Friday analysis June 17th

Pre-Solstice Analysis

Have reached one of those impasses that occur to many in recession hit times. A good idea is there but the time frame to achieve it may not be there.

A shot of a sunny day, the free energy that  is available should be used.  The German economy has recently been put on the course to towards a nuclear free future. The energy sources replacing nuclear fission are renewable.  However, they can always buy energy from France (nuclear).  So why do we not this in the UK?

I have recently started to train to put panels on the roof for solar energy. I have a vision for their use but may find that career change comes a bit too expensive.  Opportunities exist but cashflow is tight.

A vision to grow food in conditions powered by solar panels would be a great achievement.  Reduction of carbon footprint by reducing airmiles would be one advantage.  Employment in local communities would also be an advantage.

Web 2.0 for business and Educators

Started Wednesday 30th March 2011
Words 423
S.I.= 85%
Digital Revolution hiccups and Digital leaps
Have not really had as much time as I thought this last week.  I have stepped back into the Worlds of teaching at a School in Ely and been progressing my own business and a project for AN Other.

Last week saw the fifth Birthday of Twitter.  Yesterday saw a major glitch in the BBC Website which apparently was due to a faulty, mechanical, optical or software controlled it certainly revealed the problems for business continuity.  More on this later.

 Another special event happening is that Freeview Digital TV is starting for some people today on the Suffolk/Essex Border if their transmitter is turned towards Sandy Heath.  If your analogue signal (ordinary BBC 1, 2, ITV 1, Channel 4 and Five)  works now try scanning with Freeview box or Freeview TV.  Best position for aerial 12 m above ground apparently with no obstruction (does work with roof aerials if close to transmitter)

Friday sees the upgrade  of the Business functionality on Facebook.  This will give same types of activities you can do with a personal profile.  Business pages are still within your Facebook registration, you are not supposed top have more than one account.  In fact you can be deFacebooked if you are in this state of duplicity.  Recently there have been groups removed from Facebook for extreme political views reported in the press so they are monitoring.

The Business continuity issue highlighted by both recent natural disasters and the outage of the BBC Website. The e-commerce end was affected as well as the News feeds.  The BBC was no longer the most up to date news source at that time.  The possibility exists that further outages may happen since the components, if it was a switch, may all have been put in at the same time.  Buy a brand new house and you will usually most of the light bulbs fail at roughly the same time.  The local Business Continuity Network to West Suffolk and South Cambridgeshire has gone live with its' website Business Continuity Network .  Time to integrate my own survey of my practices if the worst comes to the worst and I loose my main desktop.

I attended a meeting last week in Ipswich where the focus was sustainable workplaces.  I am developing my areas of Business interest to enhance the skills to go with this and also the Web 2.0 and cloud implications that go with this.  I will be blogging on my WordPress sites about this over the next few days. 

Web 2.0 for business and Educators

Started Tuesday 22 March 2011 0550 GMT
Words 394
S.I.= 78.8 %

Twitters Fifth Birthday


A social app has reached what used to be in this country one of those milestones five years old.  I have been watching the news coverage of Twitter.  I am anthropomorphising the Microblog site because the more I look at it the more it seems to have some functions of a living organisms.  We teach young children in the UK the seven characteristics of living things (or used to not so sure if they are supposed to discover the knowledge themselves).     MR GREEN is the mnemonic often favoured.

M- Movement
R- Reproduction
G -Growth
E- Excretion
E- Excitiability ie senses itself and own envionment
N- Nutrition

So at the age of five we would a few years ago we would have been sending our children to school for the first time.  Now they are taught and formally assessed from the age of three.  In Europe formal education starts later at seven.  Twitter being five, is already drawing predictions of its demise.  Before it's character has even developed properly ( children learn the most before the age of five) it's imminent metamorphosis into a bad character is being predicted.  This is also being mirrored in the UK by the constant inspections that we have been subjected to over the last 30 years.

The effect appears to be a society that has not matured beyond the age of 13.  A society that is still reacting as though in the playground and the biggest bullies are people who are supposed to protect those who cannot protect themselves by this I mean the old, the young and the vulnerable.  The bullies are the local and national  service providers funded out of the taxpayers pocket.

The sixties cry "you and whose army" and "talking about my generation" appear to be beginning of the ME generation, also known as the Baby Boomers.  As they have progressed to leading society from the 1960s, great population expansion, new towns the race for land in Kent then Essex the do as I say don't do as I do has become more prevalent. George Orwell's Animal farm personified.  Nowadays the  pigs with their snouts int the trough are usually paid for by honest hard working tax payers. Is it time to get off the merry round?  I certainly am not enjoying all the fun of the fair!

PS Budget day looming!   

Monday Morning Week 8 of Chinese New Year

Started Monday 21st March 2011 0520 am
Words 413
S.I. = 82%

Supermoons and Equinoxes


Lunacy  seems to be prevailing a lot in society at the moment, whether actual or perceived.  World events in and around the Mediterranean are taking an interesting but probably predictable turn  given that we are at the beginning of century.  Catastrophic events seem to group themselves around these decades.  Just looking at a few examples from Wiki-pedia relating to Europe and the Mediterranean (similar events happening across the World)

10th Century - Vikings start explode out  in Northern Europe, Fatimid dynasty established in   Algeria , 917 Bulgarians defeat the Byzantine Empire

11th Century - 1001 Volcanic Eruption with 6.5 Earthquake, Egyptian scientist feigns madness for fear of offending Caliph but during this time under house arrest writes the book of optics , Vikings under Leif Erickson continue world tour and find America (was it ever lost), Byzantines beat proverbial out of the Bulgarians 

12th Century - Arms business starts to be established  , Baldwin I crowned King of Jerusalem this event still echoing down the centuries with inappropriate word of crusader being used by North African "leader", pesky Vikings are up to it again this time crusading, must be those genes influenced by short winter days obviously wanting a summer holiday (trying not to trivialise events but also not be sombre)

13th Century - Rise of French in Europe and Normandy falls (1214), 1215 Magna Carta Signed

14th Century - Climate change and the Little Ice Age  and warm summers from 1300 not dependable, food crisis  (Sunday Express article )

I could go on but the patterns are similar to our times.  The career of a British aristocratic family was the first generation made the money from nothing, the second consolidated their position and became respectable the third generation spent it all and then livid off the fact the family was once "great".  This seems to be pattern adopted globally.

We seem to be forgetting the past historical examples.  In the age of the internet these basic facts are there to see, that history does repeat itself.  However with the vast perceived  wealth collectively that we have ......  we seem to allow certain groups to make billions to the detriment  of progress for all.  We should not have children stealing food in modern Britain to feed siblings.  This is not Oliver Twist or the Water Babies Britain surely?

PS Will be blogging more on Wordpress blogs, from this week, also will be blogging on Best of Haverhill about gardening soon.

The Saturday Garden Shed with Sunday Foodie bit

Started Sunday 20th March 2011 1000 am

Square foot gardening and Greek Cuisine

A TGI Friday feeling!

Friday analysis to follow as I have run out of time

Wellbeing on a Thursday

Getting closer to escaping to that break on Crete

Started Thursday 17th arch 2011
Words 399
S.I.= 79.8%


These are a few of my favourite things


A time to pause briefly.  I have been driving around West Suffolk in ever decreasing circles.  A lot of ground has been covered in what has been quite a complicated piece of organisation and logistics.  Most of the task complete.  Very interesting to see how many businesses there tucked away in barns or down  little country lanes.  Telework  (Telework Association http://www.tca.org.uk/) ideal way to reap benefits of working in a rural environment while having a global presence.  Communications are not great East to West in Suffolk.  However West Suffolk is almost grazed by the M11 and Stansted (plea to airlines could we have a service to Crete from Stansted restored since Aegean Airlines became Greece's national carrier have to trek all the way to Gatwick or Luton) is on the door step.

Looking forward to taking advantage of some the opportunities that the Olympics 2012 events can offer tickets have gone on sale.  There are also opportunities for small businesses to be able to bid for part of the supply chain services.  Most large projects have apparently been managed by multinationals (had a conversation with a big Aussie friend who is subcontracting in Stratford) and most of the actual work is being done by firms in East London.  Suffolk on the doorstep, West Suffolk even more so as only 1 hour away, has a great opportunity.

Todays' blog is ostensibly about wellbeing.  I have found the last few weeks that as I have cranked up the wheels of personal industry that even micro blogging can be useful if you are a small business person to not only sometime record your experiences but also share your expertise.  Shouting in a desert can be almost the same as trying to clap using only one hand.  Tweeting at the moment is turning up a vast array of new contacts and opinions.  As people start to get used to tweeting you start to see the personalities of people emerge.  they are generally positive and forward thinking.  This is infectious on a damp foggy morning in Suffolk. Unlike Facebook 140 characters makes you think of the message you are trying to convey.  Blogging definitely falls into the category of a Reflective Journal that can be used to manage and assess your own Wellbeing.  To quote one of my fellow tweeters on Wellbeing, happy  tweeters keep followers. 

Wednesday and Career Change

Renewable Energy makes sense

Web 2.0 for business and Educators

Monday Morning Week 7 of Chinese New Year

The Sunday Foodie bit part 6

The Saturday Garden Shed

Garden shed is in composition as opposed to composting:  Theme is about invasive weeds.  Weed being a plant in the wrong place, a rose is a weed in a lawn if it is not meant to be there.

Solutions to problem of Ground Elder and Japanese Knot weed to follow.

Friday Analysis

River/Brook that runs through Haverhill, sun
today is glinting of the water also

Started

Moving bulk of blogging to Social and Micro Enterprise sites 


The career change mode has now reached a stage where part of the efforts now need to be directed to establishing a presence in the blogs

2pointfiveageofman 

and
kritirecharge.co.uk

The free blog will continue, but in cut down form on Monday and Friday.  The phrase is very true in that if you are blogging you may not be doing other equally important things.  "Oracles" R Not Us, maybe attempt to be some of the time.

Wellbeing on a Thursday

Started Thursday 10th March 2011
Words
S.I.=

Wednesday and the light at the End of the tunnel

A triffid?

Started Wednesday 09 March 2011 0645 GMT
Words 420
S.I.= 84%

New career starts today... not tomorrow


A sense of purpose is starting to develop as each way point is reached on the voyage of career change.  I have now reached the stage when I can start to write about the new career rather than the plan about how it will take shape.  So far planning has been effective for my futurology skills.

The sense of purpose  that I had when I started teaching had died a number of years ago.  This was a something at the time I did not realise since at the end of each year my benchmark Stats the SATS tests indicated the effectiveness of what I was doing compared to the internal results of Maths and English (usually 20% or in some years 40% difference between Science and the rest) and favourably compared to county and national data .  This was all done without the massive input of advisor/consultant, resources (many years I had no budget at all when a nearby middle schools head of science had 5 GBP per pupil per year to teach science to 9 to 13 year olds this is a paltry investment considering how even 1 inspired scientist engineer can generate millions of tax pounds for the future).  Plus I did not have the same staff and advisors (which came out of school budget) and we still for many years remained on special measures, I even had to do the washing up as I had no technician for many years, well over half, of the 13 I was in teaching.  Yes I persisted against a lot of obstacles because I realised that the pupils we had in front of us were our pension scheme so against the odds of the way the National Curriculum was being run, I continued.

Now I am bringing that same sense of purpose and drive to my new career, working for myself.  This time however, the organisation is mine and will be run primarily with Wellbeing as the foundation block (see Monday's blog).  As the loads get heavier at times in the year the the Wellbeing will be subject to compressive forces, but if the block is suitably robust the business' most important asset (me, have to think that way from the start) should survive as dynamic loading should be within my stress coping envelope.  That is the philosophy behind my actions.  the next few years are going to be interesting as I build a sound economic future independent of banking gamblers!

Tomorrow's bog about Wellbeing!!  

Web 2.0 for Educators and Business Part 5

Started Tuesday 8th March 2011

A long day I will edit and reform this because what I was goin gto write about is not so relevant for 500 words

Monday Morning Week 6 of Chinese New Year

Loch Ness  monster spotted on Holiday in Crete

Started Monday 7th March 0530 GMT
Words 531
S.I.= 106.2 % Aspirational Target not met
Week before the Ides of March


looking at the calendar planning what is going to be a very busy week I stated to think of the associations with the times of year.  The Ides of March falls next week on the 15th March.  I have not had a look at Pepys diary for a while, I wonder if anything has changed (ie similar situations different names).

What do I need to achieve by the end of the week?  The first priority is to make sure that I have considered a Wellbeing strategy.  I have found some of the course notes and literature from 2006 when I was a Wellbeing facilitator in my previous job in a school.  As a staff governor ( I really need to update my Linked in profile to reflect my experiences adequately) I took on this role at quite a difficult time for the school.  Special measures  looming again (we just avoided it again), eventually a change of head, acting head was in place, School Re-organisation taking place from 2007 (moves to close Middle Schools in Suffolk, happened in Haverhill and Lowestoft but unsurprisingly not happening anywhere else in Suffolk).

Against this background the one thing that senior management should have been putting in place was a wellbeing strategy but this did not happen.  Now I am running my own business with a view to employing others in the future it is time to make sure that I build my business to be a stress resistant organisation since I can set the agenda and learn from these experiences.

The first question should always be what do we want to achieve?  The second question is what are the benefits to us?  The this what are the costs, both financial and from an emotional intelligence perspective?  The most important out of the four process is the do next bit setting  out aims with a clear time frame and success criteria evaluation.  A detached non-emotional evaluation of the aims then needs to a priority no matter whether there is success or failure.  To quote one of my Twitter communicants    (I will not put her link here as you can search for me and then locate janeaninspires if you so feel inclined) "Tomorrow, instead of looking at what you don't have, examine all that you do have and be grateful! I'm just saying..... :)". Even better  is her comment, "Even if you win the rat race, at the end of the day, you are still a rat! :)" although I still like to win but maybe do it with the original spirit of Baron de Coubatin.

PS also start Advanced Electricians course to be able to install and certify Solar Panels.  A distance learning course I will be using the Wednesday Blog (have achieved career change so do not really need to revisit preparation phase) to be able to keep a reflective diary of the e-learning practice.

PPS Forget almost what was happening with Samuel Pepys? A little bit of blowing his own trumpet (but that is what most diarists do to a certain extent)?  And he was contemplating a career change.  Even then Lawyers and barristers were earning obscene amounts!

The Sunday Foodie bit part 6

Shots taken at Duxford Airshow of Aircraft regularly seen
flying in the skies of West Suffolk  during World War Two

 Started Sunday 6th March 2011
1

Good Suffolk Produce ... catch it before everybody knows 


I attended the local food festival at Chilford Hall.  This was organised by a group called  Taste of Anglia.  I have to say I was very impressed with the Suffolk produce on show.   I always have a slow walk around these shows, usually in the opposite way to the numbering of the stalls.  It is a marketing event when all said and done  so I usually always try to find out what the last stand is next to the exit to see who is the last producer I am expected to remember.  In this case it was that  pub landlord friendly brewer Adnams.

So on my widdershins (fans of Robert Burns' language will understand what this word means) walk I tasted what was on offer.  I signed up for all of the free offers and competitions.  Asked a few searching questions of   potential business affiliates and generally started to understand the position of Suffolk producers and some of the competitors from outside the county.  I came across one vegetable box scheme supplier who would deliver from all the way past Peterborough.  I will allow the reader to judge the sustainability of this practice.

On my second circuit I then started to purchase the products that interested me  most.  I have to resist buying too much as fresh produce will go off and I do hate throwing food away.  Musk's   had a sausage made with Aspalls Cyder which was very good.  Also bought a mixed box of Aspalls Cyder (the Suffolk Cyder) which can also be drunk almost like a sparkling wine with food.  This is more suitable now that most wines have become "super" strength at 12 or 13 per cent ABV.

I lefty the show at 1145 am just as it was starting to get busy.  I tend to stride out a bit so find crowds can be extremely inconvenient in relatively small venues especially when people walk without due care and attention.  Right have to go and get some Jubilee clips as I am going to rehang my front gate and need to make sure it can't be lifted off it's hinges.

PS  My local, the Royal Exchange  has just qualified for an award based on the quality of the service and the quality of the cellar management to serve.  It will probably mean my local gets busier but when something is good   we can put up with that.   The phrase "Strangers are friends we haven't met yet" really does apply here. 

The Saturday Garden Shed

Another type of shed a green polyhouse

Started Saturday 6th March 2011

Sweet Pea and Petunia Salad ......... booked for later in Summer


Time for a little progress check on the potatoes that I have had sitting in my airing cupboard for the last few weeks.  The chitting process is going well they have shoots that are 2 to 3 cm long.  The last of the frosts should hopefully be gone by the third week of March.  The potato bags will then be used for the potato crops rather than planting and ridging up.  The surplus seed potatoes I have already offered to a few people including one new neighbour who has just moved to the area who I met through a chat in our local pub.  Long may the pub remain a feature of British society.

First lot of Sweet Peas have germinated and are now finding their way to the production of the first leaves.  The next sowing of Sweet peas a dwarf mixture and a tall mixture for this weekend.  A set of Petunias using recycled plug plant trays will also be a task.  The excess again passed to other people or  I am possibly thinking of an honesty box system to raise a little money.  Now that would really be micro-entrepreneurship.

I have this little disagreement with my mother each year over plug plants.  She is definite about buying plug plants each year, but is never quite up to potting them all and taking them to the next level.  The consequence is that a lot of the 250 or more plants are lost.  Being a sustainably minded gardener I find this to be an awful waste.  I may have finally persuaded her this year with following argument. The growers of the plug plants are happy as they are able to free up the space to produce more than one product in that growing area a year. They also do not have the risk or expense of taking the plants to a larger size.  Plug plants are fine if you have the space and time and want 250 of the same plant..

The coming weeks will see a lot of different plants that will be needing to be sown as the vegetable growing calendar opens up.  I will update my planting schedule at another time since I find myself a little time poor for blogging. Tomorrow is the foodie bit. I attended the Taste of Anglia event at Chilford Hall so will include comments on some of my purchases from this worthwhile excursion.

A TGI Friday feeling!

Started Friday 5th March 2011  1757 GMT


Travels around Cambridgeshire and Suffolk


To be completed tomorrow since this has been a busy week and I am going to pause and refl;ect tonight.  I have been microblogging twittering a lot over the last week as situations have developed

Wellbeing on a Thursday

Started Thursday 3rd March 2011 1735 GMT
Words 477
S.I.= 95.6

A year on .......and light has gone back on


A year ago I stepped away from the bull pit of teaching.  The climate in Suffolk schools was indicated recently by the story detailing the effect of top down micro management practices and demands of society on teachers to cure all of it's ills.   I started my own process of establishing a life greater than work balance on this day last year.  On the 2nd December 2010 I stated blogging with the express aim of ordering my reasons and methods of how I had come to make that decision.  More importantly I have used this blog to explore and formulate a game plan for change.  The is blog has been used in part to  establish my own sense of wellbeing and manage a career change in what has been described as  one of the most diffiuclut set of economic circumstances since the 1920s.

I would balance the statement with a conversation I had with a family friend I met in the street yesterday.  This person is the wife of father's former business partner.  She has just retired as teacher after nearly 39 years.  The conversation switched to her own childrens'  experiences of the last year.  She related how her daughter's husband had experienced redundancy three times in the last year.

As we further chatted we moved onto are we really worse off than in the 1920s and 1930s.  Her own father was a Staffordshire farmer during this time.  She could recall her sister who is 20 years older than herself (she comes from  large family as was the case in those times) telling her about the crops her father had to bring home from market and plough in as he could not sell them to anybody.  People did become destitute and follow the Road to Wigan Pier.

Today we do not really have the same constraints as then.  The Welfare state may be being cut but those that sleep on the streets are often there because they choose to escape to that place not because they have to (possibly in a banker free world, I might be drawing too monochromatic a conclusion).

A safety net does exist for those that look for it, we have become over sensitised to story of abuses of the system.  Rightly the ones who take advantage of my diligence in paying my taxes should be exposed.  I also include in this group the leaders of councils who have turned public service into a sector that believes it is doing the same work as private sector PLCs.  I have mentioned before in blogging I believe in a cooperative way of doing business.  Empire builders eventually find they have it collapse around them.  Could we not all benefit from living in a mutually beneficial society that is not part of he ME generation?  Philosophical statement aired.

Seeing the light for Career change

Started Wednesday 2nd March 2011 0553 GMT
Words
S.I.=

Final furlong of career expansion?


Contemplative mood this morning.  Could have something to do with joining and contributing to the Facebook discussion group Kindle for Academics.  Threw my two peneth worth into the mix.  Had to resist saying any more as I have better things no other things that will pay economically.

I had a late night driving experience yesterday along the A14 not the best of lit roads but managed to make it back for just after 11pm.  I attended the Federation of Small Businesses meeting in  

Web 2.0 for Educators and Business Part 4

Started Tuesday 1st March 2011 0547 GMT
Words 422
S.I.= 84.4 %

Fibre optic Broadband in Suffolk?


Fast Broadband is something that in Suffolk we aspire to, and I often feel as a rural county should be our right.  This would to a large degree redress the long standing imbalance of provision of services between city and country.  That imbalance sees central funds going to the same inner city deprived areas time and again either because it was the wrong project because the authors did not talk to the recipients about their needs or the population of that inner city failed due to whatever reasons to engage and take ownership of their received projects.

I have blogged abut my frustration with BT Broadband before.  However not one that is often guilty of the British disease of moaning and blaming the government,while forgetting they may not have voted, I am doing something about it.  This  is a Federation of Small Businesses meeting in Stowmarket.  A brilliant venue in the middle of Suffolk, which is  a surprisingly large county.  Being on the periphery in Haverhill many of the meetings in my teaching career necessitated I had to attend the "Big Houses" in Ipswich nearly 45 miles away.   By the time I  negotiated the poor roads out of Haverhill towards Bury St Edmunds this could take anytime from 45 minutes to an hour and a half depending on the state of the A14.

The meeting this evening has a speaker whose name I vaguely remember to do with some past activities associated with education.  I have an interest on top of the purely personal business aspects as member foremost and lately Director of the  Teleworking Association (I have blogged previously about its origins, I won't include the link as it can be found in the list to the right of the blog).  The talk is about the coming Broadband offering in Suffolk and how it will be made affordable.  I won't prejudice my own thoughts for this evening by speculating on the content.  I hope to be presently surprised.  

PS St David's day today.  A friend of mine launches his website today. A pioneer of the fibre-optic industry (not intentional given the subject of this blog just happen to know Chris)  and former director a company making fibre-optics in the town, who saw the light choosing work-life balance and  is now a photographic artist (sounds better than a photographer who might only do passport photographs).  His exhibition at Haverhill Arts centre takes place on the 1 st April 2011.  I wish him well in this new career!

Monday Week 4 Chinese Lunar Year

Started Monday 28th February 2011 0629 GMT
Words 490
S.I.= 98 %

Week 4 of the Career Change Journey

A good week ahead is planned.  The stone has been rolled up to the top of the hill.  This is the week where the potential of my new start-up business begins to start to roll.

The business plan for each individual area is now going to be formally written.  I have talked about the pressures that have been placed on middle managers in a previous blog.  My own solution to this has been to go back to the fundamental idea of having a product or a service to sell.  I have hopefully? No. I have  used my diverse skills to formulate a economic activity diversification scheme that fits my own particular circumstances.

The underlying principle to be able to achieve this is wellbeing.  This is something that was not a prime concern for the people who I was working for in  previous career incarnations of teacher and and agriculture research.  The curse of the ME culture of the eighties, nineties and noughties promoting the emergence of the yuppie is hopefully over.  Or more importantly will not be a major influence on my activities.  It has to be remembered that a 20 year old yuppie in early 80 became the thirty something in the 90s and the 40 year old redundancy candidate in the noughties. Having trailed along 6 years behind these characters I experienced most of the downturns    just when their 3 year career plans required a change.

My hope is that now reality of monolith building created by the spending from central government has been recognised we may have a healthier future.  Transparency is talked about all the time.  The interweb does make available the same information if not more than what central planning operates on.  By having a fuller picture of the financial constraints most eventualities can be planned for rather reacted against. More refreshing to see the word consultation now actually being used  in the correct way by government.  Would like to have the phrase U-turn banned from journalism and parliament.  It is a sign of adaptability to dynamic processes and the fact a plans when written are not correct when they are implemented as information and situations change.  It is not a virtue to be intransigent about turning (vague reference to somebody who used to wield a handbag).

PS Really good idea launched today a scrappage scheme (reported on BBC Breakfast News London region edition) where old unwanted cars are collected auctioned off and the proceeds donated to charity, may only operate in London but it is a start possibly leading to a new recycling activities of second hand parts.   I have an old Mark 1 MR2 buying new parts is often difficult for older cars which do not really do a lot of miles so a second hand part with life left in would be more carbon footprint friendly. 

The Sunday Foodie bit part 5

Shot from Inside my parish church St Mary's Haverhill
( well it is Sunday) where I was dropped in the font.
Marble tablet on wall in refrectory states
date of first priest was 1190.  Last time I attended was
for the baptism.  

Started Sunday 27th February 2011 0744 GMT
Words

Fairtrade and buy local


Fairtrade fortnight starts tomorrow.  This is a great branding excercise for small producers (originally) from overseas that are looking for a recognisable symbol and who meet sustainable criteria.  A similar scheme to promote small businesses is the Buy Local  campaign.  A number of businesses are part of this Haverhill including the cafe (with internet) which I use.   De Ja Vu is run by a local business man which is even better, who has helped give youngsters help in their footballing endeavours.

Farmer's markets are another buy local group.  They have attracted some comedic criticism mainly based on the fact that some of the produce is from outside the 30 mile criteria (ie not a local as you would think).  However, with the olive oil trees in Coggeshall a farmers market selling products made from these would qualify in a farmers' market in the Haverhill area.

So the recipe for this week to be found on 2pointfiveageofman.net (later in the week I will put these on fully) is Cauliflower cheese.  A very topical recipe given the news (was on BBC Breakfast but again cannot actually find the actual story on the BBC website) about early Brassica crops in Holbeach St Marks.  The crops have been hit for the third year running by bad winters.  They were at the point of being ploughed-in. The story was that the solution to these climate change events would be to grow the Cauliflowers in more temperate parts of the country or to use new varieties bred for the changing climate while maintaining the yield of current varieties.  Any body have any old seed left from 100 years ago plus?

Sunday morning so just watching the Andrew Marr show.  Very interesting set of guests?  Peter Mandelson for some reason appears a little uncomfortable!

The Saturday Garden Shed

Started Saturday 26th February 2011 0704 GMT
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The Importance of Bee-ing 


A story on the BBC yesterday prompted a bit of thinking about the importance of social insects.  Bees are part of one of the oldest man-animal interactions. In Africa tribes follow certain birds called honey guides to find honey.

Bees are very important to British agriculture and gardeners.




Ready for sowing now!

Sweat Peas still can be sown

Definitely that TGI Friday feeling

Wellbeing on a Thursday

Started Thursday 24th February 2011
Words 479
S.I.= 95.8 %

A small business person but part of a  a big organisation


A Thursday yet again.  As now a small business person I am taking today to reflect and assess my own wellbeing.  Three weeks since lighting the blue touch paper is the rocket still rising?

A big part of the overall consideration of starting your own business is whether you have the resilelnce and the motivation to succeed.  There was an old advert put out by one of the banks in the eighties showing a happy confident individual walking into the house swinging his briefcase.  He announced to his spouse (people did tend to be married in the eighties) that he had the bank on board, he had his backers etc while the being watched adoringly by the home maker.  The reality is and always has been not quite like the advert.

The reason to start your own business are often personal circumstances owing to career change due to redundancy rather than something that is planned.  A good way of assessing your readiness and suitability to a life where you are the boss is a new pack  Working from Home from Law Packs written by Shirley Borret the development director of the  Teleworking Association.  Advice on how to go about being self-employed and the considerations that have to be taken regarding Wellbeing are covered.

One of the biggest problems with being self-employed is the potential to be isolated and feel isolated.  A good way of avoiding this is to be a member of a local group such as a chamber of commerce.  I attended Haverhill Chamber of Commerce's  (part of the Suffolk Chamber of Commerce) informal evening last night at the Sturmer Red Lion (a village that has featured in a few blog posts previously).  I met very interesting people all committed to what they were doing.  There was Elaine who runs Best of Haverhill and has a number of projects on the go that I found refreshing to hear about and recognise as to how her skills complemented the aims of her customers.   I talked to Chris who had just started his own courier business that is now Defra registered to be able to transport birds and animals to shows.  I must though remember where I put the business cards in the many pockets in my jacket, though as we are all Haverhill Chamber of Commerce members it will be easy to get in contact.

The benefit of networking as a small business of events like this extend to Wellbeing .  We met in a friendly atmosphere, people may have been sometimes working in the same market area but it was not like a convention of double double glazing salesmen thrusting a card in your pocket as you shook hands. An opportunity to recognise that all small businesses do experience that fundamental work-life balance dilemma, but can still be smiling. 

Wednesday and Career Change

Started Wednesday 23rd February 2011
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Web 2.0 for Educators and Business Part 3

Started Tuesday 22nd February 2011 0540 GMT
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The Two Faces of Facebook


In the last week we have started to see the multifaceted side of Facebook and other social networks.  As in all forms of human they can be used for positive or negative change to human society.

On the one hand we are seeing the open nature of the internet cause regime change, hopefully by the people and for the people if they so choose in places like Tunisia.   In other cases we are seeing this very open nature twisted to a purpose it was not intended by it's instigator, the grooming of youngsters on Facebook.

Monday Morning Week 3 of Chinese Lunar Year

Started Monday 21st February 2011 0054 GMT
Words 381
S.I. =  76.2%

Training around Suffolk


A busy week ahead starting with meetings and continual professional training tomorrow.  A dilemma with increasing fuel prices is the attendance on time at places without having a large carbon footprint.
I am attending an event in Marks Tey.  I do not have to take any "tools of the trade" other than myself and a few pieces of paper.  How do I get there?

I could drive but the event would not be cost effective in time and working opportunities since it is at strange time of the day.  So the two criteria for transport selection are cost effectiveness and time effectiveness.

I am going to take the opportunity to go by train as it fits in with the general constraints of being relaxed enough to perform fully in the meetings and the ability to arrive with plenty of time to have lunch. I will leave Haverhill about 8 am and seek to get back by 9pm if all goes to plan.   I will then have first hand experience of the potential problems when arranging travelling to meetings where it may be more of a social enterprise function and therefore income stream limited or a microenterprise function where time as opposed to cost may be more important, while maintaining an eye on the overall carbon neutrality of the activity.

I may sound as though I am being pedantic but I can see a trend "green" certificated much as we are British Standard compliant for COSHH and other activities.  In other words the audit culture will not die, the systems will just become automated.  Rather than have to spend a lot of time later when the business cycle is more cluttered and it will cost more in time spent planning the audit trail and finding the records when I do go for the appropriate accreditation, I will start along the path now.

The week ahead should see more moving on the blogging front.  A former pupil of mine is due to start blogging about podcasting and his experience of digital recording   and web radio on .http://www.2pointfiveageofman.net/blog/?p=28, the social enterprise site .  He is graduate of the University College Suffolk where he was the first to graduate in his particular course. So some social networking opportunities to look forward to!   

The Sunday Foodie bit part 4

A shot of two solar power energy
converters in Impington, the old technology
powered by the wind which is generated by
convection currents from solar heating of the sea, and
the solar panel directly having electrons excited by the sun
( this is the approximate in a few sentences).
A couple of thousand years technology spanned  but
overall which is most efficient and carbon neutral?

Started Sunday 20th February 2011 0744 GMT

The Ultimate Eco Meal?


A little diversion here into green science on a Sunday. I have a great interest in the complexity of the environment around me.  I just happened last Saturday to be attending a seminar on how to gamble on the Forex market more out of curiosity to see what was actually being sold, a franchise almost based on using a software product that charts and maps stop losses against entry level and exit level with a bit of commonsense trading.  The little and often while not being too greedy strategy of target setting.  In essence a very elegant piece of software producing a WYSIWYG solution for non-mathematicians and betting addicts.


So back to the photograph, with my green hat (brown South African Veld hat)  I took the bus into Cambridge using one of day rider tickets for £5.20 return which allows multiple trip travel around Cambridge.  I needed to visit Maplins in the centre of town, after buying one of their very good Scroll Android powered touch pads the separate keyboard I found I could not get to work.  By visiting the shop I found out that the keyboard was not compatible on the port I had plugged it into, by plugging it into another USB port it suddenly was working very well.  If I had parked in the centre of town the charges would have been about 3 to 4 pounds (maybe more since I stopped parking in Lion Yard years ago).

I would then also have had to endure the Ben Hur type journey around the inner ring road avoiding the cyclists to go out  to Impington.  Cambridge City planners do not want cars in the centre of Cambridge.  This is fine by me but the same people seem to have applied the same yard stick to Haverhill.  It was actually quicker for me to walk at peak traffic times to work (8 minutes because I am a local I know the shortcuts) than be directed out of the town and around it (15 minutes with traffic).  We also notice that quite a few cars go down the high street the wrong way because they are following their SATNAV.  The maps do not realise that the street is no longer two way (and has been one way for at least 10 years).  So the photograph was taken on the return journey at the Impington Bus Stop!  

The Eco meal I am writing about today is Boiled Beef and Carrots.  The full recipe will be available on the 2pointfiveageofman website very soon.  The recipe can be cooked in a slow cooker or on the hob, or possibly a halogen cooker.  this gives a hot meal on one day and then you can eat the meat as a cold cut on the next day.

The ingredients are as follows, 2 to 3 Ibs of topside or silverside of beef, 2oz of butter, 2 large onions (sliced), 8 -10 medium carrots sliced, I small swede, thickly sliced, 1-2 teaspoons of dried herbs.  These are accompanied by 1/2 to 1/4 pint of vegetable stock with salt and pepper to taste.

By using the left over the next day the excess is not wasted and going into the land fill site.  The electricity used by the slow cooker is minimal, the vegetables are seasonal cutting down on air miles.  An Eco Meal!   

The Saturday Garden Shed 2

Started Saturday 19th February 2011 0627 GMT

The Sweet Pea Sowing Season

Saturday has come round again.  This time of year is the time when the sweet pea can be sown.  The town of Wem where they were developed was the district "county town" for North Shropshire.  This was the district that I lived in at the time when I was carrying out the agricultural research phase of my career.   This is an incredibly rural area much like West Suffolk.  Shropshire at that time was billing itself as the undiscovered county.  I would say still that most people of any age would be hard put to state where Shropshire is on a map.

I remember when I was younger Sweet Peas were one of the plants that my maternal grandfather always grew.  After a career in the Customs Service chasing gold smugglers around Bombay (Mumbai now) he arrived in this country in 1955,  along with my grandmother and mother, the elder children were already here joining the Royal Navy and doing other things.  This was a few months before the Suez Canal, through which they passed, was closed to shipping.  A little reminiscent of times of today.

I say arrived because he was part of that generation that had been involved the British Empire.  Born in what is modern day Pakistan from an Irish family who supervised building the Railways he married my grandmother in 1931 who herself was from an ex-pat family and born in Simla.  Her mother was the Governor of the Women's Prison in Lahore.  After arriving in the Port of London he took up the post at the BBC News department that he came to England for rather going to Australia, where many of my relatives ended up after Indian Independence.   After retiring at the age of 70 with his house paid off within fifteen years he then set about gardening for the next nearly 30 years or so before passing at the, we usually say now, grand old age of 99.  A pretty full and eventful life life even by today's standards of global society.

Visits when I was a child from my grandparents often included a trip Robert  and Sons in Sturmer, the same place that I blogged about nearly three weeks ago,  Sweat Pea plants  were bought and then taken back to their house in Ponders End.  So with a view to continuing my own gardening career,  although being born in 1966 I have a long way to go before officially retiring (sorry there is no retirement age anymore for those of my age), I have some of Mr Fothergill's  of Newmarket  seed.  So today is sowing day to produce the plants to produce that traditional cottage garden effect and to enhance my sense of Wellbeing which I have to say 2 weeks into a running my own business is starting to be high.
  

A TGI Friday feeling! Yet again!!

Started Friday 18th February 2011
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Wot no blogging? If you are blogging you may not be doing


Blogging up to the last few weeks has been part of the normal daily routine.  However, it still takes time.  I have for the past few days been prioritising the business start up process.  The practical or the doing stuff has taken precedence over the blogging.

Hopefully I will have caught up by the end of the weekend! 

Web 2.0 for Educators and Business Part 2

Started Tuesday 15th February 2011 

Monday Week 2 Chinese Lunar Year

Started Monday 14th February 2007
Words 431
S.I.= 86.2 %

Big Day for the Big Society


Big Society is going to be prominent not only today but also in the coming weeks and months.  The BBC have been running a few stories today with Big Society as the theme.  David Cameron is announcing the next part of the vision of how we transform the fundamental way that we run the society of Britain.

Announced today will be the all important framework of how the Big Society in action may be funded.  A £300 million fund or bank for social entrepreneurship is to be announced.  This may not sound very much but it is a start.  We have to remember that a lot of the function of the National Lottery before the Olympics was won for London was to help local charities and groups.  The micro-management culture of central government has affected the accessability of small groups to this money.  I have had many conversations with local groups who have basically given up applying because the criteria and time involved to access funds is beyond volunteers.  The money pool will hopefully expand as the Olympic projects reach completion, the contractors are paid, and more importantly "snagging" of the finished work is carried out without extra costs that appear to be outside the terms of reference (hopefully PFIs have not been used as an example of good contractual practice).
  
I find the idae of an ISA quite an "exciting" concept.  I have put thoughts on this in my blog 2pointfiveageofman.net.  I will certainly invest in this ISA but it would be even more supportive if the normal ISA was also available so there was a double tax benefit.

Public spending cuts are perceived as a  threat to this process. We have many competing service providers in my local town.  A gym has just been created in a local school that allegedly will have state of the art gym,  it is not apparrent who their customers may be or who pays yet.  The local authority may be competing against itself or another level of local government who has established a outsourced gym provider for the town.  In the   light of crossing patrol people being made redundant I do wonder about the priorities of the people involved and the number of competing entities that seem to be chasing the same people.  The price may not be cheaper since the excuse for price levels is  that this is the market rate because everybody else is charging the same.    

This week 40th Anniversary of Decimalisation.

The Sunday Foodie bit part 3

Started Sunday 13th February 2011


The Fish Pie of Suffolk

Saturday Garden bit

Started Saturday 12th February 2011

The Strawberry in the making

The Friday Analysis

Started Friday 11th February 2011 0521 GMT
Words 379
S.I. = 75.8%

Going beyond the Seventh Wave

The Seventh Wave is a concept that some may be aware of from the natural world and mythology.  The seventh wave hitting a beach is supposedly the strongest, a phenomenon familiar to some surfers but debunked by scientists. Some Irish traditional stories talk about beyond the seventh year or  going beyond the seventh wave.  Today is day seven of the new adventure into self-employment.

An interesting journey this week has been and for the most part coped with.  The fragility of the net as a virtual factory and office space has been underlined by trojan horse and connectivity issues this week.  The need for backups and alternative workspaces be they internet cafes or a teleworking centre becomes critical  for small businesses as they attempt to maintain their own sustainability.

Change is a constant theme that has been apparent through out the week in the news and talking to retired people in the local pub. A sense of reductionism listening to older members of society suggests that a lot of the change we are seeing has been experienced before often called by a different name.  The repetition of certain events suggests at best a disregard or lack of comprehension for historical cycles at worst cynicism towards the majority of the population that some leaders choose to show ( a bit woolly and sitting on the fence here but I am sure you will identify many stories that fit your own internet surfing).

So more of the same to follow next week.  Continuity planning has already kicked in for Monday.  My Victorian cottage will be taken back to 1896 when it was biult.  The local electricity supply company is servcing or replacing the local transformer between 10 and 4 pm.  Finding non-scented candles just in case they do not replace or repair the fault before dark  has been quite a challenge.  My local Cooperative store was the only place  I could find them. Which brings me to the final thought for this blog today.  I found a very good BBC Wales (probably therefore not available outside the UK) programme on BBC iPlayer about the founding of the Cooperative movement.  Thought provoking as we move further into the Silicon Age and the era of the social networker.

Wellbeing on a Thursday

Started Thursday 10th February 2011 0503 GMT
Words 472
S.I. = 94.4%

We are going to the Gym, escaping the Zoo, are you journeying too?

Pausing and reflecting is always a good way of assessing your own personal Wellbeing.  The start of a new business or becoming self-employed is potentially a very stressful occasion.  So pausing and reflecting.

On Monday I blogged about a personal target of  making sure I attended a gym on a regular basis.  This is incredibly important from the point of view arranging your work/homelife balance when working as a home-based worker and business person.

Reflecting on the week is usually a Friday experience.  However, a trojan horse virus on Monday, the first ever that had managed to get past my Firewalls and McAfee programmes.  The holes in Microsoft Windows were  apparent.  Couple this event with BT having an upgrade on Monday night and no broadband until Wednesday morning I could have been in a position of not having an IT using business after only 3 days.

Luckily I have the skills myself to be able to allow business continuity so had back ups of data and alternative strategies of working via the cloud.  Thursday morning and I am just cleaning off the last Trojan off the main system.  The diversified (almost a farming term here) systems  were able to cope although at points my own coping systems  were running at almost 100% capacity.  Having a good work life balance allows the capacity to cope remain  greater than the demand caused .

So planning ahead to arrive safely at Saturday Evening is a good exercise considering the bouncers that have already been bowled. I can cope with these on the Cricket field having opened the batting and kept wicket for a number of sides when I was younger. Sport is definitely a good training for life as I am constantly being reminded.

The gym that I had my induction in on Monday has a very simple system where they encourage the exerciser to be their own personal trainer. The roll back of the general nanny state attitude that pervades British Society? Maybe. A simple colour chart on the wall matched to general time based workout cards educate you to judge what your body is telling you about your physical state while exercising. Inductions to gym where the trainer takes you the edge of your pain envelope have been the norm, but this would appear to not be necessary. Eight o'clock is a good time for me today to take a break and go to the gym,

On the dipity calendar you will see one event I am attending next week that fits very well with some of the IT experiences, This event is being run by Menta and Business Continuity experts. I am always willing to listen to others just in case I have missed the Elephant in the room.So planning ahead to arrive safely at Saturday Evening is a good exercise considering the bouncers hat have already been bowled. I can cope with these on the Cricket field having opened the batting and kept wicket for a number of sides when I was younger. Sport is definitely a good training for life as I am constantly being reminded.

On the dipity timeline you will see one event I am attending next week that fits very well with some of the IT experiences. This event is being run by Menta and Business Continuity experts. I am always willing to listen to others just in case I have missed the Elephant in the room.  

Wednesday and Career Change

Started Wednesday 9th February 2011   0707 GMT

Web 2.0 for Educators and Small Businesses

Started Tuesday 8th February 2011 0936 GMT
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When the trojan horse kicks and BT are monkeying about .....

Monday Morning Week 1 of Chinese New Year

Started Monday 7th February 2011 0651 GMT
Words 507
S.I. = 101.4 % Aspirational Target not met (but it is only aspirational)

First Monday of being self-employed.  This has not been as much of a worry waking up this morning as it may have been when I left my teaching post officially at the end of April.  All told it has been 9 months in gestation.  Five months to combat the post traumatic stress of working for 13 years in a school that did some very good things but experienced special measures (2 and half years worth or was it more?) and transition to Locally Managed Status (essentially outsourcing of schools by LEAs, so free schools and academies are not really that radical).

The final chapter was the closure of the Middle schools in Haverhill and Lowestoft (happening in July 2011).  However, the programme of moving to a two tier system county wide would appear to scuppered.

So the week ahead.  By the end of the week I will hopefully have cleared  target of an average rate per hour. Surprisingly, when you actually do the analysis after stripping away the deductions a teacher has to have from their salary and equate the annualised hours to a 40 hour week the amount need to have the same lifestyle not unrealistic.  The trick comes in figuring out how the tax system works, how National Insurance contributions can effectively be managed and also how to structure your working week for your own personal wellbeing as a home worker offering flexible hours for working  with customers' needs.  The real trick is to do this without paying others for expert advice. If you can ask the right questions of an "expert" while only  having to pay a  little or nothing success may be in sight.   The "expert" advice is the sometime unnecessary business expense that squashes the Golden Goose that would have laid the ordinary egg (that is what I am after, the ordinary egg).

I am going through the process of doing my own Performance Management Review to set the targets for the coming trading year.  I have experience of doing this with my own staff when I was coordinating Science and ICT so will aim for three targets.  Two that are operational targets and one personal target.  The tasks to achieve them may be many but three targets for devlopement and personal growth are acheivable.  I have set on my personal Google Calendar the date 5th May 2011 (3 months) for the first review.

My personal target I have selected as a Wellbeing aspiration to have my Gym induction today and still be using the gym twice weekly on the 5th May 2011.

Back to East Asian customs I am also going to buy a Malabar Chestnut (Pachira aquatica) and a few pieces of red ribbon, to be added to the tree as each profitable customer pays their bill.  If the tree is festooned with red in three months time I will know my cunning plan may be working.

I will be updating the career change  courses on offer along with other services and goods on offer at  www.kritirecharge.co.uk. throughout the week.

The Sunday foodie Bit part 4

A Fishy on the Dishy (poor pun here)
A Mackerel is shown not a Herring, no red herrings
 intended

Started Sunday 6th February 2011  0953 GMT
Words 303

Bacon and Herring in Suffolk


Bacon and Herring were the two main protein sources  rural Suffolk used to rely on in it's daily diet.  The part of the world where I am from West Suffolk was the pig production and processing area (not quite so much as it used to be compared to even 15 years ago).  Lowestoft was one of the main East Coast centres of Herring  fishing.   A fish that provided the essential oils in the diet that now most people only experience in capsule form.

I have taken a picture of one of the plates of a non-matching set.  I bought these from the factory shop of the Jersey Pottery, they were delivered by their agents who turned out to be a major high street department store. Back then, eight or nine years ago, this was a major saving on the high street prices.  This was a spontaneous buy along with a set of soup/spaghetti bowls.  There were eight different designs showing various different types of popular seafood from around the shores of Jersey.  Herring sadly is not really commercially viable to fish as it was in the heyday of Lowestoft.  When my nephew came to Sunday Lunch he was just starting to read.  As the Roast beef was being put on his plate he noticed the picture and the script around the edge of the plate.  We then had an impromptu marine biology experience as all the plates had to then be read and commented upon.  My brother-in-law is an enthusiastic fisherman so suspect there were a few conversations going home in the car.  

In a previous blog   I detailed a Pork and Cabbage dish.  Later in the day or tomorrow a recipe for Herring and one for Mackerel will appear in the Blog for 2pointfiveageofman.net.

The Saturday Garden Shed

Started Saturday 5th February 2011  Started 0634 GMT
Words 409

Is it a shed?
This is obviously not a garden shed but an (
I'll let you think about this one.  The structure as it is not a dwelling was rambled past a few years ago.  This is the Moulton and Three churches walk (walk number 48).  The village of Moulton lies on what was the superhighway of it's day the packhorse track between Cambridge and Bury St.Edmunds and which ran south of Newmarket.  The next picture shows the packhorse bridge a triumph of medieval engineers and not a skate board ramp.  It certainly didn't wobble with the frequency of feet passing over it.

  So the shed,  this is Malt Kiln used to dry out the malt produced as the barley was malted.   This was an essential part of the local economy in the production of beer.  Beer was a relatively weak beast (< 2.5% abv) when used for everyday consumption  compared to today's brews.  The beer could also be guaranteed to be less likely to kill you than some of the drinking water of the day.

The presence of Malt kilns in the area were one of the reasons why the Abbey at Bury St Edmunds (once the resting place of England's original patron saint) was the premier medieval Abbey.  Prior to meeting at Runnymede to sign the Magna Carta, meetings were held at the Abbey.

Saturday's Gardening slot is going to be a little shorter than I intended on Monday (will have to upload missing posts over the weekend).   We have had Chinese  New  Year which is based on a Lunar Calendar (13 months).  This has been accompanied by some of the windiest weather around the world, not unrelated to the fact the moon is pretty near to the earth.

On the theme of calendars I have just received the growing year planner from the Growing Schools network.  a publication that may not be repeated as cuts bite so maybe a little fund raising for the appropriate charity that takes this in would be appropriate.

Today I have officially started trading in business.  This free blog will continue to be maintained each day.  More content will start to appear on the two blogs and sites where the information may be more economically expedient for me to place.

Tomorrow we will have a look at Roast Bacon and it's place in the Suffolk food economy.

The Friday Analysis

Started Friday 4th February 2011 0819 GMT

Wellbeing in February

Started 3rd February 2011 0651 GMT
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