Guest Writer - James

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

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

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

Until the next time,
James

Guest Writer - Pamela Park

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

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

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

Networking and Movements

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

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

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

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

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

Here’s to another great week!

Guest Writer - Arnold Majcher

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

Networking:

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

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


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

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

Onwards!!!

Bye Bye Glastonbury (Guest writer: Jacqui)

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

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

 

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

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

 

 

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

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

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Guest Writer - Jayne Finlay

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

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

This year the diary for the week looks like this:

Monday

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

Tuesday

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

Wednesday

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

Thursday

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

Friday

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

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

Guest Writer- Donna Kirkpatrick

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

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

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

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

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

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

A certain famous Barack OBama said in Belfast this morning

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

Guest Writer - Heather Stewart

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

Our movements this week are:

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

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

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

On Friday Scott will be working from home.

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

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

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