John Simpsons Last, Governors meeting, Work, JDM Off, 397 Twitter Followers

I’m due back at work tonight and before that I’ve a School Governors meeting at Millfield. Given this I really should have gone to bed at a reasonable time but instead stayed up and finally went upstairs at 2 O’clock. It seems I didn’t need a lot of sleep and when Deb woke me up at 5:30 I was wide awake and fit to work.
I borrowed Nat’s new bike to cycle to the school, he was in Endeby at his friend Fred’s house, to see what it was like; it was a lovely ride.
The Governors meeting went well, Nick the new chair is a professional bureaucrat and well use to running meetings so things moved quickly. We have a new Clark of Governors as Lee, our previous Clark, has, apparently, been elected to a seat on the Council and is no longer able to be Clark. The new guy is called Alan seems fine.
It was a sad meeting in one way because it was the Heads last. John is retiring at the end of term; his hips have gone, just like mine did, and will require replacing sometime soon. He feels it would be better, now he’s 60, to retire rather than be absent off and on during the next few years as he gets over the various surgeries. When I arrived he called me into his office to ask me about the operation and its aftermaths. There is going to bed a farewell event in July and hopefully I’ll see him a few times more before then. He’s been Headmaster during all of Nat’s time at Millfield and all but one year of Hannah’s time there. He’s going to be a difficult act to follow but hopefully the new Head Peter Wood will be up to the job.
Afterward I went home got my stuff ready and cycled to work, this time on my bike. I arrived in time to start at 9:30 and need to put in a public duties form for the lost time
JDM's off so Hasmukh is acting in his place, why's he never asked me I wonder, things were pretty quiet and remained that way for the resst of the evening.

TWITTER

AT ONE POINT TODAY I HAD 397 FOLLOWERS BUT THIS LATER DROPPED TO 395.

Admitting Defeat: I'm Never Going To Get This Blog Fully Up To Date

Its 03:07 on Tuesday 17 May and I've come to the conclusion that I must never let this blog fall behind again. I've just been flicking through all the holding posts and trying to remember what it was that I meant to write. OK some of them I can fill in because I've made reasonably decent notes in Word or they are waiting for me to upload the appropriate photos and videos , which I can now do having worked out that I've still got a about 3 gigs unused Google free space. I'm going to have to bite the bullet though and buy some space because it's been the problem of trying to organise the photos via either Ovi or Zooomr that's caused all the problems.

So then what about today (Monday 16) what did I, or anyone else in the family for that matter, do of significance...or otherwise?

After Deb and the Kids left I hot footed it to the PC to do...what? Nothing particularly specific, catch up on Google feeds, Tweets etc. Well whatever I was doing occupied me until nearly 14:00 when finally I decided I'd best go to bed. One thing of note was that not buying cider meant I just had a few weak beers in the fridge and a few of these had no effect on me and so I didn't wake later feeling the effects of too much booze.

I tried to stay up to watch the last launch of the Space Shuttle Endeavour but unfortunately it wasn't due to lift off until about 15:00 and I just couldn't stay up that long. So off to bed and time to see how long I can listen to a podcast before falling asleep. Sorry Jamila (Presenter of the Outriders podcast) but you weren't able to keep me awake and I'm afraid I'm going to have to play you again.

Deb woke me early because she and Nat had to go out and so we were having tea a little earlier than normal. Grabbed a quick showered and came down. Deb had an emergency Governors meeting at Brockington to discuss reducing staff salaries (the school's thinking of applying for Academy status) and Nat was going to help out at Cubs. If he does this for 6 months that will fulfil the community service element of his Queens Scout course.

This meant that I was left with Hannah and a slight problem. I had to leave for work at 7:00 but Deb wouldn't be home until 8:15 so what to do with her during the intervening period. I was supposed to lock her in but I agreed she could play out with the girls so long and Harleen's Dad was outside. I made sure she had her phone and planned to call her when I got to work.

I got to work around 7:30 and gave her a call; no answer her phone kept ringing until it went to voice mail. I tried calling Deb but her phone, as usual, was set to silent so she didn't respond. Next I tried Shantell's Mum Lidia but it seems she may have changed her number so in the end I called Donna who, God Bless Her drove down and checked everything was OK. Hannah also had her phone on silent and so hadn't known I was calling. Donna confirmed she was playing in Shantell's back garden so everything was OK.

I called Deb at 8:30 just to check. She was home. Nat had had a great time and Akala (Elaine) had confirmed that his helping out would qualify for the community service mentioned earlier. It seems he had a great time and Elaine said that he'd been great with the kids and hadn't been too rough. Thank God because he has no idea of just how strong he is. He'd knocked my glasses flying earlier on when we were messing round.

I forgot to mention that Brandon was around this evening the first time in a few weeks as he's been staying with his Dad while his Mum went on holiday

Work was very quiet tonight and its about bloody time, and there was nothing of consequence other than the fact that JDM said he was away next week which means we've got to change the plans we had to surprise him next Tuesday with a party to celebrate his 50th birthday. Looks like this will now happen on Wednesday. Gail and Abdul got their dates mixed up anyway and brought in food and chocolates this evening...whoops.

At least now I don't have a clash with JDM's bash and next Tuesday's Governors meeting where I think we are supposed to be going for a meal to say farewell to the Head John Simpson who's retiring at the end of term.

Arranging to See the Deputy Head

Today was yet another day of Twittering, weather awful and no cash to do anything anyway! About the only thing I got done today was contacting and arranging to meet the Deputy Head at Millfield School to discuss the School's ICT policy. I'm meeting with him after school next Wednesday.

Ovi Share Disappears, Governors Meeting, Stupid Scientology, Religious quiz, Christine O’Donnell, The Fail Whale Striketh

Well, finally, something to write about; this morning, while trying to upload a receipt for Deb, it appeared that all the photos I had stored in OVI Share (Nokia’s online photo storage application) had disappeared. I searched and search to no avail. When at last I found a “Share on Ovi” tab it proved to be non-functional. I noticed the Steve Litchfield; one of the authors of All About Symbian (a website dedicated to the
Nokia mobile phone operating system) was posting on Twitter. I immediately sent him a desperate Tweet asking if he knew what was going on; thirty seconds later Ovi Share reappeared on the main OVI site and I felt like the school spanner. He, lovely fellow that he is, did reply a little while later, I’d sent him another tweet by then saying all was well again, suggesting I download copies of my photos as a precaution as Nokia did seem intend on ending this aspect of their OVI services. So, it wasn’t just me that had gained that impression; every time they update the site the photo sharing application becomes more and more unwieldy and a right royal pain in the arse to use.

This evening was the first Governors meeting of the current academic year. What a momentous meeting, we lost a Chairman (Carl), gained a chairman (Nick), welcomed a new governor (Karen Spence) and anticipated the arrival of another (Simon Gladwin). There was some very sad news when the Head informed us that Nicola (one of the teacher Governors) had lost her babies during her pregnancy. I know how that feels and at this moment she must be feeling awful; it does get better Nicola it‘s just that it doesn’t feel as if it ever will. Nick took charge of the meeting, he’s a former local councillor and local government worker, and proceeded to shepherd us rapidly through the agenda.

John, the Head, briefed us on the effects on the school of absorbing 14 of the pupils who formerly attended Holmfield School (which closed at the end of last term). They were settling in well and there weren’t any major problems arising from their arrival…which was good. The school has now reached saturation level and we would be hard pressed to take on any additional pupils. We continue to have a relatively high proportion of SEN (special educational needs) kids and of course these are an additional drain on teaching resources. There was an under current of apprehension as to what effect future cuts would have on the school and the three local schools that make up the catchment for this area. Ring fenced or not there are cuts coming and we’ll have spend clever if we are to weather them successfully. As ICT Governor I need to arrange a meeting fairly quickly with the deputy head Steve who is responsible for this area. There are pressures from one of the other schools to have more of the time of our IT technician mark and we need to avoid losing too much of his time ourselves. I need to meet with him, Mark and Aaron (the teacher who also has responsibility for IT and Hannah’s current form teacher).

Eventually we covered everything and the meeting ended with the agreement that, as then next meeting in November was the last before Xmas, we would go for a meal afterward and once more we decided on the Left Bank. Arthur, the local Vicar, took up some of the time querying the uses to which the mobile, in our grounds, was used and inquiring into the possibility of new buildings being erected on site…don’t you watch the news Arthur we ain’t getting any new buildings anytime soon!

Made it to work just before 10:00 and settled down for another night of fun and games. The second Panorama programme on Scientology aired tonight and, surprise, surprise as soon as I logged into Twitter I could see straight away that the hashtag #StupidScientology was trending in the top ten in the UK. Lots of these were very funny and I did my bit and contributed three of my own:

You don’t have to be a complete, utter and total idiot to fall #StupidScientology but… Oh, wait a minute, SORRY APPARENTLY YOU DO! #PANORAMA

Why did #Xenu throw people around volcanoes and A Bomb them? He was trying to establish himself in the Cratering Industry #stupidscientology

Dearest @engram don't leave me I promise I'll not be audited again! I need you, I'm sorry I fell for #stupidscientology I was totally pissed

I’ll have to watch it when I get home and see whether the stupid is catching; I’m praying to Xenu that it’s not.

Staying with the subject of stupidity I decided to read up on Christine O’Donnell  (in the Huffington Post no less - Home of all that is Woo), recent Republican victor in the Delaware Mid Term Primary, Teabagger and all around Christian Fundamentalist Wing Nut. What a waste of oxygen this woman is; she’d be hard pressed to score high enough to fail an Intelligence Test! What is it with the USA is the country determined to create it’s own pre-enlightenment dark age? The Right Wing Male Fundamentalists are bad enough but the women seem to be competing to show that they can out stupid them and they’re succeeding beyond their wildest dreams!

Kept reading and posting on Twitter but fell victim to the terrible Fail Whale on a couple of occasions. Also, for reasons unknown, New Twitter doesn’t work properly here; I’m unable to reply to or retweet anyone else’s tweets!

There was another article on Twitter concerning a questionnaire that had been used in the US to test people’s knowledge about their and other people’s religions. It was no surprise to discover that those who were the most religious were also the most ignorant. I took the quiz and scored 14/15 putting me ahead of 97% of the US population! If anyone’s interested the quiz can be found here.

Well that’s about it for today…unless something interesting happens between now and 08:00!

Something interesting did happen; at 06:50 I was told I had an individual QA briefing with simon and this lasted until 07:30. It was very informative but luckily I'm already doing everything that I was aware needed doing so there were just a few points concerning changes whilst I was away. I've gone through it all with a trusty highlighter pen and marked my bits.