a Christmas blog

For all those who asked me so kindly at the meal yesterday for a Christmas blog... here it is!
So the question quite possibly on your lips is: "Did he have that Drambuie in the end?" the answer is no i didnt but what i did do was (with the aid of Andrew and Ian too) save a life!
With not a lot else to do i shall just say happy christmas to anyone that reads this!!! i shall be back in the new year with some more prize winning blogs

Sorting out my NVQ and my MPhil

I have taken a recent interest in the personal development side of things i have to say... i even spent some of the weekend trying to cement a start on the MPhil and carried that interest on today! I also had some good correspondance with Idris firstly sending off the pending Gantt chart but then getting back some things for the NVQ i am doing. So im becoming an educated type again which is nice...

LMC 2

LMC 2 went well i think!! nice and smoothly through the presentation and some good feedback from Les afterwards regarding the thoughts on it from the rest of the steak holders. Following the meeting i spoke with Ldris about how the NVQ would take shape and how i would start working on that, i have to do module A2 and D2 by the next LMC which is scheduled for the 7th of March. I then went through with Les how the MPhil was going to take shape... we worked out a nice little structure for it and i feel confident that it will go along nicely now having set out nine chapters to which i can add notes as i go alo9ng.

Next news to follow on Monday have a good weekend until then
bye bye

A shocking experience

so i didnt really have a great deal to actually talk about yesterday but heh as i was packing up i got an electric shock off of the plug socket. All good experience for the health and safety module E6 in the NVQ. Anyway full report to follow relating to Fridays activites

Was it a real person or was it a bot with artificial intelligence?!

Today i was left wondering such a question after speaking to a live online assistant, though helpfull and occasionally slangish in its responses the other party in the conversation seemed somewhat automated... this all came about as i was looking in to a number of hosting companies for the VS online project. I have looked in to four different companies and one of them instead of giving me an offer of emailing them gave me that different method of answering my question.

only a couple of days now till the LMC time to make sure that the presentation is going to go smoothly!! But apart from that no other news... i do like the fact that this is more for myself now than anyone else... it means i can effectively write whatever!

Making myself a movie star at Visionsupport

Today i made myself a moving image star at the vision support building in Chester as we made a video to demonstrate the awkward and somewhat destressing situation a visually impaired person finds themselves in when they arrive ata building and there is little to no help given to them at reception... although made in a similar way to The Office, it hopefully gets across the message that finding a specific room isn't particularly easy and that more needs to be done to support people with a visual impairment when they are atempting to navigate themselves around a new or complicated building.

The afternoon was spent looking at making this blog read by a wider audience as it begins to comment on the project more as it picks up pace. I attempted to register on newsnow.co.uk and am hoping that it will be accepted so that it gets the audience from that site able to view it too.

bye for now
Tim

Surveying the public is tough...

So as the title suggests i was out in Chester city centre attempting to complete some questionaires relating to the internet however people seemed to be somewhat lacking in interest towards filling it in! (if anyone reading this wishes to fill one in leave me a comment and i can sort out sending you one, it would be really helpful)

After comig back early from the above event with my tail between my legs i set to work on preparing my presentation for the upcoming LMC2.

Not a great deal else to report on the day but again a relativly positive day in terms of keeping in touch with people related to the project and the lesson learnt in the morning will be kept in mind for the future.

Tara for now

Today i was busy completing my action points from yesterdays meeting. Having got my executive summary off ready for the pre LMC send out AND a press release drafted to explain the project i feel good about the progress of the project... i have to say im looking forward to next week as after the big scary LMC meeting i am going to be able to sit down with Les and discuss how the Mphil will be structured and i can really start to work on it!!! Im also thinking that the NVQ will be explained by Ldris (KTP advisor) all in all i expect that next week i can really move on with my personal development...

Back again on Monday... have a GREAT weekend!

Turning over a new leaf (one made of commitment)

To all those who are reading this....

I re pledge my efforts with this blog and my time i spend on it!
Following a monthly meeting with both Sue and Les (Company and academic superviosrs of the KTP) i now realise how useful this medium of communication is... i had originally stopped it due to lack of interest and concerns over accessability.

Anyway tody we started to draft out how to move forwards with the project and specifically the area relating to the navigational part. I also aim to start writting an email newsletter to inform a wider audience of what i am doing and what i require from the various stake holders.

Other great news... the MPhil starts officially today so i can begin to move forward with that as well... in all honesty i feel a little over whelmed but since i am moving in to the big leagues i guess i need to be more organised... since i last posted though i got myself a desk so at least that point is now taken care of.

All (guidance) systems are go!!

Our findings from Expo07

So back from Llandudno and back to work today, I guess it would do to describe some of the sights sounds and smells of Expo07: Well the first day was a bit of a dissapointint start to be perrfectly honest and was ill organised but the second day showed a big improvement and with that we found it to be much more succesfull.

In terms of benifits to the charity we got some good links with other organisations and some interested parties in volunteering, awareness training and transcription services across Wales. Our profile was also raised which of course is always a benifit too.

Personal development wise, i got some more workshops on coaching and imporoving the mind/memory. I also got to hear from a number of speakers about their lives and exeriences which although varied in quality still all gave me something to think about and learn from. I also managed to circulate my own buisness cards and project details aroud so that people can get in contact with me further down the line. I feel like my networking skills are really improving and my ability to talk work related nothingness is coming on in leaps and bounds.... a skill that im especially proud of (for if you can talk rubbish to people and keep them interested you get more facetime and therefore remain in their memory for longer)!

Questions on the event would be answered happily if i get any but apart from taht i shall sign off!
tara

Preparing for Expo 07

Tomorrow we have Expo 07 to attend in Llandudno, so today we were sorting out various materials and promtional resources ready to take with us. It was a rather tedious and labour intensive task involving burning of cds, printing of stickers and applying the for mentioned labels to the sleves... however it has left us with a promotional CD Rom that looks nice and proffesional to promote the Awareness Training. Apart from that it was a relatively dull day (in terms of work AND weather). Was good to see Linda and Joy back in the office after their holidays making it a bit more back to normal in terms of people being in.

Probalby wont post till Thursday now as i shall be out of the office (unless they have wireless in the venue we are going to)

Bye for now

and a thanks to Andrew for doing the minutes

so first since i know that some of you have requested an update since Tuesday as i haven't posted the last couple of days, i have a brief run down of things that have happened:-
Meetings held: 2 (one of them a monthly supervisors meeting)
emails recieved: 22
cups of tea drank: 7
Conferences arranged for Andrew:: 1
Buscuits eaten: 1 packet of ginger nuts
(there you go Wendy, thats in a nut shell what happened on wednesday and Thursday)

So today... and yes ive been VERY busy... Not only did i help Dave Holins out by checking the accessibility of the website using Supernova. Coming up to lunch time I helped out Audrey with the stuffing of envelopes in preperation of the AGM. I also started to play around with Joomla (cheers to Dave Jones for sending the lnks for it). Additionally i signed in to the chartered managers website as a student with my brand new login address (im really starting to get too many accounts online in my opinion). Further more i aided Andrew in writting up the minutes that he took so kindly yesterday. One more thing i did that arose from the meeting yesterdays meeting and was needed to be done by Expo 07 on Tuesday, that was the questionaire that we are goign to get delegates to fill out on website visits.

However all of that work was loose change in comparison to the crisp notes that was mine and Kaths recording of the Vision Support Awareness Training Team's promotional audio CD. I am especially grateful to Kath for her help with that and lets hope that it is recieved well by those who use it.

Ok that sounds like a comprehenisve list of what i did today and hopefully regains your interest
bye for the rest of the week...
T.x

my first bit of audio and my first image... i'm going multimedia!!!

Thought i would attach the Vision Support logo at the top of this blog just for a change...

So today Andrew and I worked on creating the audio version of the promotional material for the awareness training... Using Garage Bnad we created the audio files that were then tranfererable to itunes and then to CD... our various attempts eventually resulted in success and tomorrow we shall get Kath to record the audio material that we have scripted ready for her.

what else did i do today? hmm... oh yes, I booked Andrew on to a course on assistive technology in my absence at the end of september... that is at NEWI in Wrexham so hopefully he can get some usefull information from it ready for when i get back from my holiday. We also discussed what we plan to do next week for Expo 07 and what we plan to do whilst we are there. Finally i wrote up a summary for Miriam regarding the web service and the progress we have made with it so that she may give it to the board as a verbal this evening when they have their monthy meeting.

Sounds like i was busy today... which is good...

bye for now

Tim

Bonus post due to an amazing comment!

This is only a brief post as i already said about my day and its actually getting very late but since i posted i checked the comments i had recieved from earlier posts and was AMAZED to find one from not only a fellow visually impaired person but someone with the same eye condition (which incidentaly is very rare). So i guess i would like to quickly thank the lady for getting in touch and hey it shows that my blog is actually worthwhile after all... i hope that from this it might even manage to reach others if she sign posts it on and i can start to build links maybe with other people with a visual impairment online across the world!!

Ok thats enough for now... off to bed... work tomorrow...
Night!

Needing to worki on my communication skills?

Today i learnt that it is possibly better to engage my brain before i open my mouth... though i did get this message drummed in to me at primary school (the teacher i had in class 1 had a sign on his desk saying such for us to read every day). Not that i speak out of turn, i do however tend to say things a little too bluntly sometimes. Anyways i guess that its good to be opinionated so long as you dont let it take over the conversation and come across as dis interested in other points of view.

That muse aside, today i looked into the content managment system (CMS) Joomla and to how it would suit Vision Supports needs. I shall have to continue with that before Thursdays meeting so that im aware of how it works ready for my discussions with Sue, Les and Rich.

The office ssweepstake for the 20 20 ckricket was also started and my name along with the other 11 staff members involved was sealed in to an envelope with a mystery team so hopefully i have been drawn then winner. A masive £12 prize is available there.

done talking for the day i think so it shall be off home for me soon!
Tim

Dedicated to Jo

The best thing that happened today was the presentation of Vision Supports gift and card to Joanne who is getting married at the weekend and who is off tomorrow so in the afternoon tere was a brief pause in work while we all wished her our luck and happiness with both Saturday and the future! I hope she was pleased with it (im sure that she probalby was though)

In terms of work unfortunatly Rich couldnt make it for the meeting about the website today so i had to re arrange how we were goign to look at getting the informatio for Mirriam in time for the board meeting but still have a comprehensive disscussion on the various aspects of the web service project.

I also looked at the NVQ again and began planing hwo i will move through it and who i will need to work with to coplete the various units. It seems like its going to be ALOT of work and involve even more paper (despite being an online course).

Without wanting to sound too negative i feel this week has been a bit of a waste as both today and Friday are now not happening but then as Sue has just said things are meant to be so every cloud has a silver lining and there are always contingency plans available. Beidies im sure i can use the rearranging as evidence for the NVQ!!

tara
Tim

Dig the hole even deeper Tim!

The lesson to learn from today i found was not to ask someone to say something interesting without previously explaing why... Stuck for a title for my blog i asked Audrey to "say something interesting" it wasnt met quite as well as i would have liked and other office collegues didnt help the matter by suggesting i was saying she was normally boring which i hasten to add was not what i meant at all!!! Anyway it ended up that i have a title for my blog now and a large section on the way that part of the day panned out.

So what work did i do today? I sorted out the agenda and gathered in soome materials for tomorrows web service meeting so that is all prepared and ready. I also took a look at the accessiblity of a promo cd rom that the awareness traing team are sending out. Additionally i filled in a n onl9ine survey for KTP regarding their shocking organisational skills on the modules 2 and 3 courses

bye for another day

Tim

A dolphin stess ball

Today I got a dolphin stress ball given to me by the demonstrator who came from their company to speak to us about ways that we can link with them. the meeting itself was very interesting with lots of usefull bits and pieces coming out of it including something for future personal development regarding an acredited course for demonstrating their prodcuts and the fact that they are setting these courses up to run soon. To our amusement though they also gave us a pot of mints each as pr material too that was pretty much totally inaccessible to get in to since it was fiddly and the instructions of how to get in to it were in minute print!

The one negative that came from the day was the realisation that the course in Ireland was not going to be feasable to get to on time and so therefore i ahd to cancel but in doing so registered my interest with the man i spoke to regarding podcasts as an assitive learning too and he was keen to speak to me at a later date so i still kept that link open.

Not alot else to report today
so i shall go home and give eh stress dolphin a few squeezes ready for work again tomorrow

gantt charting for the web services project

In a very quiet office today i sat and started to write out a gantt chart for the next few months which focusses on the web services project and the related tasks i need to complete. I have to say i have flet very tired today after what seemed like a long weekend and with it alot of travelling but alas no time for sleeping as i have many important activities coming up that i have to attend to!

Incidentally i endorse boat trips down the River Thames as i went on one at the weekend and it was very enjoyable indeed!!

My morning meeting disaster?...... no chance!

Today fate contrived to ruin me, i had a presenation to give in front of all the managers of Vision Support but the taxi man failed to show up and caused me to be about 10 minutes late thus missing my slot... anyways that was forgiven by those in the meeting and i was allowed in later on so all is well... i thik not... my computer then decided to fail to project on to the wall causing me yet mroe obstacles to overcome... I however remain calm (irriated but calm none the less) and due to having a set of A3 sheets with the majority of slides already on i was able to give the presntation using them instead... albeit without all the information to display... So yes i can confirm that again i was good and conveyed my message and was pleased to have done so after all the hassle i had!

In other news... i registered for the NVQ management level 4 thing today and then spent some time perusing the whole websiteto see what it all entailed!

off to london pretty much now so shall be back on here monday
bye for now

Going to Ireland

Yes as the title suggests i am going to Ireland now, thanks to Rich finding a course for me to go on i have now booked on to a conference run by Erikson on making learning mobile. Sounds good and best of all its free!!! so no personal development budget wasted there!!!

Tomorrow is the BIG presentation to the SMT not that im too worried as its only a brief explanation of how we want the planing stage of the web service development to go ahead. I have my powerpoint all done ready and i hope that it clears up any queeries that the strategiv managers have.

To make up for the lack of posting yesterday and the ay before... what i did:
1. Wrote my presentation
2. Discussed with a service user one of his ideas
3. arranged dates in the diary for the next couple of months
4. Booked off my holiday to Munich!! woo hoo

ok thats it for now
bye till toorrow

The speakers and the projector

a joyous day today as my speakers and video projector were brought up to meet their new owner (me) by Les. They i do think will be getting some good use and shall help me in many a presentation in the future. For now they shall just need a bit of testing...

Now what else of a more practical day to day note can i talk about... er... oh yes of course which was very productibve and again as we managed to discuss a lot of things and catch up with where we both were in terms of the project. The meeting showed me that i was getting on well with my project and that i was focused well on some of the aspects that i consider to be important... i guess i just need to keep on track with them and things should go well.

I also tried to install Kurzweil (a scan and read programme on to my computer at work but with limited success so shall have to wait till Dave (the IT co-ordinator) is back in the office so that he can maybe look at it and help out.

anyways i look forward to seeing how well this projector works over the weekend maybe and therefore prepare a decent slide show for the meeting the following week.

Induction to VST

Today i spent an hour or so being shown around VST and meeting some of the staff members in there. It was in my opinion very interesting to see what they did and helped me apreciate the size of the comercial arm (which i hadn't previously really understood). I got a chance to speak to the former KTP associate in their organisation and got to see hwo he worked and what he felt was important in getting a successful project (something which i guess is pretty usefull as he recieved a highup award for his project).

The afternoon was spent in a enterprise team meeting and was good for us to feed back as a team our opinions and concerns. From that meeting i think i can start to look forward to what will be required in terms of presentations). I have to say i think Steve is very funny in those meetings he really does make me laugh!!

Anyways hopefully should be seeing Les tomorrow and if i do he could well be bringing me up the projector i ordered out of the equipment budget!! So looking forward to that!

see you tomorrow
Tim

Personally developing myself (or at least deciding how to)

Hello hello

How be? i hear you ask...

At the end of the week i am good, today i have been writting my personal development plan and attempting to answer what i consider to be a difficult queston currently of "where do i see myself in 5 to 7 years time?"

I decided on the two preconfrence workshops i will attend in OCtober as well today, the first being a half day on web 2.0 and screen readers the second being on the transition of web 1.0 to web 2.0 so hopefully they provide me with some usefull information and advice on how we can try to get the website and web portal working in a fully accessible but fully advanced way. Rich today also sent me what seems like an interesting book on website accessiblity so again hopefully that will help me with my future work.

I also decided to try and organise myself properly today as i was starting to get a bit messy and slack with my papers and sloppy with when i had things on... lets see how long that lasts!

Monday i am going to work from home and look at short cuts and how they are used to navigate the computer wihout the use of a mouse, following the IT lesson the other day i feel its a very impressive skill as there are so many to remember!

Think thats enough for now
Tim

It pays to chek back over minutes of meetings

I today found out the importance of checking back over meeting minutes as i went over the LMC1 minutes with Sue today and have to say was somewhat surprised to find out some parts of the minutes that had been actioned. It turns out that my presentatioin on the 8th of November should be between twenty and thirty minutes long :O oh yes indeed that is an attempt at a shocked amily.

The morning was spent looking in to and booking an exhibition/conference helod in london on accesiblity and comuters called Techshare 2007. It actually looks very helpfull and seems to fit in very well with the project so fingers crossed that goes well.

Tomorrow i aim to try and get some more work on the lesson plans done so that i can spend the early part of next week testing them.

Bye for now
Tim

Christmas gets earlier each year!

Today i opened up discussions about what to do for a staff christmas party/event... Now as a working person i need to make sure i am ready fro christmas a long time before hand... so some suggestions have been made for what we could do and run by the few peoplein the office.

In terms of work done today, Andrew and I trialed our questionaire out ona couple of willing volunteers to see what we might need to add to it for when we actually start it up in terms of getting volunteers to phone the service users.

I also too a look at the access software that come as part of Skype to see how that could help a person with a visual impairment use the programme... in my opinion there appears to be little extra support provided and the supposed simplified graphics option makes it harder to view the bits it changes as apposed to easier.

Emails today were numerous and of course as usual it was good to hear from the people i met on the management course as to what they werw doing. I also booked two dates in the diary for a workshop and a meeting so hopefully they will be interesting (unfortunatly i did have to remove a date that was already in the diary due to a cancelation of the event)

Well that is quite comprhensive as to my days actiities so i shall leave it there
Tim

Its all about IT training

Today my day has been very geared towards IT and the traiing of it, apart from a brief irritating restbite in between observing wendy give an IT lesson and writting up my lesson plans.

I have now gaged an idea of how i should try to structure the lessons and what i would need to do to make them fully accesible. It was interesting to see how mch you can operate a computer without a mouse (admittedly i shold be much better at this but due to lazyness i havnet really put the effort in).

Registering for an NVQ is a total farse in my opinion... i feel like without Jess's (KTP modules 2 and 3 participant) help i would have never found out how to do it or where to go... ridiculous AND thanks to Andrew for helping me fill otu a totally inaccessible form anyways that should now start in about six weeks time according to Jess (ever so efficent down at Momenta)!

Well tonight i think i will continue trying to work on these lesson plans as i said last week working late has its benifits and whilst its fresh in my head i think i will get a fair aount sorted with it.

farewell for now
Tim

working late has its benifits

Last night i was sat at my kitchen table drawing up some plans and maps for the website and portal. Today i presneted them to some of the strategic managers and staff to show how things would work and i feel like it has clared up some questions that they had and it has deffinatly cleared up in my mind how it will work too... therefore i beleive taht although i havent ever really worked late/at howe before i can now see its benifit.

Brillinatly today as well i ordered my speakers which look amazing so i look forward to their arival... the sound that they give out will not only help in my presentations but selfishly make the music play sound good too!!!

anyway thats a short post today but the office is closing down now so i need to get out of here

back next week

Monthly meeting 1

Today was the day of my first monthly meeting with my supervisors fromthe charity and the uni (Sue and Les resctively). I think that the meeting went well with agenda items i had collated being discussed nicely. I look forward to most of the meetings following a similar vein. I shall have to type up the meetings minutes tomorrow morning so that any of the "emotion" from the meeting is left out of them, or so im told is best practise anyway.

Additionally in the morning i spent time again on my lesson plans for the IT training, im hoping to have them sorted by next week so tahti can start testing them out to see if they are accessible and informative.

I think im going to have to put my head down for the next few weeks though as i think it will be hard work up till the end of August so that i can get these lessons written.

I have a qustion for you to finsish with... What would you like to see/hear from this blog? I ask this as i have difficulty deciding what to write. your thoughts please

T.

Dedicated to wendy

Thank you to wendy who has shown support to this blog through out the dry period.

Anyway back to what i've been doing, today i wrote a report regarding how feasable it would be to survey all the service users on our database so fingers crossed that proposal goes ahead and we ccan get some positive results from taht.

Additionally i have rewritten my gant chart for the rest of this month and arranged the FIRST website meeting for early September. Spent some more time getting and giving feedback on the course i was on last week although i still have to show the video of my presentation (the spectacle that it is).

Communications with other course participants is still very high and i see that as a good thing as it keeps netwrokign oppotunities up too.

Looking forward to the introduction of wireless both in the offie and more iminatly home too as it will make it easier to write this blog for one but also allow me to work fromhome occasionally.


All for now
Tim

A long time coming

So i shant be appologising for the lack of posts as i have been well to be perfectly hoenst distracted by numerous other things however i am back on the blogger case.

Last week was again an interesting week with tme spent learning management techniques and indeed teaching them too... or at least giving a master class in the presentational style of improvisation! Got myself some positive feedback on it too so happy with that.

Whats next then for me and my blog i can imagine you are thinking... well the answer to that is making a real start and dent on the actual project proposal. The next few weeks i would apreciate peoples help with ideas for what we can maybe do with the IT lessons as we are hoping to maybe create some others to add to our repetoiur... I shall try and hold a meetig with Steve to get these moving so any ideas and feedback is welcome nay encoursged!!!!

Further to that i have a meeting with Sue and Les where hopefully we can bottom out some strucutre to the next couppe of months or so and in doing so increase my efficency exponentially.

On an non work related front internet and more importantly a bed should be iminant in the flat so i feel like a real Chester resident now rather than someone sleeping ona friends floor.

New post tomorrow but for now i am glad to be back on blogger
Tim

The apple era

Firstly some appologies to avid readers as i am aware people have been missing my regular blog posts. I have a number of excuses but that is all they are.... excuses! Further to that i have to appologise for a lack of posting over the next couple of weeks as i will be away o holiday and away on another managment confrence!

So how was the last confrence? Well despite clear aprihention and concern about how usefull it wold be i fully endorse the experience now! Made 15 great new friends and have some excellent stories. I am now looking forward to the second one.

So the first LMC went well and to make matters even better i had my apple mac delivered too so i am now writting my blog on that! WOO HOO Tomorow is the open day and a mild panic is going on inside as i have to pack for my holiday later on in the evening as welll.

Please let more people know about the blog so that its popularity grows and with that the KTP project gets better press!

Appologies for a week of madness

hello again,
i have to appologise for what has been a week of madness causing me to forget to post my blog everyday... once moved and the internet is set up in my new flat i should be more efficent.

So yesterday i chanced upon the hive of good ideas that is the rest of the enterprise team, these then got passd on to Les at the uni who was impressed and we have some good ideas ready to run with after my month off in July. This actually brings me on to a IMPORTANT point, PLEASE PLASE PLEASE can anyone who has any suggestions for ideas to run with or any daily problems that they feel need addressing could they send them in as coments so we can look at them in a similar way.

Sunday i start my managment course on the Wirral so hopefully that is going to be good and informative, i mgiht even come back from it as a real motivational speaker which would be amusing.

Hopefully readers of this should go up now as i have advertised it on the public folders in vision support now. lets see if it does ay!

and for those who are interested as a final note, tonight is my last night as a resident of bangor Gwyneedd, as from Satruday i shall be lving and working In Chester Cheshire!

T.

what should have been yesterdays blog but due to busieness its todays

Yesterday was a VERY productive yet surprisingly easily forgetable day. I spent the day looking in to existing products on the market and brain storming ideas for possible 'quick win' projects to take advantage of gaps in the market.

Additionally i was working on what i would need to say in the meeting earlier this morning as it was my first general managers meeting and i needed to present the outline of the KTP project. It turns out that this went quite well and i was very happy with my mornings work. T

This afternoon i have been conversing with staff memebers regarding various matters to do with the project and touching up the leaflet that i am to produce for the event day in July.

Oh and todays question was... What would your labour saving super power be?

A brief history of time (at vison support)

Today was a really interesting day at work...

Prior to lunch i was working on the awareness training slides i shall be presenting next week on eye conditions and familiarising myself with them.

LUnch time was bitter sweet as it was a retirement do for John from 3C who although i had never really spoken to before i feel will be a big loss to the organisation as the stories he had from his last twenty years of being with Vision Support were really intersting. The changes the place has gone through and the advances it has made from a rather old school of thought are amazing!! I think the suggestion of a book being written about it should really be followed up...(maybe a job for someone else though). Oh and the sandwiches provided wern't half bad either.

The afternoon consisted of a few managment esq questions that i had come up with that the staff in the office could answer in order to get people thinking laterally and i suppose in doing so worked on team building and communactive skills (i now have a question of the day for people that extends beyond the people on my desk to anyone who's in the office). Additionally i dug up and revisited my feasability study which i had written in September of last year for the KTP and am looking in to using work done there for a mini project i have to do next month pending some slight alterations and amendments.

Todays question of the day incidentally was Would you rather have an animals tail (if so which) or an animals horns/antlers (if so which)?

Thats me for the week... another blog monday!

A brief history of time (at vison support_

What can i bring to a team?

Well that is a hypothetical question as we were discussing this today... ideas that we came up with were presence, good coffee and out of the box thinking.

Also worked on today was the flyer ready for the KTP promotion, work group participants and the awareness training section I will be working on.

Discussions were held about the upcoming residential managment course and to what i should expect from it.

Finally i shall pose an interesting question... Which microsoft office application best describes your personality?

A day where i didnt seem to feel like i was getting anywhere but lots seemd to get done

I have to say that today seemed to be going rather the way of an unproductive day but somehow things turned around and a number of things seemed to get sorted out that tie up the loose ends from last week and early part of this week somewhat.

Put some thought in to and made a start on the flyer for the event day upcoming (July 14th) as i need to have one that describes in one page the KTP for people wishing to understand its role and its aims. Joanne said that she would give me a hand tomorrow so hopefully can get that finished off and out of the way before it becomes a choar. Other things to do tomorrow include the completion of the personal deelopment plan ready for the managment corse which i recieved a large amount of information on today too.

Anyway second induction week nearly at an end and then its head down for some serious inovations!

Blog 2 of 2 today

So as promised here is the second part to my days blogging which i guess shows how frequently you can post these things...

Our afternoon trip to Chester Zoo was very successfull i think, we gave a good presentation on visual impairment awareness and i think built up some usefull contacts there for future refrence... No animals seen today though which was a shame, having said that we were told that maybe we could get some complimentary passes for a future visit when we ha the time.

Goals for the week are changing all the time as i find some things are easily done and others are impossible to do this week due to other people being on holiday etc so i guess im learning to be more fluid and dynamic.

Off to bed soon i thnk another day another dollar tomorrow after all!

Blog 1 of 2 today

Today there is a special bumper edition of blogs as I left the power lead to my laptop at work yesterday and therefore failed to report on my daily activity yesterday!

Yesterday.... my first day back at the Chester Vision Support office (a.k.a The Ropeworks)! It was a great day with lot s of catching up being done with Sue in regards to what i did last week at the uni, so i think we are all now up to speed. In addition i was brought in on a trip to the zoo to give some awarness training which should be really interesting and as a side bonus we may get to see the animals! This all happens later today so expect a report back on that later!

In other news i had a good weekend if not tiring what with all the train travel i did and the move to Chester is looking back on again!

until later....

CAST blog ∏

hello... yes im back, its me... tim! here with another blog about my daily doings!

So today i finished off a gant chart of the first few months of the projectand other such administrative tasks. More interestingly though i also watched some short video podcasts from apple regarding their assistive software and how it has helped a few people with their day to day lives! Looking forward to getting my macbook now which incidently i think will help me with my audio blogging that is to comence along side this written form for those interested! Im thinking now that i am ready for next week and the move back to the charity office in Chesteralthugh i will miss the jumbo screen here. So yes this will be my last blog from CAST for a while...

the weekend holds some camping in the rain for me by the looks of things as a side fun note to this blog

Ok that will do for now

Tim

Hello and welcome

Hello and welcome to what will hopefully be the first of many blogs that I post.

Finding such things a bit hard to just start off, it shall start off like this! (I think its as good as any start)

The point to this blog is to doccument my work as I attempt to get more visually impaired users involved in these things. Being Visually impaired myself i am very keen to demostrate the ease and potential fun creating a blog offers.

I dont want to go on too long in my first so i shall close with saying that the next one shall be bigger and better than this one!

Tim Fox