Another cold, crisp, sunny day. Great for walking. I wear an additional layer of a T-shirt so that I don't freeze while waiting for the train at my changeover station. I usually sit in the fresh air and read whilst I wait for my train.
I'm just at the end of my current book. Did you know that there was a bomb set off in New York city outside a bank on 16th September in the 1920's where a large number of people were killed and they never found the culprits? I didn't but the author has written a dramatic story around it. Quite interesting and readable - it kept me gripped - but doesn't scan as realistic.
In the office I find out that the IT contract hasn't been signed as yet but that its on its way to us. We're all due to meet later today to meet with the new suppliers and to wrap up the documentation so are on tenterhooks whilst we wait for it.
I meet with Steve, the site manager for the refurbishment, and we go through the current program. Apart from the windows and the wallies looking after their installation we're fairly confident about meeting the dates.
I settle down to check through my emails: 240 in the 2 days was away! Turns out that 200 of them were related to the IT contract with 20 of the rest being messages from the email system telling me that my mailbox is full! At least they're easy to deal with and I quickly get down to the proper emails. A large number of them are from the people who have just moved into their newly refurbished space. Lights too bright, radiators not working, too hot or too noisy, water tastes bad, too draft, not enough storage space,........ they are almost unlimited. Amazing when you consider the awful surroundings and decor they have endured for the past 6 months! Oh well, stuff happens!
The contract arrives and Cherie gets the necessary work done to get it signed and sealed. We head over to southeast Essex to Castle Point where we meet colleagues from the other councils, the suppliers and the lawyer who's putting together the paperwork. We thrash out proposals for the way the service will be monitored at a high level and have a general discussion on how its likely to work in the future and what we would all want to get out of it.
There is some amazement at the way that the four councils have managed this process and come to a mutually successful conclusion. In my view its like being married: hard work, conversation, consideration of others, a lot of arguments and give and take between parties with compromise and ideas for moving into the future being dominant. Its bloody hard work. The problem is that people usually want a lot for little input. There's more to come on this one and we still need to do a post mortem on the exercise. I ask that we put this on a future agenda and make a mental note eto provide 20 questions to the team to help with this PM.
Afterwards Cherie drives us back to Braintree. I need to get some paperwork about dealings with the window installers so I can start lining up some arguments against them.
I'm just at the end of my current book. Did you know that there was a bomb set off in New York city outside a bank on 16th September in the 1920's where a large number of people were killed and they never found the culprits? I didn't but the author has written a dramatic story around it. Quite interesting and readable - it kept me gripped - but doesn't scan as realistic.
In the office I find out that the IT contract hasn't been signed as yet but that its on its way to us. We're all due to meet later today to meet with the new suppliers and to wrap up the documentation so are on tenterhooks whilst we wait for it.
I meet with Steve, the site manager for the refurbishment, and we go through the current program. Apart from the windows and the wallies looking after their installation we're fairly confident about meeting the dates.
I settle down to check through my emails: 240 in the 2 days was away! Turns out that 200 of them were related to the IT contract with 20 of the rest being messages from the email system telling me that my mailbox is full! At least they're easy to deal with and I quickly get down to the proper emails. A large number of them are from the people who have just moved into their newly refurbished space. Lights too bright, radiators not working, too hot or too noisy, water tastes bad, too draft, not enough storage space,........ they are almost unlimited. Amazing when you consider the awful surroundings and decor they have endured for the past 6 months! Oh well, stuff happens!
The contract arrives and Cherie gets the necessary work done to get it signed and sealed. We head over to southeast Essex to Castle Point where we meet colleagues from the other councils, the suppliers and the lawyer who's putting together the paperwork. We thrash out proposals for the way the service will be monitored at a high level and have a general discussion on how its likely to work in the future and what we would all want to get out of it.
There is some amazement at the way that the four councils have managed this process and come to a mutually successful conclusion. In my view its like being married: hard work, conversation, consideration of others, a lot of arguments and give and take between parties with compromise and ideas for moving into the future being dominant. Its bloody hard work. The problem is that people usually want a lot for little input. There's more to come on this one and we still need to do a post mortem on the exercise. I ask that we put this on a future agenda and make a mental note eto provide 20 questions to the team to help with this PM.
Afterwards Cherie drives us back to Braintree. I need to get some paperwork about dealings with the window installers so I can start lining up some arguments against them.
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