Ketchup, Nah! Catch Up!
Thursday
Another N3 news disaster day (see below for details on another day). Sort out The Commissioner in its blog format, do the Zookoda e-mail newsletters and disseminate them. Agree a plan of media whoredom with Katherine for the thing. Gill calls with issues around the Training and Development Group of the C&M group. Chat and hatch a more knowledge management focus for the thing. Agree to go along in the afternoon. Think we get close to something very good in the meeting. The notion is that to support the proposed Buddy (librarian mentoring scheme) the T&D group needs to create an environment where we share knowledge and aren't afraid to say 'I haven't a Scooby'. Dump a load of actions on poor Steve not least of which is a quick knowledge mapping idea. Some notion of a knowledge shop on BMJ Learning and its implementation. Gill shares the notion of a job jar, a notional place where you stuff the things you need to do but are just that bit too hard. I have plans for that for us at Fade. Wednesday Wake to the discovery that South Oxfordshire is involved in a power cut. The radio keeps bleating on about it (this is why I hate local radio and suspect that finally giving into the thing means I have turned into my Dad). Still the folks have a gas hob so by employing a saucepan with a personality crises (it thinks it is a kettle) we get a cup of char. They are it must be said amazed I'm off the coffee and beer for lent. Eat porridge with the old drear after the old fella has headed to Swindon. Power comes on, nick the old fellas PC to do the Istockphoto stuff and send a frantic mail to Mo and Suzanne. Then wander down the station with her as she walks to work. Take the piss out of her for turning into a senile delinquent because she's bought herself a leather jacket. Can't see her getting a big fuck off bike though! The train to Paddington is delayed (what can you expect it has to go through Swindon) and I stress that I'm gonna be late. I hate being late. Still get to Paddington somehow ahead of time. Grab a pen and a little red book and head off into the bowels of the tube. Euston Square and out into UCL land. Realise I've only got a vague clue as to where Tavistock Square is. Nip into Waterstones, check out a map and off I fly. The BMA is more imposing than I imagined. Sign in, see Angie from NLH, find the fuhrerbunker we're meeting in and arrive just as folk go round the room saying who they are. Meeting goes well apart from a powercut (it's me the leccy board are out to get me - either that or the BMA have run out of 50p pieces and that ain't likely - despite the fact that I don't think they are as greedy as Patsy Hewitt would have you believe). So most of the meeting is in a halflight of gloom. Very good to see Ingrid. Recommend BMA sandwiches though, couldn't see what was in them but they tasted very good! The fuhrerbunker inspires me to go visit the Cabinet War Rooms. I've been before but well worth a visit. Secure a mode of transport and a postcard. Write the postcard as I eat at a small Frankie and Bennies just off Trafalgar Square. Top stuff. Scribble a marketing mind map and travel back to Runcorn where I jump a taxi back to Halewood. Sleep beckons! Nice to catch up with the family here though. Tuesday Design meeting at Printing.com is planned. Mo calls to confirm the time and place. Suzanne arrives and we eventually find parking in the NCP opposite Hammy House. Hammy is currently cut back to the bare bones by the builders who are turning it into luxury appartments (pity the poor sod who finds their flat has a bedroom in what was the old gym, it had a unique smell - sort of Turkish wrestler's jock strap!) Mo is waiting for us at the venue. We sit down chat with the designer, the delightful Ken, give him the brief ( a lesson learnt from Dan Thurgood that has stood us in good stead over time and shocks the poor wee fella we're dealing with today because he don't often get one and claims not to have seen that sort of thing since uni!). Mo and Suzanne rescue some of the rough edges of the text I prepared at 8.00 this morning. Unfortunately Istockphoto don't want to play. Still don't when we get back to Reggie, so we agree to look later and share thoughts. Got to be impressed with the way Mo and Suzanne have operated on this it really has been a huge team effort on the part of the three of us. Cool collaborative working. Bit of a news disaster today. Suspect it's the vagaries of N3 that prevent an effective use of Blinklist which means we don't get the days news out. Still we've been fairly consistent in getting the thing out of late so not the disaster I think. Tracy gives me a lift to Garston, off to Didcot I head for the night to see the folks before a TDAG meeting in the Smoke on Wednesday. Given the current Trust financial situation grabbing a room in the Smoke might not be the wisest move so I opt for folks and trip from Didcot pre-return. The train trip is remarkably smooth, change at Wolverhampton, straight onto the Oxford train, arrive at Oxford and the Didcot train appears straight after it. Nice to see my olds at the other end too. Spend the evening chatting, watching a bit of cricket and some Speedway (Speedway? what the hell was that about?) The old drear arrives from her dyslexia meeting. Good to see them. Monday It's Monday and the day of the Cheshire and Merseyside Librarians meeting. The thing dominates the day for me and I do bugger all else but prepare for it. Nip over to the Meeting Place, fave local coffee house which will provide the venue this afternoon following the temporal misunderstanding between myself and Gill. They're sorted and things are set with flasks of coffee and tea ordered. Next thing is to burn the Marketing Toolkit which Mo, Suzanne and I have prepared, sort out the jewel cases so everything looks pretty. Stressed about the whole gig if I'm honest. Tracy pulls a rabbit out of the hat as she opens the cupboard to reveal that the laptops that will form our training suite have arrived. Just need to get IT to set up the wireless hub abd the machines themselves. Cool. Suspect Sally will be amazed the things are actually here! Need to use the wireless connection over there so drag a one of the laptops from the new mobile training suite over there. Not been set up by IT yet but we book the job, set it up enough myself to enable us to use it. Hooray the thing works fine. Ring Jean to tell her because she is doing a presentation on the GMOPAC on the thing. Drag the projector and wireless device over to the Meeting Place and having given Jean the grand tour of library and Reggie. Usual footie banter and I learn things about Otterspool Prom that I didn't want to know! Cataloguing banter too, yes it can happen! Thing is I know I'm right about cataloguing standards! Nice to see Scott from Coutts the very excellent booksellers we use (Tracy and I are hooked because we can see what's happening with an order at any point, we can download MARC records from them etc.) Meeting goes OK but the sound of steam interuppts every now and again. We leave later than anticipated but no pressure to get out from the folks at the coffee house despite the fact we're in an hour and a half past their closing time. I give Clare from JET a lift to Lime Street and head home. Nip to Ying Wah, get Monst to work and chill.
