Wednesday, 18 April 2007

A long day again. It began fairly gently “catching up on correspondence” (wading through e-mails) and finalising arrangements for Friday’s conference in Hatfield.

The I met for an hour or so with Sha-Lee to produce final drafts of our 2007-08 membership pack.

Watford Borough Council

At lunchtime I went to Cassio Lodge to meet the Audit Commission inspectors who are carrying out a Comprehensive Performance Assessment on Watford Borough Council. Today was a short workshop of the Borough’s voluntary sector partners at which we were encouraged to be honest and frank with our views about our local Council. Despite every opportunity (and some incitement?) to sling mud, the participants were unanimous in their view that on balance we thought pretty highly of Watford Borough Council.

The negatives were that the Council spent too much money on professional consultants, failed to understand the true complexity of the voluntary sector, could be weak on communication between its own departments, and sometimes took a simplistic view of complicated issues.

The positives were that Watford was a good place to live, that members and officers were open and approachable and were genuinely committed to doing their best for Watford, that they followed transparent processes, that they listened and would change policies, and that they took the voluntary sector seriously.

On balance that’s pretty good going.

At the meeting I saw plenty of good people form the voluntary sector, and was specially pleased to see Althea (one of my trustees). After the meeting I shared some views and news with Sylvia and Phil (two more of my trustees).

Afternoon

In the afternoon, I met with WBC’s Senior Grants Officer Sarah Pinnock to begin catching up with our vast areas of mutual interest.

While all this was going on, Vanessa was supporting a meeting of the Disability Forum and Helen was in Hatfield for a meeting of the county-wide Volunteering Target Delivery Group.

Evening

At around 5:00, I still had a mountain of work to struggle through. I pulled together papers for my 2 May trustees' meeting, writing my usual report, and papers on the constitution, our risk assessment, and staff remuneration. After this I drafted “Terms of Reference” for the 16 May launch of the Watford One World Forum.

I didn’t complete the finance report or the 2007-08 budget amendments. But it was late and I was tired. In fact, it was midnight and I was tired.

Work life balance? I have my thoughts on this. Perhaps when there's more time ....