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