Wednesday, 24 September 2008

Another day of pleasantly dull administration

I don’t want anyone to think I didn’t work hard, but it is very pleasant to have time to catch up on work that has been piling up for weeks. I won’t catch up on everything of course, but today I sorted out several future meetings and events and finalised the month’s salaries. I also (briefly) attended a steering group meeting for an initiative being launched by two of our members.

A surrender to formality

I also finally took the decision to timetable regular monthly staff meetings. Originally I resisted this: we were a small staff team of six and I felt that a “formal” monthly meeting was simply unnecessary (or maybe even pretentious) and would only lead to trouble. For the last two years we have only had irregular staff meetings when there has been something particular to discuss. But in this time, we have grown to be a staff team of thirteen. Most of the additional staff members are part-time, but this just exacerbates the challenges for team building and communication. So today I finally succumbed and scheduled regular monthly staff meetings. I can't shake off the feeling that this is a concession to bureaucracy and formality and that somewhere a fairy has died.