Monday, 14 April 2008

This, the first of several long working days, began with one of our networking lunches. David Fitzpatrick, CEO at Hertfordshire Community Foundation, travelled over from Hatfield to talk to us about Grassroots grants and plans for the new Watford Community Fund. David of course spoke very well, and I was pleased that the audience included both our Chair Pam Handley and Watford’s Mayor Dorothy Thornhill.

Before, during and after the meeting I talked to as many different people as possible about future plans and so on. After a difficult start, the revamped and reformed networking lunches are really beginning to produce some interesting outcomes: different people attend each time and there are always good discussions. And at last we have found a good reliable caterer!

From the lunch, I headed straight off to Cambridge Regional College for the start of my eight week ReaLM course from the Institute of Leadership and Management and the Cranfield Institute. Why does it take so many different groups to deliver a short course?

I was back in the strange parallel world of training where trivial questions expand to fill the time available to address them. I was disappointed (and rather insulted) that one exercise on this course tested that we were able to distinguish “opinion” from “fact”. Happily, our tutor realised her faux pas and hurried quickly along. When I finally arrived home after 9:00, I told Jackie it was “hardly a steep learning curve”. She told me I had been just as arrogant at school; I am sure she’s right.