentLaw conference at the Radisson Blu Hotel, Dublin Airport

Onwards!

7th November: Guest writer Jacqui McCaughan

2011-11-07T04:45:00.000-08:00

Never mind the excitment of the EMAs and the hustle and bustle around Belfast over the weekend!! That's the norm here on the Island, especially in November.

The first of this year's Annual Review of Employment Law took place on Thursday and was as usual, a great success, a big well done to Heather and the team of Hosters on the day.

Sweets provided by heavenly-temptations.co.uk

The delegates on the day were offered a selection of sweets instead of the usual chocolate fountain, which is so passé!!!

This was just one of the extras available and it went down a treat (pardon the pun).

Tomorrow will see the first of the NI Annual reviews taking place at La Mon House

with Kerry heading the team. With 121 delegates, 17 speakers and 11 exhibitors there should be a great buzzaround on the day!

and there are still a few places available, so if you don't want to miss out on what promises to be a fun and informative day, click on the link above.

With the Annual Reviews in full swing, there isn't much time for anything else, however here is a round-up of what is going on, on the island this week:

Our CEO Barry is actually in the office pretty much allweek which is unusual for him. Today he has internal meetings all day. OnTuesday he's attending the morning part of the Annual Review Conference at LaMon before heading back to the office. On Wednesday evening he's attending theAnnual Dinner of ASCL at the Hilton Hotel Templepatrick and catching part oftheir conference the following day. On Friday he's back in the office beforeenjoying a much needed break over the weekend.

Jayne and Ainsley will be carrying out a 2nd round of marketing interviews.

Donna has Business in the Community coming in on Wednesday to do a biodiversity audit.

Scott will be chairing the first of the NI annual reviews ofemployment law on 8^th November. On Thursday he will be attending thetribunal users’ group and an in camera dinner with the Minister of Finance andPersonnel, organised via the NI Chamber of Commerce.

Debbie will be out doing her Volunteering in Antrim Primary School this morning through the Young Enterprise scheme.

Heather will be preping for the next Annual Review in the Radisson on the 16th.

And I said there wasn't much else happening on the island.....................

31st October - Happy Halloween!! Guest Writer Jayne Finlay

2011-10-31T07:26:00.000-07:00

Happy Halloween Folks! Yes the spooks, goblins and witches are out to play today - let's hope they leave us all in peace as we continue another busy week at Station Road.

It's the first week of November and we all know what that means... the Annual Review of Employment Laws are upon us! First up we have Heather running the show on Thursday at the Red Cow, with her hard working team of professionals with here Heather is sure to host a fantastic day. Good luck Heather - show them how it's done!

Elsewhere on the Island...

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, is in all day today and out networking in Belfast Tuesday and in Dublin Wednesday. On Thursday he's attending the first of our Annual Review of Employment Conferences at the Red Cow Dublin. On Friday he's in Malahide at the MII Mediation conference until Saturday evening.

Peter will be assisting with the hosting of Thursday’s sold out Annual Review of Employment Law conference at the Red Cow. Remember that if you haven’t booked your place at either of the remaining two events (Dublin Airport on 16th November or Stillorgan Park Hotel on 29th November), there are only a limited number of places remaining – book quickly to avoid disappointment!

Scott is meeting Frances Hill, NI Agent for the Bank of England, on Tuesday and will be helping out the team at the first of our Irish Annual Reviews of Employment Law on 3 November.

Jayne will be holding the fort back at the office this week, working on staff charters, customer charters and on Wednesday will head into Belfast to meet up with Clarendon Executive.

Enjoy the rest of Halloween guys and here's hoping the ghosts don't get you!

Guest Writer - Heather

2011-10-26T03:32:00.000-07:00

"The Sky is blue, the grass is green,

"Have you got a penny for Halloween,

"If you haven't got a penny, a Ha'penny will do,

"If you haven't got a ha'penny, god bless you".

Well it's Halloween this weekend I hope you all have your costumes sorted, some of the Legal-Island staff appear to be wearing theirs already!

Its a busy week on the island, I am preparing for our first fully booked Annual Review of Employment Law next week in the Red Cow Moran Hotel, there is plenty to get do!

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, fresh from his trip to Killarney last week via Devon, London and Waterford is off on Thursday to London for a seminar and networking on Friday before returning home in time for the Elvis Costello event at the Waterfront. Oliver's army oo oo oo...

Scott will be on his broomstick on Thursday to travel down to Belfast to meet Emer Hinphey of Thinkpeople and other appointments he has yet to arrange.

2011-10-17T05:18:00.000-07:00

Guest Writer: Vanessa

It’s the calm before the storm for the Conference Teams here on the Island. They’ve finished a successful run of Conference both North and South and are preparing for the big ones – our Annual Review of Employment Conferences. The first is taking place on 3 November at
the Red Cow Moran Hotel in Dublin and there are still a very few places left ttp://bit.ly/ps2EHU

For the rest of us it will be the usual round of meetings and networking:

Barry our CEO is living out of a suitcase this week. He's in Devon seeing his Mum today and tomorrow before heading back to London to chair a conference in Olympia. Then he's off to Killarney for the NAPD education conference which lasts until Friday.

Jayne has her usual internal meetings today and tomorrow and is then heading to London on Wednesday, hosting at the London Annual Review of Employment Law on Thursday (to book go to http://bit.ly/pfRuDm ). Returning on Thursday evening for a meeting in Belfast on Friday morning and then working from home preparing for a strategy day next week.

Ainsley will be in all week apart from Tuesday pm when he has a meeting with Paula
Milligan from PM Sales Solutions.

Scott is attending a presentation by John Philpott, Chief Economist CIPD, this Wednesday, entitled “Rethinking the Way We Work”. He also has a meeting with Adam Brett of McGrigors solicitors later in the week.

Heather is continuing with her volunteering with YENI in Ballycraigy Primary School on Friday morning.

Guest Writer - Peter

2011-10-10T03:18:00.000-07:00

'Early Birds' caught our worms!

Over the last few weeks, we’ve had hundreds of ‘Early Birds’ approaching our ‘Island and securing their places at the biggest and best conference events of the year…the Annual Review of Employment Law 2011 both North and South.

Our NI conference manager, Kerry, has secured a prize of 2 nights bed, breakfast and dinner for anyone booking an Annual Review place at the La Mon Hotel & Country Club on 8^th November. Go on, you know you’d love to win that one…

Meanwhile, back on the ranch (or the ‘Island), we’ve a packed schedule as usual.

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, is chairing the Data Protection conference on Wednesday in Dublin, and on Thursday he's speaking at the Business in the Community "Innovate to Engage" conference at W5 in Belfast. Apparently it's sold out so he had better be good! He’s off to London on Friday afternoon. Business or pleasure? – knowing him, it’s probably packed full of both!

Scott and Jayne are heading off to Birmingham on Tuesday for our GB Annual Review of Employment Law conference on Wednesday, then travelling to Manchester for the same thing all over again on Thursday. Scott is in the Chair on both occasions.

Allison will be attending the NI Chamber of Commerce Annual Networking Conference at The Ramada Shaw’s Bridge on Tuesday. She’s hoping to take advantage of the great speed networking opportunities on offer.

Kerry is attending the Ramada’s 10th Anniversary dinner on Monday evening. She if off to a Irish News event in Belfast on Tuesday evening where Tony Buzan will take us through his unique Mind Map technique and the latest research on the brain, memory techniques and learning tools. On Wednesday she is hosting the fully booked Mock Industrial Tribunal Workshop at the Hilton Templepatrick and the Agency Workers event at Antrim Civic Centre on Thursday.

Heather and Ainsley will be hosting the Data Protection event, chaired by Barry, on Wednesday. On Friday, Ainsley is meeting Michael O’Neill from the Centre for Competitiveness.

Donna will be speaking in the ‘employees’ section of the “Engage to Innovate” event on Thursday with Barry as the parallel speaker. We’re also exhibiting at this event, with Allison and Vanessa manning the stand and wooing the delegates with free sweeties!

First Complete are booked into our Training Centre from Tuesday – Friday this week, they’ll be well looked after by our Housekeeper, Sharon.

Guest Writer - Ainsley

2011-10-03T08:40:00.000-07:00

"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!!

Guest writer - Pamela Park

2011-09-26T06:46:00.000-07:00

Wow, what a week on the Island!

Last week was full of big things as we hosted the Mediation Symposium. Our key note speaker flew in from New York, the Northern Ireland Justice Minister gave the opening address and we had a grand total of 27 speakers/facilitators contributing to the event including two Presidents (Law Society and MII).

In Dublin, Heather hosted 4 events across 2 days in the iconic ‘Croker’.

This week is as busy as ever as we prepare for another 3 events in the north. It’s full steam ahead! Flat to the mat! Pedal to the metal! Or whatever you want to call it?

Movements for the week .....

Our CEO and MD, are part way through their Train the Trainer course in Dublin with another two days accounting for Monday and Tuesday of this week. On Monday evening Barry will be taking to the skies again in the Legal-Island hot air balloon which is taking part in the Irish Balloon Championship 2011.

On Wednesday Barry's back in the office meeting publisher Claude Costecalde. On Thursday he's at a seminar in the morning learning how to speed read (a timely course for someone still with 500 pages to read of War and Peace perhaps?). In the afternoon he's at the CIPFA conference at the Europa. On Friday he's free all day; for the moment at least.

Scott is chairing a meeting of the HR Network on Tuesday. The guest speakers will be Colin Maxwell and Mark Reilly from The Belfast Telegraph’s NI Jobfinder. Also in attendance will be John, our Email Service Manager. He's going to spread the good news about our Employment Law Email Service.

On Wednesday, Scott will be facilitating the Discipline & Underperformance workshop with Lorraine Toolan from the EEF. This event has sold out and promises to be a great day of learning.

Scott will be working from home on Thursday and will be attending Legal-Island’s strategy day on Friday. In the evening Scott will be attending a talk at the University of Ulster on the development of international criminal law, specifically in relation to the special court for Sierra Leone experience.

It’s another busy week for Kerry as she prepares to host three events:

• Winning Tenders in Northern Ireland

• Discipline & Underperformance

• Delivering Workplace Investigations

Heather continues her hard work on our volunteering and fundraising activities as she meets David Fitzsimons, Volunteer Now regarding the Investing in Volunteers for Employers (IIVe) UK Standard. She is also meeting Lisa Brockerton from YENI regarding volunteering opportunities for Debbie and herself. On Friday Heather has organised a coffee morning in aid of McMillan. Some of us have volunteered to make buns and cakes for this, will it be the Legal-Island Great Bake Off!

For the rest of us, we’re in all week and will be attending Legal-Island’s strategy day on Friday.

Guest Writer - Donna Kirkpatrick

2011-09-19T04:17:00.000-07:00

The tip for the day on my desk calendar says "Education's purpose is to replace an empty mind with an open one" and that basically will be the theme for the week here in Legal-Island.

On Wednesday 21st September we will be hosting the first ever Mediation Symposium in Northern Ireland at the La Mon Hotel and Country Club. Kerry Taggart will be in charge of hosting the event and with numbers of 110+ it looks like it will be an event not to be missed. Can you afford not to go?

Barry will be in the office all day on Monday. On Tuesday his first meeting is at 8.30am with Gerry MacFarlane. He will then be picking up one of the
speakers for the Mediation event at the airport, followed by a meeting in Belfast at 1pm and another meeting at 4pm. On Wednesday Barry will be attending the Mediation Symposium and will be at a training event in Dublin on Thursday and Friday with Jayne.

Ainsley will be attending a Customer Relationship Management event in Belfast with Jayne and Barry, followed by a Young IOD event at the Lexus showroom in Boucher Road with Jayne.On Wednesday Ainsley will be meeting Johnny Megarry from Nicholson Bass, followed by Fiona Keenan at the Hilton before meeting Brian Nelson from Forth Data. A new Lexus would certainly help Ainsley get to these meetings in super fast time!

As well as doing the super task of managing the Mediation Symposium on Wednesday, Kerry will still have time to meet with Ciaran Sheehan on Tuesday.

Scott will be chairing a meeting of sponsors and partners on 20th Tuesday to discuss the first draft programme of the NI HR conference 2012, which has been designed by Penna. Before that he may be picking up internationally renowned mediator Ewan Malcolm from the airport. Ewan is a keynote speaker at Legal-Island's Mediation Symposium on 21st September. Scott will be facilitating one of the sessions at the Symposium and hopes to be able to work from home on Thursday and Friday.

Heather will be speeding off to Croke Park this week for 4 of our ROI events - Discipline and Underperformance, Essentials of Employment law, Post Primary Dealing with Underperformance (which has now sold out) and Internal Mediation (Day1).

Jayne is meeting Ciaran Sheehan on Tuesday at 1pm and she will be attending the CRM event with Ainsley followed by the young IOD event at the Lexus showroom. . On Wednesday she will be seeing Fiona Keenan and then will be attending a CO3 mentoring event. On Thursday and Friday she will be attending a Train the Trainer event with Barry - busy girl,that will be 2 Lexus's we will need to order!

In the Island House training centre, we are delighted to be welcome Invest NI.

So if your empty mind needs opened you know the place to come to!

Guest Writer: Kerry. I'll Started so I'll finish........

2011-09-12T10:56:00.000-07:00

Well today was the first day of the Legal-Island Monday Morning Quiz. And wow did we get a shock! Jayne our MD turned straight into Magnus Magnusson and by 9.31am the colour had drained from most of the staffs faces realising it wasn't going to be quite what we had imagined. Two thoughts I've had on this is: Thank goodness I'm not competitive and secondly the table has to turn sometime when Ms Finlay takes to the chair!!!! Oh and can we do a spot quiz with the CEO? That might be fun....

Our movements for the week are:

It's variety week this week for our CEO Barry Phillips. On Monday he's meeting HR person and around good egg Linzi Conway in the morning and working with company consultant Richard O'Rawe in the afternoon. On Tuesday he's in the office all day likewise Wednesday when he'll be having a brainstorming meeting with a team from Stratagem. On Thursday and Friday he's doing the last two days of his certified mediation course including a video assessment at the end of the week.

Jayne, MD (aka Magnus), has internal meetings on Tuesday. On Wednesday she is meeting Strategim at 10am has a Finance meeting on Friday.

Scott, Head of Training & Development, has internal planning meetings this week and hopes to work from home for two or three days.

Heather, Conference Manager ROI, has a meeting with Michelle from the Radisson Blu Royal Hotel Dublin on Monday and is in Cork for Essentials and Discipline on Wednesday. Good luck with the first ROI events of the season and safe journey!!!

I will be completing the last two days of my certified Mediation course on Thursday and Friday and doing the final preparation for next weeks NI Mediation Symposium.

That's all for this week. Here's hoping Jayne hasn't heard of the Mastermind sudden death play-off....

Guest writer: James

2011-09-05T05:14:00.000-07:00

The big news from last week, which just missed the Legal-Island Monday blog, but made the local and national papers was the launch of the Legal-Island Balloon at Northern Ireland's first Hot Air Balloon Festival in Moira.

Thanks to Barry and his needle and thread there were no fatalities. It's remarkable the trust some people put in our CEO! I notice Barry himself stayed steadfastly on terra firma...

This week at the Island: we are underway with our 1st, Season 2, event - Certified Mediation which runs over 6 or 8 days. Our intrepid CEO is playing the role of delegate and will emerge at the end of the course with even more qualifications to his name. Kerry too will become our 3rd certified mediator at Legal-Island following the course - we're the people to talk to if you want to know about Mediation!

Before Barry gets stuck into Mediation on Wed, Thur & Fri he's meeting Heather Bell from Queen's University and Raymond McFeeters from the NAHT - something is brewing for sure. Tomorrow he's meeting former InvestNI client executive Alison Flynn for lunch.

Scott will be attending the open space event at Penna's premises on Wednesday, designed to create options for the NI HR Conference 2012. After that he will meet with the education consultant John Stevenson. He's off to the motherland on Friday as he's escorting his eldest daughter back to university in Scotland.

Jayne and Ainsley will be early to bed on Tuesday as they are on the 1st flight out of Belfast to attend a seminar in London. We're expecting great ideas to flow from this event with Peter Thompson - the self styled 'UK's most prolific information product creator'. Jayne is back, bright-eyed, on Thursday for a meeting with Centre for Competitiveness regarding a Customer Service Award. On Friday it's benchmarking with BITC.

I'll sign off with wise words from my choice of Monday morning tune - "what you give is what you get returned". The only description of karma that makes any sense to me.

This Week from Legal-Island

2011-08-30T03:36:00.000-07:00

Head of Training and Development, Scott, will be working from home one day and attending the first NI CIPD meeting of the new season on Thursday. On Friday he has several meetings lined up, including Lucinda McMurrin from the NI Federation of Housing Associations; Nicola Shaw from BDO; Nichola Cherry from the Untility Regulator, Anne Dargan from Rapid Change Consultancy; and David Graham from Finance Matters (NI) Ltd.

Our CEO, Barry Phillips, has a different week coming up. He's in internal meetings today (Tuesday) and meeting Majella McClosky from CO£ for lunch. For the rest of the week he'll be on the intensive Certified Mediator training we are running in our training suite.

At the weekend, our hot air balloon took part in the Northern Ireland Balloon Festival:

Guest writer : CEO Barry Phillips

2011-08-22T06:01:00.000-07:00

We have an unusually quiet work here on the Island. This is perhaps the result of a combination of staff on leave combined with limited networking opportunities over the summer. Jayne our MD is in the office all week with the exception of Thursday when she attends a BITC meeting. Oh and she's off on leave Friday. Lucky her.
Donna the office manager is busy tomorrow looking after new guests for the training centre, Halfords.
Scott our conference executive is working from home for most of the week with the exception of Wednesday when he's meeting our CEO. Talking of which I've a busy week. Today I'm in the office all day. Tomorrow I'm in Belfast meeting Strategem and then Daire Murphy from the Law Centre. In the afternoon I'm meeting Peter O'Reilly from Mediation NI. I like this guy a lot. He's honest, professional and loads of fun. On Thursday I'm in Dublin meeting amongst others Clive Byrne from NAPD and Carol Fawcett from Hayes Solicitors.
You might say this month is all about our mediation events. We have one place left on the 8 day certified mediation course we're running at the end of the month. The mediation conference planned for 21st September is also proving really popular too. Bring it on!

Barry Phillips, CEO

Guest Writer: Debbie Wilson, 15th Aug 2011

2011-08-15T02:21:00.000-07:00

The 'Buzz' in the office this morning was just too much to handle.

A secret competition was scheduled by Heather to take place with no information given on what it may be but we were informed to bring as many 50 pence pieces as we wished to donate to charity in order to take part.

And so it began.....we were all lined up overlooking the balcony with the aim to throw our 50 pence pieces down to the ground below, closest to the target wins!!

Ainsley was closest right to the end but Heather snatched the victory in the end. Well done Heather!!

Our movements for this week are:

Our CEO, Barry, is busy today with internal meetings. Tomorrow he's giving evidence in a court case having witnessed an assult in Regents Park a few months back. That'll feel strange being back in court but in the witness box. Later in the week he plans to take a couple of days leave good weather depending. Somehow I have a feeling he may choose to stay at work.

Jayne, MD, is busy all week in the office catching up on her usual meetings.

Our Marketing Manager, Ainsley has a meeting in Belfast tomorrow with Brian Nelson from Forth Data.

Heather, Conference Manager for the South will be in the office all week with a meeting tomorrow about our Annual Review events before she jets off on holiday this weekend. Lucky girl!

Onwards into the busy week ahead........

Guest Writer - Arnold Majcher

2011-08-08T06:12:00.000-07:00

This is one of the last quiet weeks in Legal Island. While some of the staff members are on holiday, others are working hard before second season of events begins.

Networking :

Jayne is in the office all week having her Performance Review on Tuesday with Barry and Ainsley’s Review on Thursday.

Our CEO, Barry Phillips has quite a light week by his standards. Today he has internal meetings. Tomorrow he's meeting James Carey from Hutchinson Homes and a Performance Review to do in the afternoon.

Wednesday to Thursday he's in the office. Almost a holiday for him!

Heather is meeting with Jennie from MacMillan regarding volunteering at the MacMillan Unit at Antrim Area Hospital.

Enjoy your week!

Guest writer: Jacqui

2011-08-01T04:53:00.000-07:00

Rory McIlroy says he dislikes the impact the weather conditions are having on his game and I agree whole heartedly.

With a change in the weather comes a change in attitude, however that doesn't apply to us on the Island. Anyhow, enough about the weather.

We welcome Jayne back from her break in Spain and of course, she is ready, as always to take the reins and forge ahead into the second season.

Speaking of the second season, our Marketing department have finalised the programme of events for NI and ROI and are posting them out this week. To avail of our "early bird offers", why not take a look at our website.

Our CEO Barry Phillips, has a busy week ahead. Today he's in the office all day catching up on emails. Tomorrow he's meeting Ciaran Sheehan from Clarendon Executive for breakfast before heading to Dublin and meeting Sophie Rowan from Pinpoint and David Fagan from Eversheds. On Wednesday he's back in Belfast meeting Michele Groves from Charis Consultancy and Tom Evans from DEL for lunch. On Thursday he has a performance review to do and on Friday he's out networking meeting folk relevant to the Child Protection Conference we have planned for early next year. I said he was busy didn't I?

Heather has a meeting with Michael Maguire of Quintus Management planned for Friday when she will discuss his book "It's our thing, 300 Years of Irish Brands".

There's nothing to report for Scott, who is jetting off to Portugal for a well deserved break. And Kerry is also heading to sunnier climbs at the weekend when she to goes off on her hols, only to return rearing to get stuck into the second season too.

Enjoy your week ahead!!

Guest writer: John Hardy

2011-07-25T04:10:00.000-07:00

It's summer holidays time and a few lucky members of staff are jetting off to exotic places, others have returned from (not quite) exotic places, and a few of us havent been anywhere at all- unless you count tropical Legal Island!. None the less, the work continues in the Legal-Island office, albeit at a more relaxed pace.

Although they are not for another few months, planning for the Annual Reviews is in full swing and they will be taking up a lot of the staff's time today and tomorrow, especially for Heather and Kerry our Conference Managers.

In the Marketing Department, Peter and Pamela are very busy putting the final touches to the brochures for our second season events which may be landing on your desk any time soon! Peter is taking care of the brochures for the NI events, whilst Pamela is looking after the southern events. Check out the events taking place in our second season in Northern Ireland here and Republic of Ireland here.

If you still haven't gone on your holidays, or are back in the office and would like to get away for a day, why not take your board meeting, training or networking event to our Training Centre which offers a top-quality venue at very reasonable prices.

Happy holidays!

Monday 18th July 2011: Posted by Phyllis

2011-07-18T03:29:00.000-07:00

What a weekend for Darren Clarke. The weather was terrible but he battled on and after 20 years of trying he has won his first golfing major - The Open Championship.

Poor Jim in The Apprentice didn't quite make it to become Lord Sugar's business partner - but he did very well to be in the final 4.

Here on the Island we are preparing for the second season of events and everyone is working hard to ensure it will be as successful as ever packed with everything that you our delegates require.

Staff movements this week include:-

for Jayne on Wednesday – BNI breakfast meeting at Ramada Encore, usual internal meetings this week and then off for a week on Friday.

Scott is meeting at PwC and the Belfast Telegraph on Wednesday and will be meeting solicitors from A&L Goodbody at the Legal-Island Training Centre on Thursday. Scott hopes to be working from home on Tuesday and Friday.

Pamela has the monthly marketing meeting on Tuesday at 10am.
This week also sees the beginning of our performance reviews. Peter and Pamela from our marketing department will be meeting with our Marketing & Sales Manager Ainsley on Tuesday afternoon.

To finish we just want to let Jacqui from our accounts department know that we are thinking of her and look forward to having her back to work when she can.

Guest Writer - Jayne Finlay

2011-07-11T02:52:00.000-07:00

So training week is over, our brains are well and truly filled to capacity and after our defeat in the latest Abacus vs Legal-Island Challenge at crazy golf (which by the way we were robbed in) we are all now looking forward to a day's rest on the 12th July, and for the majority of staff the start of well deserved holidays.

Vanessa is finishing up for 2 weeks today, while Debbie, Barry and Ainsley have pipped her to post by heading off on their holidays at the weekend (not together I might add).

For those of us still struggling on until the sunshine of America and Spain greets us here are the movements this week...

Donna will be busy working on her Performance Reviews, Heather and Kerry will be busy finalising details for second season while putting their brains to good use by thinking creatively for Annual Review. Peter will be snowed under finalising brochures with the designer while Arnold will be keeping the place looking ship shape by tidying up the paint job in the training centre. All NI and ROI second season events are now available for booking online and the Annual Review programme will shortly be publicised so keep an eye out!!

I, meanwhile, will be working away in the office until Thursday when I meet with Lyndsey from BITC.

Have a fantastic short week everyone - let's hope for some sunshine!!!

4th July, Guest Writer Heather, Conference Manager ROI

2011-07-04T06:01:00.000-07:00

Review, Refresh and Revise

Is our theme of the week in Legal-Island, it's our 6 monthly training week. This is where we get the opportunity to brush up on new skills such as networking, Customer Care with Penny Thornberry of P Thornberry Solutions and managing stress with Stephen Wray of Carecall. To refresh all the staff we will have a short health review from the Ulster Cancer Foundation.

We like to review our working practices during our training week and so have a session built in to look at new ways of doing things, this can be anything to do with Legal-Island at all. It will be interesting to see what new ideas we come up with.

This week started out on a major high for Kerry, our Conference Manager for the North of Ireland, who got a ride in the Legal-Island hot air balloon, lets hope that's all the hot air there is for this week!

And finally to the climax of the week, a challenge like no other, a rivalry to rival all others its the Legal-Island v Abacus challenge day returned for another year. Now I do feel it important to point out at this stage that we are the currently the victors, but can Abacus take it back this year.....who knows?? (But I'm fairly confident we have have it in the bag!)

Guest Writer - Donna

2011-06-27T02:33:00.000-07:00

Unbelievable...

Did you know it is only 181 days to Christmas - time is shifting on and we at Legal-Island have so much to cram in before then that really I don't have time to chat for long today. Never mind Christmas, it is only 129 days to our first Annual Review at the Red Cow in Dublin with 4 more to follow across November in NI and ROI- keep your eyes peeled at www.legal-island.com for booking details.

Out and About...

Our CEO Barry has a busy week of networking ahead. Today he Jayne and Kerry are meeting Brian Grimshaw from Sinai Training. On Tuesday he's meeting Ken Thompson just after lunch and then attending the launch of the Data Sharing Code of Practice in Belfast. On Wednesday he's attending a dinner with the Minister of Health at the Merchant. On Thursday he's in Birmingham for a mediation conference. On Friday he's meeting John Brolly from the Irish News for breakfast and over lunch he and Jayne are meeting the owners of "Towards Consulting. Packed as ever but that's how he likes it.

Scott is volunteering at Antrim Grammar School on Tuesday and hopes to work from home for the rest of the week and on Saturday is attending an ADR conference in Dublin run by the Employment Lawyers’ Association of Ireland

Heather is meeting with Fionnuala from Clic Sargent on Wednesday and then on Thursday I’m in Dublin to meet with the Annual Review venues.

Good deeds...

Last week Arnold and James helped out at the MS offices in Belfast by painting - both are available for painting at weekends if any of you need any painting done - I will be booking them first so join the queue.

Sharon was helping out at Antrim Primary school sports day and had a wonderful with the children plus she got a t-shirt - everyone loves a new t-shirt.

What you need to do next....

If you are like me and hate to miss out on a good day out, get yourself onto our website at www.legal-island.com and when your boss asks what you would like for a Christmas present, you will be able to give him a list of Legal-Island events well worth attending - Happy Christmas from all at Legal-Island!!!

Guest Writer: Vanessa

2011-06-20T03:05:00.000-07:00

It’s another busy week for us here on the Island with the last NI Conference of Season One taking place on Thursday – it’s the sold out Agency Workers Regulations – your Questions Answered at the Hilton Templepatrick being ably hosted by Kerry.

Barry will be out and about, on Monday his day is full of internal meetings. Tuesday sees him out networking - meeting Mary Montague of Tides Training, Joan Davis of FamilyMediation NI and then Barry Fitzpatrick for lunch. He’s off to Dublin on Wednesday setting a new record for speed and distance networking, meeting Maeve Regan from NCLC at Coolock then Mary Kelly at Maynooth University followed by Marian Jennings for lunch at the Burlington. Thereafter he's meeting Austin Kenny from ICMA and finally Michael Lantry from Certification Europe before heading north for home – phew! On Thursday he's attending a breakfast seminar before flying to London for a meeting in the afternoon and an EBA seminar the next day.

I will be at the same breakfast seminar as Barry on Thursday – the launch of the Northern Ireland “Gold Star” Service Excellence certification scheme, which has been developed in partnership with the NI Consumer Council and the NI Chamber of Commerce for the purpose of raising customer service standards in the private sector across Northern Ireland businesses. Additionally I am meeting

Andrew Cuthbert of Omnisoft Services on Wednesday morning to discuss changes to the Legal-Island Event Registration System and Website.

Today Jayne has her usual internal meetings. She is meeting Omnisoft briefly and then has an internal credit control meeting on Wednesday. On Thursday she is attending Recipro Executive Learning at Crawfordsburn Inn from 8am – 11am, followed by meeting with Lyndsey from, BITC at 12noon at their offices, then back to the Island for an Annual Review meeting with the Conference Executives and Marketing Team.

One of our volunteering initatives comes to an end on Friday – when Kerry, Heather and Jayne will be attending Ballycraigy Primary Assembly to present hockey trophies.

Scott will be working from home on Tuesday this week. He is meeting Elaine Magee from Antrim BC on Wednesday and will be chairing our Agency Worker event at the Templepatrick Hilton on Thursday. On Friday Scott will be attending a meeting of the Mediation Council NI and other meetings in Belfast.

On Wednesday afternoon Ainsley will be volunteering and on Friday afternoon he will be attending a Customer Relationship Management Event at the Holiday Inn, Belfast.

Finally congratulations to Rory McIlroy – the best example of “bouncebackability” I can remember. Back in April after his Masters meltdown, nearly all the pundits were saying it would take him months if not years to recover his game and go on and win a major tournament – here we are two months on and he has won the US Open by eight shots and smashed the course record at 16 under par. Sadly we didn’t win the Champion of Champions award at last weeks Irish News awards – the honour went to Allstate – however, our plans for the upcoming year will demonstrate that here at Legal Island we also turn disappointment into opportunity!

Guest Writer: Peter

2011-06-13T04:44:00.001-07:00

Barry has nothing planned for today other than lots of internal meetings. On Tuesday he's visiting a school in Northern Ireland to talk to kids about entrepreneurship. Later that day he's meeting old colleagues from the Law Centre NI to talk about possible mediation interests. On Thursday he's off to the Irish News Awards at the Ramada and who knows what will happen?! On Friday he's meeting his coach, Richard O'Rawe for as Barry puts it "a good kickin".

Scott is chairing the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network meeting on Tuesday, where 20 local HR professionals are expected to hear guest speaker, Anne Dargan of Rapid Change Consultancy, discuss "Leading Through Tough Times":

"Anne Dargan argues that more must be done to support leaders through tough times; they need to be at peak performance, yet many are at best merely surviving. Anne challenges what HR need to do to support these leaders and offers practical advice so you can help them perform at their best."
anne@rapidchangeconsultancy.com

After Anne’s presentation, members will discuss current HR issues and will then have a tour of the JTI Gallagher tobacco plant in Ballymena, where the meeting is being held.

On Thursday, Scott will be attending the Irish News Workplace Awards, where Legal-Island hopes to win the champion of champions award.

Jayne has a very busy week ahead too. On Monday she has her usual meetings with staff. On Tuesday morning she’ll be joined by Heather at the BITC New Members Breakfast at PWC in Belfast, whilst in the afternoon she’s ‘peer reviewing’ Vanessa – a process whereby each member of staff reviews another member of staffs working practices. The main idea behind this is to improve working practices and find ways of improving efficiency. Constructive comments and creative ideas at the ready!

On Wednesday, she’s attending the monthly marketing meeting, then being ‘peer reviewed’ by Scott. I wonder will he take Vanessa’s revenge? Jayne then has a finance meeting on Thursday morning, followed by the Irish News Awards dinner on Thursday evening. She might have a glass of bubbly if we win, so Friday will be taken as annual leave as a precaution.

Ainsley has a meeting with Brian Nelson from Forth Data on Wednesday followed by volunteering at Ballycraigy in the afternoon with Peter. He is also attending the Irish News Awards evening at the Ramada.

Heather is at BITC New members breakfast event with Jayne tomorrow morning, and Hilton Summer Party tomorrow evening with Kerry. Then on Friday she is off to Stormont for a Women in Business and Network Ireland event.

Here we go again!

Guest Writer: Ainsley

2011-06-06T04:27:00.001-07:00

EGGS-EEDING EGGS-PECTATIONS!

'The Girls' did well last week....very well in fact. Production has increased to such an extent, that the tupperware 'collection' container is now overflowing with recent offerings. And all this after James took a couple home at the weekend for his breakfast.

Still on the egg theme, we also discovered an interesting (and factually correct) way of checking an egg's freshness. You put the egg in a bowl of water and if it sinks, it's ok. If it stands up, it's still ok but getting on a bit. If it floats, it's bad and you shouldn't eat it.

You can always rely on Legal-Island to give you the very latest information and advice.

This week is another busy one for everyone on the Island. Our CEO, Barry, is chairing the Data Protection & Compliance Update Conference on Wednesday in the Le Mon Hotel, Belfast. This event will be hosted by our Northern Ireland Conference Manager, Kerry. If you're interested in attending and haven't yet booked your place, you'll need to be quick - there are only a few places remaining!

Our MD, Jayne, has lots of internal meetings this week, including a number of Mini-Reviews with staff - part of our commitment to continuous personal development. Jayne will also be meeting David Braziel from Team Solutionz tomorrow afternoon.

Heather Stewart, Conference Manager for ROI, will be helping out with the Data Protection event this week and will also be part of our 'Innovation Club' meeting on Thursday where we try to brainstorm new and exciting ways to exceed the expectations of our customers.

Scott will be meeting Luke Fuller and Fiona Burns from Hays Recruitment on Tuesday and on Thursday, he will be assisting at our Dublin event Dealing and Negotiating with Employee Representatives. There are a few places left on this event as well if you haven't yet booked your place.

AA Drivetech are using our Training Centre today and tomorrow, taking advantage of the convenient location, excellent rates and accomodating staff! If you haven't seen our state-of-the-art Training Centre, you can have a look at our video or download a brochure for more information.

Myself and Peter will be volunteering again at Ballycraigy Primary School on Wednesday afternoon, continuing their football education.

Here's to another eggs-ellent week!

Guest Writer: Kerry

2011-06-01T01:57:00.000-07:00

The big news this week is that Legal-Island has been shortlisted in the Champion of Champions category in the Irish News Awards. With a number of awards already under our belt this would be truly be the icing on the Willy Wonka chocolate cake…

Volunteering on the Island continues with Pamela spending her time at the T.A.C.T. in Crumlin last week. She is pictured here with a Kestrel that is currently being trained to fly independently, in the hope that it will be released back into the wild soon. She also cleaned out and fed a range of animals including pigeons, blackbirds, sparrow hawks, ferrets, hedgehogs, rabbits and chickens (is this meant to be giving me ideas for the exotic meat options at the next Annual Review!?!). On Wednesday Pamela is attending a breakfast seminar ‘Social Media – Friend or Foe?’ organised by the NI Chamber at the Fitzwilliam Hotel, Belfast.

Our CEO has a busy day on Tuesday. He has internal meetings pretty much all day before facilitating a discussion group this evening on mediation and its future in Northern Ireland. Tomorrow he's off to Dublin to visit his old workplace, Northside Community Law Centre, to find out about their mediation project. On Thursday morning he's chairing a breakfast seminar also on the topic of mediation. Thereafter he's leaving his two step brothers, over from Manchester, to paint his house for 3 days while he goes and relaxes in London in early celebration of his birthday. He's good to himself our CEO...!

Scott is meeting Tanya Kennedy of BITC and Pauline Shepherd, ex-NI Water on Wednesday. On Thursday he will be chairing the Legal-Island event, Absence, Age and Retirement at the Radisson Blu, Dublin Airport. On Friday he will be working from home.

In her own words Heather will be ‘awesomely’ hosting two events - Absence, Age & Retirement and Understanding UK Employment Law - in the Radisson Dublin Airport on Thursday.

Jayne is in internal meetings for most of day on Tuesday and from Wednesday to Friday is attending a Toward Consulting Purposeful Coach Programme at the Culloden. (www.towardconsulting.com)

Both Peter and Ainsley will be coaching the Football team at Ballycraigy Primary School on Wednesday.

I will be hosting the Making Mediation part of your Practice Breakfast Seminar at the Holiday Inn in Belfast on Thursday morning and then have a meeting with the La Mon Hotel mid morning before returning to the office.

And finally I sadly missed out on an award myself this week... This award was for the best rescue of a non missing hen… I was just pipped at the post by Donna. Congratulations!

Birthday wishes to Jacqui and Barry this week.

Guest writer: Pamela Park

2011-05-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

Well done to Debbie for volunteering at the Silver Surfers Day in Antrim library last Friday. I am sure you’ll have made a huge difference to each individual in enabling them access the net. We’ll watch out for them on Twitter and Facebook. Who knows they may even start their own blog!

This week is gonna be as blustery as the weather, as there’s yet another busy week ahead.

Our CEO Barry has internal meetings all day today until 4p.m. after which he will be attending a Mediation Symposium at the Law Society HQ in Belfast.

On Tuesday he's pulling out all the stops to do a whole load of "speed networking" meeting first his old chum Colin Daly at the Northside Community Law Centre in Dublin. Thereafter he's visiting Lemans Solicitors in Dublin 2 to talk about some new education seminars. He's meeting Liz Ryan of Mason Hayes for lunch. After that he's off to Eversheds for a meeting with David Fagan finishing with a quick coffee at the offices of O'Rourke Reid to see star performer Killian O'Reilly. He's then shooting up the motorway to meet top Legal-Island speaker Paul Joyce off the train before taking him to dinner in Antrim.

On Wednesday he's meeting David Brazier from Teamsolutions about our new conference software.

On Thursday he's meeting Kat Hinfey from Carecall for breakfast, Stella Gilmartin later that day to chat about mediation developments and Pamela Woods later that evening to talk about changes to child protection legislation.

On Friday he's attending an Annual Review Conference meeting where we'll be brainstorming what goes in our flagship event later this year. Phew!

Jayne our Managing Director has her usual internal meetings today. Tomorrow she will be carrying out interviews for an Intern with Ainsley, our Marketing Manager. On Friday she’ll be getting her thinking cap on when she joins our managers in a meeting to discuss ideas for our Annual Review of Employment Law Conference which will take place in Belfast and Dublin later this year.

Scott who is our Head of Training and Development is meeting Tanya Kennedy from BITC on Tuesday and is in Dublin on Wednesday networking and on Thursday chairing our ‘Hot Topics’ event at ByrneWallace offices, Dublin.

Apart from interviewing for an Intern, Ainsley our Marketing Manager is also meeting Andrew Cuthbert from Omnisoft on Thursday to discuss social media software and how it can be used by Legal-Island.

Kerry, Conference Manager for Northern Ireland is meeting with Olive McCartney from the Antrim Civic Centre on Tuesday. She will be hosting both the Understanding Irish Employment Law at the Hilton, Belfast on Wednesday and the second day of our Internal Mediation course on Thursday in the Legal-Island Training Centre.

On Thursday morning, alongside Donna, Office Manager, she will be attending Ballycraigy Primary school to present certificates in their morning assembly to all the pupils who participated in the 10 week hockey programme which was one of our volunteer projects this year.

Kerry would like to take this opportunity to say a very well done to both teams who played in the Antrim sixes tournament last week. And an extra special congratulations to the boys team who lifted the Plate on the day!!

Heather, Conference Manager for Republic of Ireland is meeting Hilary Dickson from Business in the Community (BITC) later today and on Thursday she’ll be hosting our ‘Hot Topics’ event at ByrneWallace offices, Dublin.

Peter, Marketing Officer is attending a Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce ‘Sponsorship and Advertising Opportunities’ seminar at the Fitzwilliam Hotel, Belfast on Tuesday and volunteering with the Ballycraigy Primary School footballers on Wednesday afternoon.

This week I’ll be completing my volunteering day at T.A.C.T. which is the Talnotry Avian Care Trust based in Crumlin. They rescue sick, injured and abandoned wild birds and animals and currently have over 350 long term animals in their care. They receive no Government funding so I am sure my time here will be well spent.

Enjoy your week!

Guest Writer: Scott

2011-05-16T03:18:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday Scott will be helping on the Learn to Earn programme as part of our volunteering work with Young Enterprise NI: He'll be based in Parkhall College, Antrim, for the day.

On Thursday he turns trainer and will be facilitating sessions, along with Lorraine Toolan of the EEF, on discipline and underperformance at work.

He'll be leaving early on Friday to go to Scotland to get his eldest daughter, Catriona, from university. Do you remember when summer holidays seemed to last forever?

Barry the CEO has an easy enough early part of the week with nothing more than internal meetings planned until jetting off to London for a couple of days on Wednesday. In the big smoke he's attending a conference delivered by Peter Thompson. He's also meeting a representative at Squires Saunders Hammonds and then Colin Carrol for drinks and a chat Wednesday evening. On Friday he's with coach Richard O'Rawe in the morning and has an "Ompa lumpa" lunchtime meeting on Friday.

Ainsley will be at Ballycraigy Primary School on Wednesday afternoon coaching the kids football and then on Thursday afternoon he will be meeting Cleo Devaney from Tibus to discuss our website.

Pamela will be attending a National Training Awards Information Seminar at DEL Offices in Belfast from 8.30-10am this Wednesday. We are not entering the awards this year but it is all for preparation for an application in 2012.

Donna is in charge of the de-clutter day in the office this Tuesday.

On Friday Debbie will be volunteering at Antrim Library, helping out by teaching basic computer skills at the Silver Surfers’ Day.

Heather will be attending the following women in business event on Thursday: WIB NI BUSINESS FORUM 2011

Jayne is meeting Anne Dargan on Tuesday, decluttering and then meeting Kerry and Ainsley for one to one meetings. On Wednesday am – she has a photo shoot then finance meeting, then Heather meeting. On Thursday Jayne is covering hosting of Mediation 1 in Training Centre then 2pm Donna meeting.

On Friday – Jayne is attending hockey tournament from 11.30am with Ballycraigy Primary, followed by a 3pm meeting on email service.

Onwards!

Guest Write Barry Phillips CEO

2011-05-09T04:02:00.001-07:00

I'm so lucky to feel so proud of my staff. Here’s one employee who stood outside Tesco last Friday collecting money for a good cause. That takes bottle. Well done Vanessa say I.
As a company we’re up to two really important but quite different things this week. We’re all “de-clunking”. In otherwords, we’re going through files and folders, drawers and cupboards to see what we can throw away. No doubt we'll feel we have an office twice the size once done. We’re also working on our application to the Irish News for the Champion of Champion award. We’ve won an award over the last few years six times including “Best Place to Work” twice so the pressure's on. We’ve got something a bit wacky in mind. But then we do wacky. And rather well I might add.

On Tuesday our conference executive Scott will be meeting Rosie Smyth from Ulster Supported Employment Ltd. USEL was established in 1962 with the aim of providing supported paid employment for people with disabilities within its Belfast manufacturing base.
Our MD (sporting a fine new hairdo incidentally) is in meetings all day today. Tuesday evening she's attending the B4B event "Generating income and good customer relationships" at the Wellington Park Hotel, Belfast. Thursday and she’s attending the CforC course on Facilitation Skills at Holiday Inn Express Antrim. She’s in the office rest of week, internal meetings etc with no doubt something spectacular planned for the weekend.
Our conference manager ROI Heather is off to England covering the TUPE seminar in London on Wednesday. Bon voyage Heather.
Our conference manager NI Kerry is hosting the second day of the Internal Mediation course on Tuesday in the Legal-Island Training Centre and is attending an 'Art in the Garden' networking event at the Culloden that same evening. Apparently she knows these gardens well having visited these and many others in the summer when playing her tuba in the local silverband for 6 years. On Thursday she will be presenting Ballycraigy Primary School with their sponsored hockey kits and will be helping out at a small local tournament in preparation for next weeks Antrim Sixes Tournament. Come on "Anrim"!
Ainsley our marketing and sales manager has a busy week too. Tomorrow evening he’s attending a B4B event with Jayne at the Wellington Park Hotel. On Wednesday he’s volunteering at Ballycraigy Primary School coaching football. On Thursday he’s running the innovation club. In between times like the rest of us he’s busy de-clunking.

Me, myself and I are busy this week with a combination of internal staff meeting and networking meetings. On Monday I have the usual one-to-ones with senior staff. On Tuesday I'm meeting Clive Byrne from NAPD and Michael Lantry from Certification Europe after that. I’m seeing Hannah Carney from Hannah Carney Associates for lunch and finally Marion Courtney late afternoon. Later that same day I’m attending “Generating Income and Good Customer Relationships” with other Legal-Island staff at the Wellie Park in Belfast. On Friday of this week I’m attending a Sales seminar at the Hilton and afterwards meeting Jim McBain of ASCL and George Wilson of the Centre for Competiveness and finally the company account Mike Nangle for lunch.

Onwards Islanders!

2011-05-03T01:43:00.000-07:00

Guest writer: Debbie Wilson

Now that the confetti has settled and the "I do's" have been said welcome back to Legal-Island from a glorious Bank Holiday. The Royal Wedding has passed and William and Kate are now husband and wife.

I would like to take this opportunity for wish the new Duke and Duchess of Cambridge a long and happy life together and I think I speak for everyone when I say Kate was absolutely beautiful!!

Staff movements for the forthcoming week are as follows:

Barry is busy this week. He's just back from a few days in Moscow. What's the Russian for "pay back time" I wonder? He's meeting Mike Jones from Penna here on Friday but other than that he's fairly office bound all week for a change.

Scott will be assisting at the 'Managing Underperformance in the Public Sector' workshop on 5th May and will be meeting with Penna representatives on Friday to discuss the feedback from the HR Conference.

Jayne is in Strategy day follow up meetings today and will also be meeting with Barry. On Wednesday she has a a marketing meeting and is also attending a meeting with the Irish News.

Heather will be in the office all week involved in planning 2012 meetings.

Vanessa will be volunteering for Marie Curie on Friday, working in the charity shop in town in the morning and collecting donations from kind shoppers in the afternoon.

Here's to another busy week at Legal-Island.......

Guest writer: James

2011-04-26T03:54:00.000-07:00

I was reminded by Barry not to forget the photo; so in keeping with the 1981 theme on 5 Live this morning I thought you'd all enjoy a circa 1984 version of me. Thank God there were no camera phones in those days and only a few closely guarded records of my exploits remain.

1981 was of course the last big Royal Wedding and if there's any fluffed lines this time they'll never hear the end of it with YouTube et al. We all know the horror that can be The Wedding Video! Scott has yet to watch his and is banned from Friday viewing unless it gets an airing first. Sounds like Scott will be doing the housework on Friday...

Talking of housework: we are all tasked with an office spring clean in the next few weeks with Shred-it coming in on the 17th May to take care of all our confidential clutter. I see Barry has got the jump on us over the holiday weekend so he can dictate the clear-desk policy with a clear conscience (for once). He even claims to have given the hen house a deep clean on Saturday.

As always Barry has big plans even for this reduced working week:

Tomorrow he's meeting Alva Brangam QC to pick his brains on mediation in NI. He's also meeting Melanie Donnelly from Full Circle too. On Thursday he's back in the office with internal meetings and on Friday he's off to Dublin to meet Gerry Rooney of Baker Tilly and John Hogan of Lemans Solicitors. Obviously he'll be watching the big event on his i-phone? For the long weekend he's off to Moscow (as you do) to stay with some friends. Now they do May day in style!

The rest of us who are here this week will be trying to catch up on paperwork with the brief hiatus in conference work. Quick, better go, I think I hear the paper police coming!

Enjoy the holiday - however long you get.

James

Guest writer: John, 18th April 2011

2011-04-18T03:40:00.000-07:00

After seeing this photo of the HR Conference last week and how well the tables looked, it is rumoured that the Middletons may be asking Legal-Island to help organise the Royal Wedding! However, with a few staff off on holidays from Thursday, we may have to wait until Harry finds his princess before before we get invited to do the job.

With everyone looking forward to Easter and hoping the good weather lasts, its another active week on the Island.

Now that our CEO, Barry Phillips, I guess we wont be able to use his office and we'll have to get back to looking terribly busy again! Barry's in internal meetings pretty much all of today. He is meeting Julian Simpson of Exped8 for lunch. On Tuesday he's attending the Payroll Matters conference in Belfast albeit very briefly. On Wednesday and Thursday he is in strategy meetings with certain staff members. On Good Friday he is in doing a lot of work while others are off enjoying themselves.

Scott will be chairing a meeting of the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network on Tuesday the 19th April. The meeting will be held at Decora Blinds in Lisburn and the guest speaker will be Emma-Jane Flannery of Arthur Cox solicitors, who will be discussing employment law and social media.

Ainsley will be involved in the strategy meetings this week, and has a lunch meeting with Anne Monaghan from Inform PR tomorrow.

James is busy preparing for the finance meeting tomorrow and then strategy meetings on Wednesday and Thursday.

Jayne has her usual meetings this week, as well as the strategy meetings later in the week. Tomorrow she has a Business in the Community meeting at 4pm, and she has volunteered to come in to the office on Good Friday to cover the phones.

In what sounds like an exciting meeting, Heather will be speaking to Bertrand from Supernova Productions tomorrow afternoon.

Have a nice week.

2011-04-11T02:31:00.000-07:00

Monday 11th April 2011

Guest writer Phyllis McMahon

We had exciting news here at Legal-Island on Friday afternoon. Julie rang to let us know -Baby Grace Lynn McCloskey was born at 11.05 and has sandy hair with blue eyes and in her mother’s words is “just perfect”. Congratulations to Julie and Peter I'm sure all the sleepless nights will be worth it.

It has been a glorious weekend, spirits are high as we go into another very busy week.

Today Barry is meeting the company coach, Richard O’Rawe and then has internal meetings with senior staff this afternoon. Tomorrow he’s off to London for a business growth seminar. On Wednesday he has a meeting in the City and Thursday and Friday no doubt he’ll be out networking or working on a business development idea.

Today Jayne is off to Manchester for Agency and Data Protection meetings which will run tomorrow. On Thursday she is hosting at the HR Conference and for the rest of week she has internal meetings.

Peter is volunteering with the Ballycraigy Primary School footballers on Wednesday afternoon and looking after the exhibitors at the HR Conference on Thursday

Scott will be chairing the NI HR Conference at the Ramada on Thursday 14 April.

Heather is at a meeting on Tuesday with Antrim Borough Council to discuss their fundraising for McMillan Palliative Care Unit. On Wednesday she is at Corrs Corner for the Education Law Update On Thursday she is attending the Women In Business Membership Information Seminar and then she will be taking the hockey at Ballycraigy Primary School.

Kerry has the NI Education Law Update on Wednesday in Corrs, which Heather will be kindly hosting for her. She will be out at the NI Annual HR Conference on Thursday at the Ramada with Peter, Jayne and Scott as chair.

Enjoy your week.

Guest Writer: Jacqui, 4th April 2011

2011-04-04T03:57:00.000-07:00

It's hard to believe that the first quarter of the year has already passed.

We finished off the quarter with Age & Retirement event in Belfast, which by all accounts was a very successful day and well done to all those concerned. We are also holding this event in Dublin on June 2nd.

I would like to welcome Allison Sutherland onto the Island. She previously worked for Duncan Bannatyne and left his employ to move over to N.Ireland, so she comes with high credentials. Allison will be joining us for the next two months in a marketing consultancy capacity.

This week we have Schrader making use of the Training centre on Thursday and as far as staff movements go, we are busy as usual.

Barry is off to Dublin today and will be back on the Island tomorrow.

On Tuesday, Scott will be meeting Invest NI representatives, along with Penny Thornberry of P Thornberry Solutions. On Wednesday, Scott will be in Dublin to meet lawyers from both ByrneWallace solicitors and Hayes solicitors about some of our Republic of Ireland events. Scott will be working from home on Thursday and Friday.

Our MD, Jayne is leaving today and jetting off to London for 2 events, Data Protection and Agency Workers which we are running in conjunction with Squire Sanders Hammonds. Then Jayne is back in the office on Thursday, when she and Ainsley will be interviewing candidates for a Marketing Internship.

Heather is again, heading to Dublin where she will be hosting our Essentials of Employment Law and Dealing with Teacher Misconduct on Wednesday and on Thursday she will be at Discipline and Underperformance Matters.

Peter is volunteering with the footballers of Ballycraigy P.S on Wednesday afternoon. And on Thursday evening he is attending a social media event at Citi Golf.

Donna is at the launch of Safe Place Initiative in Antrim on Thursday which has been organised by Women's Aid.

From everyone here on the Island, have a great week ahead!!

Guest Writer - Arnold, 28 March

2011-03-28T06:17:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Legal-Island Blog.

Last week saw the start of mental health awareness week . We at Legal-Island took an active role so last Thursday we had a relaxation day, all staff had a 10 minutes break and listened to a relaxation podcast. Friday was a ‘’Fruity’’ day where everybody had a healthy lunch and some fruit smoothies .Today we had the option of going for a short walk or being part of a Wii bowling competition at lunch time.

Our training centre will be use by Royal College of GP’s on Wednesday and Health Improvement Committee on Thursday.

Today is a Julie’s last day before she heads off on maternity leave. We wish her all the best and looking forward to seeing her back in Legal-Island.

Networking:

Jayne

On Tuesday Jayne is attending Recruitment and Selection workshop at the Leighinmor House Hotel in Ballymena

Wednesday morning she is attending the IoD Reform Club in Belfast for an IoD Young Directors Forum

Friday she is in Dublin for Association of Coaching Annual Meeting

Heather

Heather is in Ballycraigy Primary School helping out with the hockey on Thursday.

Ainsley

Ainsley is going to coach junior football at Ballycraigy Primary School on Wednesday afternoon, followed by a visit to Parkhall College to continue with the Young Enterprise initiative.

Scott

Scott will be mediating in a dispute on Tuesday and will be chairing the ‘Age and Retirement’ event at the Ramada Hotel, Shaw’s Bridge, on 31 March. He may be working from home on Wednesday and/or Friday

Kerry

Kerry will be out hosting the Age and Retirement Event at the Ramada,Shawsbridge, on Thursday.

Barry

Barry's head is buzzing today after attending a seminar in London over
the weekend. He's meeting Will McKee from Linkubator over lunch today
and is in the office all day tomorrow. On Wednesday morning he's
attending a breakfast seminar at the Radisson Row Valley Country Park
delivered by the head of the Bank of England. For the rest of the time
he's in the office working on new programmes. On Saturday he flies to
Geneva for the weekend. How do the Swiss say "Lucky Pup" I wonder?

Guest Writer Jayne Finlay 21st March 2011

2011-03-21T05:56:00.000-07:00

Hello to another week on the Island! And a busy one it is too...

After a week off it fills like I've never been away, somehow Island House does not have quite the same ring as Top of the Rock but I couldn't stay (or afford to stay!) in New York forever! So I'm back to face the challenges ahead!

A big Legal-Island welcome to our new start Debbie! Debbie joins us as a part time administrator working every Monday, Tuesday and Friday - we look forward to working with you Debbie!

And so this weeks networking begins...

Barry has a packed week as ever. He’s meeting Will McKee Monday afternoon to discuss some business issues. On Tuesday morning he’s meeting Peter O’Reilly from Mediation Northern Ireland before attending the launch of the Irish News Awards at the Belfast Waterfront Hall. That same afternoon he’s attending a seminar delivered by Ira Koretsky through until 6p.m. after which he’s hosting a dinner discussion on the way forward for mediation in NI.

On Wednesday he’s at an export seminar in the morning at the Innovation centre. On Thursday he’s at a breakfast seminar delivered by Brian Dunlop and that yet another seminar straight after that delivered by the Centre for Competitiveness. On Friday Barry’s in the office all day before flying off to London for an all day EBA seminar on Saturday.

Scott is meeting with Joe Blair of MBS and Penny Thornberry on Tuesday to discuss customer care events. On Friday Scott is visiting Decora Blinds in Lisburn as the guest of HR Manager Mark McGurnaghan.

Ainsley is meeting Paula Milligan (Marketing Consultant) on Wednesday morning, followed by football at Ballycraigy and Young Enterprise on Wednesday afternoon. Ainsley as always will be on the ball generating more sales for our conferences.

I am in and our of meetings most of Monday, on Wednesday I am at the Europa Hotel with Kerry for a WIB and Chamber of Commerce Networking event. After this I will be helping out with the Ballycraigy school hockey team.

Heather is off to Dublin tomorrow for a number of ROI events and on Thursday the Training Centre holds Section 75

That's a lot to be getting on with for this week I think!

See you all soon!

Guest Writer - Heather, 14th March 2011

2011-03-14T05:36:00.000-07:00

Hello all, or should I say cock-a-doodle-doo!

That's right Barry finally got the Legal-Island hens and what stunning chicks they are! We have 4 Aruncan hens which will hopefully lay some lovely blue/green eggs. Everyone is more than welcome to call round to meet Biatta, Britney, Christina and last but not least Henrietta.

It's an egg-citing week this week at the Island, with of course lots of networking as usual. Here is what we are all at this week:

Barry

is standing in for MD, Jayne Finlay, (who’s in New York) leading the troops in the Monday morning meeting and the Ops meeting immediately after. On Tuesday, Barry’s out for Olympic tickets just like everyone else. Cycling, rowing, and the men’s 100 metres is what he’s after by all accounts. On Tuesday afternoon he’s meeting Bill McCartney from Net4wise owls. On Wednesday he’s attending a seminar delivered by John McKee all about better export techniques. On Wednesday lunch he’s meeting Peter O’Reilly from Mediation Northern Ireland and then coach, Richard O’Rawe. He’s taking his St Patrick’s Day on Friday going to Milan for the weekend for a dose of the dolce vita. I wonder will his chicks miss him?

Scott

Scott will be chairing the HR Network meeting on 15 March. The guest speaker is Bill McCartney from Net 4 Wise Owls. Bill will be discussing the positive uses of social networking for HR professionals.

On Friday Scott will be getting his picture taken alongside other speakers from the Northern Ireland HR Conference at the Ramada Hotel in Belfast. Watch out for allegorical carrots. The picture will be used in their Business Section by our partners at the Belfast Telegraph. The conference will take place on 14th April at the Ramada Hotel.

Ainsley

Tuesday – meeting Bill McCartney to discuss social media, particularly our Facebook strategy
Wednesday – meeting Paula Milligan (consultant) re: marketing initiatives, then out in the afternoon to Ballycraigy Primary School (football) and Parkhall College (Young Enterprise).
Friday – morning photoshoot at the Ramada Shaw’s Bridge with the speakers for the HR Conference

The Events team

We will be attending the Holiday Inn, Belfast Launch Night

Donna

Will be volunteering on Wednesday at Ecos centre as part of the 'Saint for a Day' scheme run by Business in the Community.

Independent health care providers will be using the training centre on Wednesday.

Please check out our 'Recommendations of the Month' page online where we provide up- to-date information on the very best contacts that we use.

Guest Writer - Donna - 7th March 2011

2011-03-07T08:55:00.001-08:00

I have to say March is one of my favourite months as it means the evenings are getting longer, the birds are singing, the lambs are skipping in the fields and we can hopefully say goodbye to the dull cold days and nights of winter - although this is Northern Ireland, our weather doesn't always abide by the months of the year!

March is full of wellbeing awareness days including International Womens day on 8th March, No Smoking Day on 9th March and it is the Ovarian and Prostrate cancer awareness month - for further information see http://www.ovarian.org.uk/
www.prostate-cancer.org.uk.

The older folks around North Antrim have a saying that if "March comes in like a lion it will go out like a lamb" - here at Legal Island we are charging into March like a lion with a full programme of events in NI, ROI and GB, for full details see our website at http://www.legal-island.com/or http://www.legal-island.ie/

Who is doing what this week?

Barry

Barry's week started early with a meeting at 8.30a.m. this morning with Quintin Oliver from Statagem. He has another with a representative of BITC at lunch today and a business dinner this evening at the Stormont. On Tuesday evening he's attending a business book review club in Belfast whilst on Wednesday he's meeting barrister, Mark McEvoy for lunch at the Hilton. On Thursday he's a phone call conference with Guy Levene and so far Friday is completely free but no doubt that will change before he's got stuck into even part of the week.

Jayne

On Monday Jayne is meeting John Heaslip from BITC with Barry. On Tuesday Jayne and Heather will be attending the Women in Business and IOD event at the La Mon and on Wednesday she will be meeting lisa McIlvenna and Lindsay McKee from BITC to discuss our membership. On Thursday she will be jetting off to New York for a "mini shopping major spend" break - we are not at all jealous!

Heather

Ballycraigy hockey team will have the assistance of Heather on Thursday afternoon

Kerry

Last week Kerry hosted in the Stillorgan and was so impressed by the table lighting provided for the delegates at lunchtime that she took a photo -they were treated like royalty.

This week Kerry will be hosting at theEssentials of Employment Law event on Thursday at the Hilton, Belfast.

Ainsley

On Thursday Ainsley and Peter will be at Ballycraigy Primary school coaching the football team and then he will head onto Parkhall college for his YENI slot.

Staff News...

We are thrilled to have John Hardy back with us, he will be covering the Email Service Manager post when Julie is off on maternity leave.

In admin we will be conducting second round interviews to appoint a new part time administrator.

We are looking forward to meeting the new telesales addition to the marketing team. Her name is Rose Henry and I hope she will enjoy her time with us.

And Finally....
In case you wondered, Legal Island wont be going out of March like a lamb we will do it all again in April.

Guest Writer: Julie - 28 February 2011

2011-02-28T03:25:00.000-08:00

March is upon us and Spring is in the air!

This is the first of one of our very busy weeks in the South with 4 events in total taking place in Dublin over the 2nd and 3rd of March. On the 2nd of March we are hosting 'Employment Law in the Public Sector' followed by ' Stress and Bullying at work'. ' Mastering the HR Function' and 'Education Law Update 2011' will take place on the 3rd of March. It's quite a busy week for Heather and she will be joined by Kerry on Thursday to help co-host the 'Education' event.

Schrader will be using the Legal Island training centre today right through until Wednesday and then on Friday the 'Public Health Agency' will be using it in the morning time.

Staff movements for the forthcoming week are as follows:

Barry - is having lunch with David Pierce from 'Todd Communications' this afternoon but other than that he will remain on the Island today.
On Tuesday he's in Dublin hearing a mediation appeal and meeting a representative from 'Certification Europe'. On Wednesday he's meeting Pip Jaffa from the 'Parents Advice Centre' and Mary Montague from 'Tidestraining'. On Wednesday evening Barry has a round table dinner with a minister as a guest of the Chamber of Commerce. On Thursday he's in London at another EBA seminar and on Friday he's still there networking.

Scott - This week Scott Alexander will be meeting Penny Thornberry from 'P Thornberry Solutions' and Tom Evans and Alan Scott from 'DEL'. He also hopes to attend the Legal Island ' Employment Law in the Public Sector' event in Dublin in association with McCann Fitzgerald solicitors.

Heather - is hosting the Dublin events this Wednesday and Thursday and on Friday she is attending a WIB & Network Ireland event at the Guinness Store House.

Kerry - is attending an 'Effective Business Writing Course' on Tuesday morning in Antrim.

Ainsley - will be attending Parkhall College on Wednesday afternoon for the 'Young Enterprise Group'.

Jayne - is meeting with Sarah Bondi from NACCO on Wednesday to chat about EFQM. On Thursday she is attending an event with EWN to celebrate International Woman's Day with Ruth Badger (formerly an apprentice candidate), this will take place in Dundalk. On Friday Jayne will be attending a Marketing meeting In-House.

Onwards............

Guest Writer: Vanessa

2011-02-21T05:16:00.000-08:00

Welcome to another busy week on The Island. We are holding two events in our Training Centre this week - a seminar on Redundancy on Wednesday which sold out a number of weeks ago and a repeat of the Customer Service course that we ran successfully for the first time last September.

As far as the activities of our staff go - when have we ever let the grass grow under our feet?!

Barry has 5 days of intensive networking ahead of him this week beginning today with meetings with David Gaston, Noel Brady of NB1 and Peter McBride CEO of Niamh. On Tuesday he's meeting Brian Speers of CMG Solicitors in the morning, Dave Vincent of KDS and then David Brittain of the DOENI. On Wednesday he's meeting Melanie Donnelly from Full Circle. On Thursday he's in London attending a seminar delivered by the Entrepreneurs' Business Academy. On Friday he's hoping to have a meeting with Squire Sanders Hammonds before heading off to the Royal Opera House to see the operat they're all talking about at the moment "Nicole". Lucky pup!

Scott will be meeting with Tom Evans and Alan Scott from DEL this week and also Karen Thompson from the Belfast Telegraph along with Peter. Scott is also going to be helping out at the Customer First event on Thursday.

Jayne is attending a Management and Leadership Conference at the University of Ulster on Wednesday with Heather and Ainsley. She is back at Ballycraigy Primary School on Thursday taking a hockey lesson. On Friday she is attending the SOCITM event at the Park Avenue in Belfast - this is an event we are co-sponsoring with Noel Brady and CIPFA.

Peter and Ainsley will also be volunteering at Ballycraigy this week, coaching the football team.

Guest Writer: Peter

2011-02-14T04:09:00.000-08:00

Last week saw the successful Winning Tenders in Northern Ireland conference keenly attended by various SME's and large private sector companies. The event was so popular we'd to change the venue!

We don't have any conferences this week, but that doesn't mean there's any slacking on the 'Island...

Here's what's going on this week:

Barry is in the office all day today signing off a few events. On Tuesday he's meeting Brian Speers, President of the Law Society, Ciara Fulton from Tughans and John Brolly from the Irish News. He also has a coaching session with Richard O'Rawe in the afternoon. On Wednesday he's up with the early birds for a breakfast meeting of BNI at Dunsilly Hotel, then meeting Mick Doggat for lunch. On Thursday he has an evening dinner at Parliament Building’s. Barry has a Friday free at the moment, but as we all know, that’s likely to change.

In a comedown from last weeks ‘networking’ at the Aviva Stadium in Dublin, Scott will be attending the tribunal users’ group meeting at the Office of the Industrial Tribunal and Fair Employment Tribunal on Thursday.

Kerry is meeting with the daughter of Michelle Groves who facilitates our Professional Workplace Investigations Workshops. Claire is completing her final year at UUJ in Events, Leisure and Culture management and is coming in to discuss a proposed business plan she is undertaking in her last semester rather than a dissertation.

Although not on the same scale as Barry, Ainsley has quite a busy week in terms of meetings. On Monday afternoon he’ll be meeting Rachel Morgan and Niall Gormley of DCP PR, on Tuesday morning he’s got our (conveniently located and reasonably priced) Training Centre booked for his meeting with Brian Nelson of Forth Data. Wednesday afternoon is slightly more light-hearted when he’s off to meet with his Young Enterprise team at Parkhall College.

On Thursday, Heather is volunteering with Ballycraigy Primary School, helping out with the coaching of their hockey teams.

Jayne and Heather will don their old clothes on Friday when the head off to help paint the Antrim Counselling Centre on Friday, again as part of our volunteering initiative.

A busy week all round!

Guest Writer: Ainsley

2011-02-07T05:48:00.000-08:00

HONK! HONK! went the horn in the office this morning. We have a horn that gets honked every time we have an important announcement or success to report - and today was no exception. The early morning din signalled our first booking of the year for our GB event: Age and Retirement - The New Law

This is an important moment because all of us on the Island have been preparing for our 'assault' on London, Birmingham and Manchester for some time - hopefully this is the first of many bookings.

Keeping our feet firmly on the ground, we still have a lot of work to do this week in NI and ROI. Wednesday and Thursday bring trips to Galway and Athlone respectively, for our education event: Dealing with Teacher Underperformance. The latter is sold out but there are still a few places left for Galway.

Also on Thursday we have our first full day NI event of the year, with Winning Tenders taking place at the Hilton Hotel, Templepatrick. We had originally intended to run this event at our Training Centre, but huge popular demand forced us to source a bigger venue. There are still one or two places left, but only if you're quick!

This week our CEO, Barry will be meeting Laura Coulter, mediator, today and is hearing a mediation appeal tomorrow. He is also meeting Trayc Keevans from Morgan McKinley tomorrow as well as Hannah Carney from Dale Carnegie. On Thursday, he's meeting the company performance coach, Fiona Keenan, as well as Robert from BITC and on Friday he's meeting Alan McVey from Iron Mountain. In the evenings he's finishing off 'Winning' by Clive Woodward - a fabulous book about how he led a team to rugby World Cup glory. It's stuffed full of great business tips apparently, so watch this space!

Also out and about this week is Scott, our Head of Training and Development. He will be in Dublin meeting Pat Brady from ByrneWallace Solicitors and also McDowell Purcell Solicitors on Wednesday, followed by a meeting with representatives from Irish Life on Friday.

Our ROI Conference Manager, Heather, is our social butterfly this week, meeting Richard Fee today who runs the charity Eye Feel Good, followed by Elaine Magee of Antrim Borough Council tomorrow, to talk about volunteering opportunities. On Thursday Heather will be discussing 'Growth through mentoring' with Women In Business and on Friday she will be meeting Katie Setterfield of CLIC Sargent, with me.

As well as meeting Katie on Friday, I will also be at Parkhall College on Wednesday afternoon to continue the Young Enterprise Business Programme and on Thursday morning I am meeting Phil Boyd from Boyd Communications.

Independent Health Care Providers are using our Training Centre, tomorrow so Donna will be busy preparing for their arrival, followed by a trip to Ballycraigy Primary School with Kerry to play hockey on Thursday.

Right, I think that's it for this week. Hopefully my incessant tapping of keys will soon be drowned out by yet more horns!!

Have a great week.

Guest Writer: Bronagh

2011-01-31T01:55:00.000-08:00

Celebrations!!!! Have you heard Legal-Island's recent success story? Last Thursday Barry, Jayne and Ainsley attended the EFQM Awards at the Ramada Hotel, Belfast and were delighted to take home the Mark of Excellence in the Private Sector Award. The trophy now stands very proudly with our other achievements in the reception area of the building - for all to see! Read more.

Last week was an extremely busy time for staff in Legal-Island with the first of the seminars kicking off 2011 at the Holiday Inn, Tuesday 25th January with Mediation Breakfast. Booked out, everything went extremely well, we have already received some excellent feedback this week. We also had our first event in Cork - Dealing with Teacher Underperformance. This too went very well.

Winning Tenders in NI is coming up shortly and creating a bit of a stir at the moment. Due to extensive interest planned for Thursday 10th February, we are now moving venue to the Hilton Hotel, Templepatrick.

See below overview of everyone's movements and a busy start for February. Where did January go?

Barry is just back from a James Caan (EBA) seminar in London and his head is still buzzing with ideas. Today he’s meeting Melanie Donnelly for lunch from Full Circle and tomorrow Joe Dolan from the DFP. On Wednesday he’s taking part in the EFQM feedback session delivered by Tony Wilson which should be interesting. On Thursday he’s out to break all networking records by having 8 meetings in 8 hours including Nicola Shaw from BDO, Tom Place from the ANIC, Noel Brady from NB1, Katie Doran from Carson McDowell Catherine Vint from the ICO Hilary from Quell training Laura Colter and then finally dinner with Penna. On Friday he has a day in the office with nothing in his diary – at least for the moment.

Jayne is busy today with the usual internal Monday meeting and then on Wednesday she has the EFQM feedback meeting. Same day, evening time, Jayne has the Young Directors Forum.

Scott will be chairing the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network on 1st February. The guest speaker is Pauline Huth of NI Financial Consultancy Services, who will be discussing pension changes. One 3rd February Scott will be meeting Anne Dargan, Organisational Development Consultant and Certified Leadership Coach, Director, Rapid Change Consultancy.

Ainsley, in Marketing, is attending tomorrow's Speed Networking event in the Holiday Inn, Belfast which commences shortly after work. On Wednesday he is doing some volunteer football coaching at Ballycraigy Primary School. As you know, the staff of Legal-Island volunteer on various projects of their choosing and seem to throw themselves into each and every project. Ainsley is also busy the same day in the afternoon at the Young IoD Forum in Belfast. Thursday brings plans as Forth Data are coming to see us to present the Oriel email broadcast tool and in the afternoon, BEN Networking event at UTV. So, an exciting week for Ainsley!

Heather is attending the Speed Networking meeting with Ross Licence from Events Studio this Friday.

Julie is attending Speed Networking tomorrow with some of the others. This is Julie's first time and is looking forward to the experience.

Guest Writer: Kerry

2011-01-24T05:50:00.000-08:00

Although we have excellent Training facilities on site here at Legal-Island, Antrim, (see left) due to numbers or location we often have to use external venues. So last Wednesday I took a day to head off to Belfast and see what other options were out there. For further information on our facilities please click onto Training Centre.

We already have some great relationships with local hotels however I was delighted to come across more possible venues on my journey. To name a few there were the CIPFA Offices, Belfast, La Mon Hotel & Country Club, Castlereagh, The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Ireland Offices, Belfast, The Ulster Museum and finally Mossley Mill in Newtownabbey. All unique spaces to accommodate the different types of meetings Legal-Island run each season.

Another busy week sees the start of the conference season both in NI and ROI. Heather jets off tomorrow to Cork to host our first sell out event of the year - Dealing with Teacher Underperformance. And I am off to host a Free Mediation in the Workforce Seminar in Belfast on Tuesday morning.

Out and about:

Heather will be meeting with Emer from Fitzpatrick Castle Hotel today.

I will attending a BEN Speed Networking Event with Jayne tomorrow evening and then I have a networking dinner to attend at the Ramada, Shawsbridge, on Wednesday night.

Jacqui will be continuing with our volunteering initiative by helping take a group of Primary 4's from Mount St Michael's PS in Randalstown to Cultra this week. Should be lots of fun!

Barry's got an easy Monday with little in the diary other than internal meetings. On Tuesday he opens up the Breakfast seminar on Mediation at the Holiday Inn along with Tom Evans from DEL. On Thursday night Barry, Jayne, Ainsley and our guest Michelle Gallen from Shhmooze is off to the EFQM Gala Awards to pick up Legal-Island's mark of excellence. On Friday he's off to London. Lucky him!

Scott will be in Dublin on Wednesday. Meetings include those with Marion Jennings, chair of our Irish Annual Reviews of Employment Law; Peter McInnes of McDowell Purcell; Emma Barrett of Keating & Associates, John Horgan; consultant, and Niall Saul of Symbio HR Solutions.

More volunteering with Ballycraigy Primary: Peter & Ainsley will be going along on Wednesday to support the football team who is playing a friendly at Muckamore with the hope to help out during training as the season progresses. Also this week sees the first hockey training session and I will be going along to help and hopefully bring a little energy to the new team!

Here's to another busy & successful event season on the Island....

Legal-Island: What We're Up to This Week

2011-01-17T03:34:00.000-08:00

This week, Scott Alexander writes:

I don't have any meetings this week but should have an interview published in the Belfast Telegraph. Fame at last!

Ainsley Hirst, our Marketing and Sales Manager, will be at Parkhall College on Wednesday afternoon for Young Enterprise group - they collected over £1000 via the business they set up at school.

Still on volunteering matters, Bronagh McCotter will be visiting NI Children’s Hospice (collecting reindeer food boxes, counting money and recording).

CEO Barry Phillips meanwhile has got a relatively quiet week ahead at least in terms of meetings out of the office. Monday- Thursday he’s busy getting ready for and doing performance reviews whilst helping marketing sign off brochures. On Thursday he’s meeting our friends from CIPFA and he’s hoping to see Legal-Island lawyers O’Reilly Stewart on Friday.

MD Jayne Finlay and Conference Manager Kerry Taggart will be discussing sponsorship issues with Ballycraigy PS hockey team on Tuesday.

CEO,Barry Phillips on the week ahead at Legal-Island

2011-01-10T07:17:00.000-08:00

There's a kind of hush ...all over the world..or the Island at least this week as we really get stuck into performance reviews over the next five days or so. Line managers, no doubt, are making the most of cups of tea served with nervous smiles.

Our marketing and sales team are busy this week producing brochures for this first season with Conference Execs and Managers furiously trying to nail down speakers and venues. This is loads of fun [not]

Scott's attending a meeting of the Skills for Justice E-Forum Project tomorrow. He will also be meeting Nicola Shaw (BDO), Stella Gilmartin (of Gilmartin Consulting), and Adam Brett (McGrigors Solicitors) the same day.

I'm off into Belfast on Wednesday to meet the team at Carson McDowell whilst on Thursday I'm meeting Clive Byrne of NAPD and the education team at Mason Hayes Curran to discuss the programme for the forthcoming education conference. Later that same day I'm meeting Trayc Keevans from Morgan McKinley for dinner and a chat about recruitment

We have the Independent Healthcare Providers using the training centre on Wednesday and who knows who else will pop in unannounced this week to see us? Will it be you?

Guest Writer: James

2011-01-04T03:18:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year Everyone!

Our 2012 targets don't seem so far away now...

Everyone's back with a bang today following some extended holidays and our annual shutdown. I hope the water kept flowing for you and you weren't laid low with some nasty flu bug like me - jokes about man flu will be met with a volley of coughs in your direction.

Most staff are getting settled in this week so there's not much networking going on but some highlights for the week are:

All Staff (today) - Brainstorming some 'wacky' ideas for 2011... something of a Legal Island specialty

All Staff (Thursday) - Presentation by Barry and Jayne on the company objectives; incorporating the balanced scorecard

Barry (Friday) - meeting with Steve Mungavin from CIPFA

Until my next time... stay warm!

2010-12-20T01:54:00.000-08:00

Monday 20th December 2010

Guest Writer Phyllis

This is our last working week before the Christmas break and as all of our conferences are over for this year most of our staff are taking a well deserved break.

Our Training Centre is busy today and tomorrow.

Scott is meeting with Tom Evens from Employment Rights Branch of Department for Employment and Learning on 21st.

Legal-Island shall be closed for the Christmas holidays from Friday 24th December until 4th January when all our staff shall be back full of enthusiasm and energy.

Until then Seasons Greetings to all.

Guest Writer - Arnold

2010-12-13T08:02:00.000-08:00

Welcome on board Legal-Island . This is a last full working week before Christmas so everybody is looking forward to it after a busy year. Last week we had our training week where Linzi Conway did group exercises on teamwork and communication and JJ Lynch who spoke about ‘What makes successful people successful’. After all that we had Christmas Lunch on Friday Afternoon at the Ballyrobin.

This week we have Schrader Electronics using our training centre on Wednesday and Thursday.

Networking

Our CEO, Barry, has a lot on this week as he tidies things up before his winter break. He’s seeing company coach Richard O’Rawe this afternoon and again tomorrow for a feedback session on our EFQM efforts. On Wednesday he’s meeting some of the team from Quelltraining as well as Keith Pryde from AMI Ltd. He’s also meeting Alan Wallace the patent lawyer Wednesday afternoon. That could be a big meeting. At the moment Thursday and Friday is free in his diary but I’ve no doubt that by Wednesday most of the end of the week will be accounted for. Go Barry. Go!

Scott hopes to attend a breakfast seminar at Lisburn Enterprise network on Thursday.

Ainsley is at Parkhall College for his Young Enterprise group on Wednesday afternoon, followed by an Institute Of Directors event in Belfast.

On Thursday morning he is meeting Nic Charlton (Design) at The Mount in Belfast, followed by Jake Campbell (Design).

Peter is graduating on Tuesday after completing his Advanced Diploma in Management Practice and Volunteering at an old peoples home all day on Wednesday, back in the office for his last day before Christmas on Thursday.

Jacqui will be doing her first voluntary day tomorrow at Mount St Michael’s Nursery.

I would like to wish everybody Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!!!

Guest Writer - Jacqui

2010-12-07T06:35:00.000-08:00

Last Tuesday saw the end of our Annual Review of Employment Law conferences take place in the Stillorgan, and so too the end of another season of events.

Well done to Heather and the team, who made it to Dublin, despite the nasty road conditions. To all the delegates who braved the bad weather to attend the conference and helped end our year on a high with yet another successful day, we say a huge THANK YOU!!

This week everyone is on lockdown, as we have our annual winter training week here on the Island. It got off to a great start with Donna,who did a presentation on "How to be Happy at Work" which provided us with some useful tips (NOT THAT WE NEED THEM). Next up was Kerry on Networking, followed by Vanessa, who gave a detailed brief on "Eventpro". Heather rounded the morning off with an entertaining and lively presentation on "Personalities within a Winning Team".

The training schedule for the rest of the week has been put into jeopardy, thanks to the awful weather conditions, which really took a hold in the afternoon. Here's hoping the sessions go ahead, as the end of the week sees us all heading out for a well deserved Christmas feast before some of my colleagues head off for a lengthy festive break.

I would like to end this weeks blog with wishing everyone a happy and safe Christmas. And if these weather conditions continue, embrace it and get out there and enjoy (who needs the Alps!).

Guest Writer Jayne

2010-11-29T02:38:00.000-08:00

Well here we are - the final week of 2011 events!!! Last but by no means least we have the big finale of the Annual Review at the Stillorgan Park Hotel tomorrow.

With what is sure to be an eventful day - complete with a snow covered journey - the team led by Heather are looking forward to completing the year on a high.

Movements for the rest of the team look a bit like this:

Scott is attending the E-Forum Steering Group of Skills for Justice on Tuesday. On Wednesday he is volunteering at Cullybackey High School and assisting with an entrepreneurship exercise. On Thursday Scott will be meeting with Sarah Bondi from NILSC and Emer Hinphey from Thinkpeople. On Friday, Scott will be working from home.

Barry is busy as always this week. He's meeting Trayc Keevans today from Morgan McKinley in Dublin this evening and then having dinner with Clive Byrne from the NAPD later this evening. Tomorrow he's chairing the last of our Annual Reviews. On Wednesday and Thursday he's out networking before flying to London for more of the same on Friday afternoon.

Jayne is hosting at the Annual Review tomorrow, before heading back to Belfast for the Chamber of Commerce President's Banquet in the City Hall. On Thursday she will in meetings all morning with staff and on FRiday she will be volunteering at Ballycraigy Primary School before attending a networking lunch at the Old Courthouse in Antrim. Kerry will also be attending this event.

Ainsley is in Dublin with the Annual Review team Monday and Tuesday. On Wednesday he is meeting with DCP in Belfast. Wednesday lunchtime he is meeting with Lesley from Belfast Telegraph Business Magazine and in the afternoon he will be visiting Parkhall College for Young Enterprise (last production week before the trade fair at Fairhill on 8^th December)

On Wednesday Kerry is YENI on Wednesday morning at Ballykeel Primary.

With December only 2 days away, it looks like we'll all get a White Christmas early!!!

Guest Writer Heather

2010-11-22T06:40:00.000-08:00

Well another week and another flagship event! This time Kerry will be running the 2nd Northern Ireland Annual Review, this time in the Ramada Shaws Bridge. I'm sure it will go as well as (or even better) than our first one.

Take a look at some of the delights we served at our Annual Review Of Employment Law at the Radisson Dublin Airport last Thursday!

The training centre is also having a busy week with Smart Forward today, Independent Healthcare Providers tomorrow and the Institute of Licensing on Thursday phew!

Our staff volunteering days are also in full flow with myself, Kerry, Jayne and Donna in our local primary schools delivering the YENI programme. Ainsley is in the local Parkhall college, Barry has been cleaning up leaves and Jacqui helps to help out at a school nativity.

Out and About:

Barry - has a busy week loaded with a variety of tasks and duties for him to get stuck into this week. On Monday at lunchtime he's meeting John Cherry to talk about the new Bribery Act before meeting his parents at the airport who are flying in from Devon for a few days. No doubt they will be inspecting the new extension to his house not to mention Island House which they have yet to see. On Tuesday Barry's speaking at the Annual Review of Employment Law Conference at the Ramada. On Wednesday morning he's meeting John Stevenson to review to successful education seminars he has been doing with us. On Wednesday afternoon through to Friday Barry's in London networking. Watch out London!

Scott - will be chairing the second of our NI Annual Review of Employment Law as mentioned above.

Kerry - our Conference Manager for the North will be leading the way on Tuesday at the Annual Review Conference at the Ramada Shaws Bridge. Kerry's hosters for the day will be: Vanessa, Peter, Ainsley & Jayne. Good Luck everyone!

33 sleeps to Christmas!

Guest Writer - Julie

2010-11-15T04:04:00.000-08:00

This week sees the 2nd of our flagship Annual Review Employment Law events taking place in Dublin on Thursday at the Radisson Blu Hotel Dublin Airport and it's another sell-out!! However don't frett, our FINAL Annual Review event is taking place on the 30th of November at the Stillorgan Park Hotel, there are still places available but it is booking up fast!!!

A further Legal Island conference is taking place this week on Tuesday the 16th of November also at Dublin Airport called:
Dealing with Teacher Underperformance - The New Procedure

Our Training Centre at Legal Island is at full capacity this week with Schrader availing of our training facilities today and tomorrow and the Centre of Competitiveness making a return on Wednesday and using it right through until the end of the week.

Out and About:

Barry - is busy today working with the EFQM inspectors. He's in his posh suit - always a sign that something serious is happening! This afternoon he's meeting CIPFA. On wednesday he's meeting David Thorogood from Capita and after that Tom Evans from DEL. In between times he's working on events for next year in GB.

Scott - is meeting solicitors from Arthur Cox tomorrow for lunch and then has a meeting with representatives from the Northern Ireland Tourist Board. Arthur Cox are the writers of our popular Q&A feature 'First Tuesday' in our NI Employment Law Email Update service. The NI Tourist Board provides Legal Island with a top 10 attractions list every week that is sent out with our weekly review of developments email. On the 18th of November, Scott will be helping out in the main hall sessions at our Annual Review of Employment Law at the Radisson Blu Hotel at Dublin Airport.

Heather - our Conference Manager for the South will be leading the way on Thursday at the Annual Review Conference at the Radisson Blu Hotel. Heathers hosters for the day will be: Vanessa, Peter, Ainsley & Kerry. Good Luck everyone!

As part of our on-going volunteering initiative all the staff at Legal Island opted to go out and about into the local community and mentor/give a helping hand to organisations with a desire to pass on skills and experience of business to inspire the next generation.

The following staff at Legal Island volunteering this week are as follows:

Heather - In Ballycraigy Primary School this coming Wednesday
Ainsley - At Parkhall College on Wednesday afternoon.
Kerry - At Ballykeel Primary School on Wednesday morning.
Jayne - Attending to P2 Pupils this Friday.

So to another busy week for all!

Guest Writer- Donna

2010-11-08T02:37:00.000-08:00

Remember, remember the fifth of November. Forget Guy Fawkes, Legal Island is causing a bit of an explosion with our Annual Reviews of Employment Law - 5 venues over 4 weeks - Guy Fawkes was an amateur really!

Who?
Barry is working hard early this week on his presentations at the first of the NI Annual Reviews on Wednesday 10th at the Culloden . He is presenting on Mediation in NI which is being talked about much at the moment. On Thursday, he has a Skype meeting with John McMullen in Newcastle with lunch on that day with Richard O'Rawe. Later that same day he's meeting with Dawn Baird for a catch up on all things to do with social media. On Friday he'e meeting CIPFA before attending a barristers' lunch shortly afterwards.

What?
Kerry and the team will be hosting the Annual Review of Employment Law in NI on Wednesday 10th November at the Culloden Hotel - after a fantastic one last week in ROI, we are really looking forward to this one. Scott will be the man in the chair. It also promises to be an "exotic" affair at lunch time!

Click hereto book if you have not already done so.

Dealing with Teacher Underperformance will take place in ROI on 11th November and Jayne will be looking after the delegates.

Quality, Quality Quality...

Jayne will also be preparing for the visit from the NI Quality team on Monday and Tuesday of next week.

Volunteering
Kerry and Donna will be lending their "teaching experise" to Ballykeel Primary school on Thursday in the Young Enterprise programme - they will probably offer them jobs!!

Congratulations.... to Ainsley, our Senior Marketing Manager, and his wife Lindsay in the safe arrival of baby Freddie.

Farewell to John , who so ably stepped into the marketing department during the "baby boom". We will miss him and wish him every success in the future.

Have a great week!

Guest Writer Vanessa

2010-11-01T06:21:00.000-07:00

We’re excited here on the Island this week. It’s the first of our flagship Annual Reviews this Thursday at the Red Cow in Dublin and it’s a sell out. These conferences are the ones that made our name and we’re not resting on our laurels this year with a host of new surprises for delegates as well as the return of an old favourite! It is also the last of our GB events this week so no more globetrotting for that Event team!

Our CEO Barry has a busy week ahead as always. On Monday morning he’s at a business breakfast as a guest of Noel Brady at La Mon Hotel Belfast. On Tuesday he’s in Leeds chairing the last of the Annual Review Conferences in GB. On Wednesday he’s visiting Translink to find out all about their mediation scheme. Later that day he’s at the Rosspark Hotel for dinner as a guest of the ASCL. On Thursday he’s at the Red Cow Hotel in Dublin for the first Irish Annual Review conference. Later that day he’s attending a black tie event at the Burlington as a guest of George Alexander. On Friday he’s meeting Geoff Hayter at Guardian24, Penny Holloway at the LRA and Andrea Cooke at Netwonabbey Borough Council. Phew!

Scott is meeting representatives from Carson McDowell solicitors, Penna, and BITC on 1 November to discuss next year’s HR Conference. On Tuesday Scott will be a volunteer for a Young Enterprise (NI) session at Cullybacky High School.

On Thursday Scott will be helping at the Annual Review of Employment Law at the Red Cow in Dublin along with Heather and Kerry the Conference Managers and other LI staff.

Finally look out for our new season brochures which will be appearing over the next week or so.

Guest Writer John

2010-10-25T05:45:00.000-07:00

As the leaves turn brown and the mornings become noticeably colder, the team at Legal-Island continue with the hard work of the Autumn season.

Barry is busy all day today planning more events for GB, so that should keep everyone busy in 2011. Tomorrow he is meeting Mark Fitzmaurice of Dale Carnegie for breakfast before chairing our Annual Review conference in Manchester.

On Wednesday he is meeting the CEO of Belfast Health Trust Pat McCartan whilst on Friday he's meeting Maureen Butler to talk about education issues. Throughout the week he is busy working on our EFQM application and drafting his notes for his presentation at our Northern Ireland Annual Reviews on mediation. And all of this at the usual speed of 100 miles an hour!

Jayne will be leaving with Barry today for the Manchester Annual Review tomorrow, and on Wednesday she is meeting Laura Kerr from YENI (that's Young Enterprise Northern Ireland for those not up to speed on the lingo), along with Heather and Scott, and they will be discussing volunteer work in schools in relation to enterprise.

Scott has another busy week of networking ahead, starting in Dublin on Tuesday when he will be meeting with Barrister, Cliona Kinmer, the Tax Expert Ken Killoran from Mazars, HR Guru Niall Saul and finally Carol Fawsitt from Hayes Solicitors.

On Wednesday, he will be heading up to the big house on the hill for an in-camera session with Permanent Secretaries in relation to the spending review, which has been organised by the Chamber of Commerce.

Finally, on Friday, he will be attending the LRA (thats the Labour Relations Agency) for the launch of their 09/10 Annual Report.

Tune in next week for more updates when your blogger will be the vivacious Vanessa!

Monday 18th October 2010 - Guest Writer Peter

2010-10-18T07:16:00.000-07:00

Another hectic week ahead on the 'Island as silly season gets into full swing! With so much still to do with Annual Review's fast approaching, Barry is still fitting in some high quality networking (what's new?)!

He’s meeting Norman McCudden from Infosecure consulting on Monday morning and then, in the evening, Peter McBride from NIAMH and Fiona Keenan for dinner. On Tuesday he has a 1 hour on-line with his performance coach before meeting Adrian from Team Solutionz about new conferencing software. On Wednesday he’s at an Equality conference in Dublin. On Friday he’s attending the IOD lunch at the Holiday Inn before taking off to Donegal for the weekend in his MG if both that and the weather holds. We’ll see.

Scott is chairing the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network on Tuesday and will be going to Dublin that evening to help at our ‘Transfers of Undertakings’ event at the Westbury Hotel in Grafton Street. On Thursday, Scott will be attending the Equality Authority’s 10^th anniversary conference.

Ainsley is off to meet Nic Charlton from Nic Charlton Design on Tuesday morning as we search for someone to provide backup for our 'main man'. He'll also be out of the office on Friday on annual leave...some of us have the life of it!

Wednesday see's our Transfer Regulations event, the last of the ROI conferences before the Annual Review of Employment Law conferences begin on 4th November. Good luck Heather.

Don't forget, you can get all the very latest information from Legal-Island by 'following' us on Twitter or 'befriending' us on Facebook.

Here's to a fantastic week ahead.

Guest Writer Ainsley

2010-10-11T07:08:00.000-07:00

You could hear a pin drop in the office this morning.

Had it not been for the frantic tapping of keyboards or the occasional telephone call, I would have been worried about my hearing! The murmurs that usually accompany Monday mornings in the office had been replaced with a quiet atmosphere of anticipation.

This is because we are now firmly in the middle of our 'silly season' where the events come thick and fast and we build towards our 'Annual Review of Employment Law' events in November. This week marks the busiest week of the year (in terms of number of events) and by 5pm on Friday we will have run 7 great events, catering for the needs of around 150 delegates in 3 jurisdictions.

Jayne is busy preparing for our second 'Annual Review of Employment Law' event in GB, which is taking place tomorrow in the MacDonald Burlington Hotel, in Birmingham. The London gig last week was a great success with some excellent feedback from the delegates - hopefully more of the same to follow this week.

Barry is also in Birmingham tomorrow and will be chairing the Annual Review event. On Wednesday, he's meeting Noel Brady for lunch and on Thursday he's attending an InvestNI breakfast seminar. On Friday he's in Dublin meeting among others, Sarah O'Donnel from Certification Europe.

Heather is busy preparing for our Republic of Ireland events this week which begin with Conducting Workplace Investigations and Annual Update on Payroll Matters on Wednesday, followed by Getting the Best out of Employees: Building Performance on Thursday.

Kerry's organising our three Northern Ireland events this week which begin tomorrow with Delivering Workplace Investigations and TUPE Update 2010 (which has now Sold Out), followed by Section 75: Guiding you through the New Equality Agenda on Thursday.

The TUPE event has proved very successful, particularly with the recent addition of the UK's TUPE 'guru' Professor John McMullen, a Partner in the GB law firm Short Richardson & Forth LLP and Visiting Professor of Law at Durham University. John is regarded as the leading expert in the UK on the Transfer of Undertakings and he also has an international reputation in that field. He is the author of ‘Business Transfers and Employee Rights’, the leading work on transfers of undertakings.

Finally, Scott will be Chairing the TUPE Update seminar tomorrow and on Thursday, he will be attending the Employment Lawyer's Group meeting in Belfast.

Here's ho-pin for another great week!

Guest Writer Bronagh

2010-10-04T04:11:00.000-07:00

Hope your having a good day so far! Reporting on Legal-Island's Blog is me, new start Bronagh McCotter. I am happy to report on this week's staff movements as well as help with event bookings, now that I've got into the swing of things! Having only joined on 23rd August, I feel I'm now settling in but how the time has just gone as we are already in the month of October! For this week I am working an additional morning coming in on Wednesday to assist with the demands of event bookings and am looking forward to it as well!

After last week's exciting photo shoot, Legal-Island's marketing team inform me that the new staff images update will be on the web site by the end of the week! So we are all looking forward to seeing those online.

Both Barry and Jayne are in London this week for the first of the Annual Review and Employment Law events. We wish them a safe journey.

Donna would like to welcome the Public Health Agency to Legal-Island Training Centre and hope they enjoy their experience with us today!

Mean while the rest of the team will be busy this week in other areas, including other areas of Ireland! Heather and Julie will be in the Stillorgan Park Hotel this Thursday at the Data Protection conference while Scott is facilitating the Discipline & Under Performance workshop in the Training Centre with Lorraine Toolan from EEF. Scott will also be meeting Penna and others to discuss next year's Northern Ireland HR Conference, so this should keep Scott busy and out of trouble for this week anyhow!

Ainsley, Marketing Department, is out on Wednesday afternoon at Parkhill College Company Programme with Youth Enterprise. He's out again this week at the Business in the Community in W5. Apart from that, Ainsley will be available in the office for the rest of the week.

And finally, John Hardy joined the Marketing Department two weeks ago. We would all like to extend to John a warm welcome to Legal Island and to the team!

Guest Writer Kerry

2010-09-27T07:04:00.000-07:00

Major excitement today.......it was like London fashion week here in the office...and we were only getting our new photos taken for the website!

From the various outfit changes (actually that was just Barry), a last minute dash to rectify a wardrobe disaster, a few mini tantrums when the schedule changed, to the copious amount of lip gloss we had it all.

Although as you'll see my old picture isn't bad I still look forward to choosing my new one!

On a more serious note Barry has a week chockablock with networking. Today he's meeting Gerry Ormsby from Skills for Justice and then Martin O'Brien, barrister for dinner. Tomorrow morning he's at the Merchant hotel for a Freshstart Breakfast meeting. On Wednesday he's meeting John Brolly from the Irish News for breakfast before attending our Winning Tenders event in the Hilton Belfast. Later that day he's meeting lawyers from O'Reilly Stewart Solicitors and John Stevenson Education Consultant in the evening. On Thursday he's meeting old friend and former colleague Maura McCallion form Law Centre NI. In between times he may even get some work done!

A a number of staff are meeting with Laura Kerr from Young Enterprise NI on Tuesday to see what the next stage will be for each of us that have signed up with this volunteer program.

On Wednesday Legal-Island welcomes Independent Healthcare Providers to our Training Centre in Antrim.

Also on Wednesday Heather will be hosting Health & Safety - A Focus on Bullying and Stress in the Workplace in Dublin.

Ainsley is off to Ballymena on Wednesday to meet with Young Enterprise to discuss the 'Company Programme' he is getting involved with for Parkhall College.

Scott will be chairing our Equality Law Update for experienced practitioners on Thursday at the Hilton in Belfast and afterward will be meeting Emer Hinphey from Thinkpeople about her role at the Annual Reviews of Employment Law on 10 and 23 November.

And finally Jayne is preparing for our first GB Annual Review of Employment Law taking place in London next Tuesday.

Guest Writer: Scott Alexander

2010-09-20T03:02:00.000-07:00

Got some great news last week - Professor John McMullen, a Partner in the GB law firm Short Richardson & Forth LLP and Visiting Professor of Law at Durham University, has agreed to speak at the TUPE Update seminar on 12 October.

John is regarded as the leading expert in the UK on the Transfer of Undertakings and he also has an international reputation in that field. He is the author of ‘Business Transfers and Employee Rights’, the leading work on transfers of undertakings. So we look forward to welcoming him here to Northern Ireland.

This week Scott will be meeting with Emer Hinphey of Thinkpeople and Nicola Shaw of BDO about their roles at this year's annual reviews of employment law. Both were recenly guest writers of our employment law email service 'Weekly Review of Developments' emails. Scott will also be meeting with Joe Blair of MBS about our joint 'Customer First' training programmes and Scott will be attending an LRA conference on Thursday entitled 'Employment Relations in the New Decade'.

Barry’s got a busy week of meetings and networking as always this week. On Tuesday he’s meeting trainer Richard O’Rawe. On Wednesday he has a conference call meeting with Hammonds and dinner that same evening with some educationalists at Corr’s Corner in advance of the education law conference the following day. On Friday he has a team sales and marketing meeting before flying off to Edinburgh to see his friend’s musical “John Paul Jones” at the Queen’s Hall.

Jayne is at our Education Law Update Event at Corrs Corner on Thursday. She is also meeting with George Wilson from the Centre for Competitveness on Friday.

Heather will be in Dublin on Thursday managing our events 'Discipline and Underperformance at Work' and 'Essentials of Employment Law'.

13th September -Guest writer Barry Phillips

2010-09-13T04:28:00.000-07:00

Staff are hard at work this week as we head firmly into our next season of events. It's brochures mailshots brochures time again.

Scott is meeting John Hogg of Enlighten on Tuesday and will then attend a Chamber of Commerce dinner on building links between the public and private sectors.

Jayne is busy preparing to submit the company application for ur European Quality Mark which has to be in on Friday.

I'm busy wading through hundreds of emails as I recover from a two week break. I'm off to London tomorrow to deliver a presentations skills seminar and then I'm busy all week with internal meetings and putting some final shape to our strategic plan.

As always busy times ahead!

6th September: Guest Writer Jacqui

2010-09-06T04:27:00.000-07:00

These are exciting times for us here on the Island as we have 4 new Annual Review Conferences taking place in England over October and November, to find out more, go to http://www.legal-island-events.com/. This may well be a "baptism of fire" for our new Administrator, Bronagh, who comes to us with 20 years of experience.

We have Sharon Simpson coming on board today as Housekeeper for our Training suite and she will be ensuring that the offices are in pristine order too. Sharon will be looking after Northern Trust who have availed of the training rooms today.

Other items of interest:

Barry is still on leave in Syria, no doubt having fun while squeezing in some networking!!

Scott will be chairing the Antrim/Ballymena HR Network on 7 September at the premises of Firmus. The HR Network is a loose affiliation of local HR professionals who come together every six weeks or so to discuss issues of mutual interest. The HR Network is open to anyone with HR responsibilities in the Antrim/Ballymena area. Guest speakers this time around are Harry Harpur from The Loop Training and Laura Kerr from Young Enterprise NI.

On Wednesday Scott will be networking in Dublin. He will be meeting with Eversheds sols; Hayes sols; Marian Jennings (chair of Dublin Annual Review of Employment Law conferences); Byrne Wallace sols; and John Horgan.

Then on Friday Scott will be taking time off, as he sees his eldest daughter fly the nest off to university in Scotland.

Heather will be going down to Dublin to view a few other venues in and around Dublin in the morning and afternoon. She will also meet with Scott and Marian for a well deserved lunch.

Jayne will continue working on the EFQM submission this week, taking Thursday off to focus on the paperwork and work from home.

Marketing continue to organise mailshots and set up event information on our websites. The only meeting this week for Ainsley, is on Wednesday morning when he meets with Brian and Alan Nelson of Forth Data to discuss an audit of our internal databases.

Finally, James will be returning to work tomorrow (we hope!!) after he completed a 10k run in Yorkshire yesterday.

31st August Guest Writer Jayne Finlay

2010-08-31T02:06:00.000-07:00

So as second season nears upon us, we prepare to say goodbye to August, crazy sports days and river cleans and head into the busy month of September.

Last week we had a great week cleaning up rivers in Antrim, hosting a bbq for local businesses and competing against Abacus Recruitment for the coveted Sports Day trophy - ok so it wasn't exactly the "triathlon" Barry had in mind when he first set out with this idea but I think I can safely say fun was had by all as we substituted swimming for badminton, running for rounders and cycling for indoor hockey. Who won? Legal-Island of course! We feel a rematch coming on!!

As for the this week, with some staff members wisely using their annual leave before the silly season starts again we are preparing ourselves for what we hope will be a busy few weeks of bookings and conferences.

Barry is off to Syria on his holidays for 2 weeks leaving Jayne to mind the fort.

Jayne will be working hard on the submission for EFQM NI Quality Mark while marketing will be preparing mailshots for ROI.

We have our newest member of staff coming in to meet with Donna today. Sharon Simpson is our new Office Cleaner/ Housekeeper for the Training Centre and we look forward to welcoming her on board the Island.

Carecall are coming in to see us today to explain about the launch of EAP within Legal-Island. This is an exciting new project which gives all staff the opportunity to meet one to one with a coach/ counsellor to keep us calm and stress free during the coming months.

Let's hope we're all still standing at September kicks off....

Monday 23rd August 2010 Guest writer Phyllis

2010-08-23T03:54:00.000-07:00

A warm welcome to Bronagh who has joined the staff of Legal-Island today. She will be working in the admin department helping to process bookings for our second season which starts tomorrow.

All work and no play - this is not the case at Legal-Island as we have the Antrim River Clean up and BBQ on Thursday and competitive games at the Forum on Friday. All welcome.

Kerry will be hosting Customer First Event which will be facilitated by Joe Blair MBS and we are happy to report that this event is all but sold out.

Heather will be going along to the Parity Steering Group tomorrow evening.

Scott will be helping out at our Customer First Workshop tomorrow. This is a new workshop from Legal-Island. He will also be assisting with the Legal-Island barbecue.

Vanessa will be attending our Customer First course.

Barry is meeting leadership consultant Richare O'Rawe on Wednesday and is taking part in the great Antrim River Clean up on Thursday. He assures us he'll look the part in his rubber diver's suit but we'll see. On Friday he's the captain of the Legal-Island triathlon sports team. Legal-Island is taking on Abacus Recruitment who think they're good but good may not be good enough!

We are all looking forward to a very diverse week at L-I.