Day 4- Reindeer in Barnsley

You gotta love a reindeer this close to Christmas!

Welcome to Day 4. I didn't really see a reindeer today but I do live near a Deer Farm so I could have!

Spent all morning in my mini office at home catching up on admin stuff that included replying to emails, copying paperwork to send in to the central team and ringing around to book in new courses with venues, providers and learners. That makes it sound much easier than it really was- one course starting in January took 3 emails and 4 phone calls today! I have been in touch with Diane at Adult and Family Learning who are delivering the 3 week taster course, Michelle who is the warden at Collins Close community centre where the course will be held, and 3 learners who have attended project sessions at the centre. I have also printed off a few flyers to send out to learners who weren't at the last session and to take to the local library. Not sure that people always appreciate how hard it is to pull everything together for just one course, and I have another 5 to get sorted in the next couple of weeks- my colleagues across the country are nodding sagely and stroking their imaginary beards!

On the plus side, I have managed to delete 5 lines from the sticky notes that are on my desktop- result! I love sticky notes- I have 3 on screen at the moment- one for urgent stuff that needs doing today, one for ongoing things and one for completely random thoughts/ ideas (on at the moment are : echo-location and the hippocratic oath- totally bonkers I know). It amuses me to change their colours and update them- a virtual version of doodling.

This afternoon I met up with a new tutor to discuss our 4 week course outline for a group of unemployed learners tomorrow. We had planned to meet up with Neil my contact at A4e at 3pm at one of their premises in the town centre. Unfortunately when we got there the office was all locked up and Neil didn't have a key and it was FREEZING! The 3 of us decamped to the Digital Media Centre across the road so we could thaw out and go through the arrangements for the course. Neil said he has signposted 9 learners and we only have 5 laptops so tomorrow will be fun!