Wednesday, 18 July 2007

I arrived at the office early to prepare for our Investors in People inspection. But at 8:30 am I received a telephone call from our assessor’s husband to say that she was unwell and would not be able to come. He sounded quite distressed: I think at his wife’s illness rather than at having to pass bad news to us. I e-mailed the bad news to everyone, left a telephone message for our chair, and asked Maria (Office Co-ordinator) and Laura (Volunteer Transport Office Co-ordinator) to contact the volunteers asap (we had organised a small discussion between the assessor and some volunteers).

Of course our assessor did not cancel lightly and I wish her a swift recovery. But equally I was frustrated at so much planning going to no purpose. As I am sure our assessor was. In the end, everyone was alerted other than one trustee and one volunteer who turned up for their appointments, but were very understanding (thanks Ian and June).

But there is always a bright side, too. Receiving news of a cancelled meeting is a little like having random access to a Time Machine. In this instance, I randomly gained a free day from nowhere that I could use to tackle some other work. Basis.

Meanwhile, Maria had drafted out the latest edition of WCVS News and also a Press Release about our trustee vacancies. And Helen made a welcome return to the office after a few days absence: it was her birthday and she brought in an array of fresh cream cakes from Sainsbury’s. Wonderful. Sadly, I had to send my apologies to a trustees meeting at the Disability Law Service. I hate letting people down, but Basis was pressing hard …

By mid afternoon I had complete the Project Implementation section of our Basis Business Plan. Somehow I had managed to produce a half-decent Gantt chart using SmartDraw (it was a bit like threading a needle wearing boxing gloves). I met with Anne and Vanessa to plan their next inputs, and then I went straight on to tackle the Budget, the Financial Plan and the Sensitivity Analysis.

There are already good figures for the finances and I surprised by the pleasing elegance of our original bid. It was really quite beautiful the way it all held together. Or perhaps this is just evidence that I have spent far far too long on this. I carried on working until Bobby arrived (from London, or possibly Brighton) at about 9:00 pm adn we headed off home together.