I invested in a marketing booklet the other day that is supposed to help you increase your social media reach with the clever use of hashtags.
As Public Relations Officer for both my #bellringing Association and the Central Council of Church Bellringers, this is something that I’m keen to make use of.
The booklet came with an accompanying instructional video with examples being worked through to follow along with. I started to watch it yesterday. Its over an hour long and I was unable to invest that amount of time on it, at that time.
However, there were some great tips for updating your profile bio, so I actually did that on my own accounts and on the Association ones. When I get a chance I’ll go through the rest of the video and the booklet and see what gems of wisdom would be helpful, and put them into practice to see if it works.
I’m still very much a novice in the world of social media and I’m conscious on a personal level, not to let it take over my life. I would like to get better reach but its important to balance social presence with real life presence.
With the excitement of starting a new role next week, and a long weekend away in between, today was a very strange day indeed.
Because the move to the new role has been swift, the opportunity to hand over things, finish things off and so on has been very short. Not least having the chance to tell my team about it.
The day has been spent trying to wrap up loose ends and get things to a sensible state for someone else to pick up and finish. The other things I need to sort out is moving desks. There are some things I can take home that I won’t be able to utilise in my new office space, but there are other things that I will need to take across, and some that I don’t need to take with me.
The plan is to come back to this office on Tuesday, after my weekend off, to pick the bits that I will need, then walk them over the other side of the site to where I will base myself. I also have the option to be able to work from home, so I may start doing that a couple of days a week too.
I suppose I’m not technically leaving the team as its only a secondment, so there’s been no “leaving do”. I’ve spoken to my team leaders and sent a message round to the team as I didn’t get to see and speak to everyone. I will get to see them from time to time so I guess its not a case of walking away.
At least I have a nice long weekend, Thursday to Monday inclusive, to be able to switch brain ready to hit my new role next week.
The 1st of December. The start of the build up to Christmas. The first day you can legitimately have chocolate for breakfast from your advent calendar.
For the last few years I’ve bought C a beer advent calendar from Adnams, our favourite purveyors of beer. However, this year they weren’t offering one, presumably as a bi product of covid shutdowns they’ve not been able to brew the volumes of beer as they had done.
Not to be out manoeuvred though I found an alternative supplier offering an advent calendar of craft beers from different establishments. Order duly placed.
On the route out of the checking out procedure I was directed to the “customers who bought this product also bought …” section. Apparently someone had bought a prosecco advent calendar. I never knew there was such a thing. Click, I’ll have one of those too.
For some reason or another an advent calendar is the one thing that C has never bought for me. We’ve bought them for R and her various flatmates over the years, and I’ve always bought him one, either chocolate or more recently beer. But for some unknown reason I’ve never been given an advent calendar.
This year he even bought himself a tea advent calendar. I don’t drink the stuff, so it was definitely a self purchase.
Well, I’ve treated myself this year seen as though no-one is going to do it for me. I know, sob story isn’t it? First world problems.
It seems fortuitous therefore that on the first day of opening my prosecco calendar, that I actually have something to celebrate. I was interviewed for a project manager 6 month secondment role, at a higher banding, and was successfully appointed, and asked to start next week.
I shall crack open that first bottle tonight and toast a new future.
Watching videos and IGLive tutorials from my favourite bakers really inspires me to want to bake more. The trouble is threefold. I tend to miss a lot of the tutorials as they tend to either be during the day or early evening when I haven’t quite got home from work. Secondly, I don’t have time to do so much baking. Thirdly, if I did all that baking I’d either be the size of a house or diabetic, or both 😅
Those who do free tutorials and IGLives are so generous with their time and expertise. Surely by telling everyone else how to do it runs the risk of putting themselves out of work because we’d all be able to do it for ourselves.
Does it make good business sense? Actually, it probably does. By making themselves more accessible, it means that more people would follow them, be interested in their other products and offers, and be willing to paid for membership and exclusive access to more tutorials.
The company my daughter works for seem to have quite a cult following, with people willing to travel miles to get their hands on their goods. So far, I’ve only managed to sample a sourdough loaf, but I hear their doughnuts are to die for. I’ve watched bits of a few IGLives, when I’ve managed to get to it in time. There’s nothing pretencious about any of the recipes, its all good, honest baking. I’m kinda hoping that R will get me a copy of their book for Christmas 😁
I do need to put a bit more effort into some home baking puddings and cake. C is in charge of bread baking as he’s the one that eats most of it, so I’d best not interfere there.
Shout out to my favourites: Bread Ahead, Cakeflix and The Cupcake Oven.
Advent Sunday heralds the start of the Christmas season. Its going to be a very different one this year.
The December calendar is usually full every weekend of #bellringing for carol services, and tradition and ritual surrounding preparations.
C and I rang our 2 bells as usual this Sunday morning. When we arrived at the cathedral they had installed garlands and lights around the south porch, and an illuminated star at the top of the tower. When we reached to ringing room there were cables and LED lights in each of the window areas directed outwards, ready to light up the Cathedral. At least they managed to run the cables round the edge of the room this time, usually we have to navigate cables across the floor where clearly they do not consider the safety of the ringers.
By coincidence, my Angel Wings candle, that I light every evening throughout the year, had expired yesterday. When we got home from ringing C went to fetch a new candle from the supply in the garage. He brought in a Christmas Cookie one. Great timing for the start of Advent. Although it’s a different scent to the usual one “Angel Wings“, the purpose is the same when I light it.
Presents are almost all bought, and the ones I have already are wrapped. I always buy C and R advent calendars. R was given hers when we last went to see her. I bought C an advent calendar of a different sort, but he can’t have that until 1st December. I bought myself one too, seen as though I don’t get one otherwise.
Christmas cards are being written. Possibly the earliest we’ve ever done that.
The Association training day was held on Saturday. In a parallel universe we would have been meeting together and physically ringing, with pub lunches and some great camaraderie.
With lockdown we’ve moved it to a digital format instead. Whilst we’re not all meeting together, or physically #bellringing, or having a lovely pub lunch, we have been able to meet in small virtual groups using Zoom, we were able to ring using RingingRoom and were able to offer both a lunchtime talk and an evening talk. We may not have been able to do that in the real world.
Considering that only a few months back we were feeling bereft about not being able to ring, the organisers were able to put a great programme together thanks to a few people’s efforts. Yes we’re not meeting face to face but there doesn’t seem to be anything that we can’t do online.
When we are able to get back to the tower together, our learning, experience sharing and skills will have helped us and will put us on a great place to move forward.
When we look at the survival and recovery of #bellringing there are some fantastic resources to support a safe return to the tower and much more to come.
There were 2 fabulous talks during the day, the first on the Association of Ringing Teachers and Central Council of Church Bellringers collaboration on survival and recovery. The second was about the Birmingham School of Bellringing and how it teaches from bell handling up to method ringing. I recorded and uploaded both to our Youtube channel.
An excellent way to spend the day training, learning and sharing.
Gave C the option of cake or cookies for today’s baking experience. He opted for cookies. I had a quick gander through the cookie bookie then decided on ginger as the key ingredient. Googled gingernut biscuits but found an alternative recipe. Bashed out ginger cookies, with extra stem ginger for heat. Had a batch of them done first thing.
That was before bells. Assisting my sister in her Ringing Room session whilst she’s consolidating Ipswich, Primrose and Norwich at the moment. The great thing about Ringing Room is that you can put out a request for assistance and the wonderful #bellringing community responds. A regular group of 8 from across the UK, who have never met in person (obviously I’ve met my sister!), gather, ring and offer support and advice.
It was a bit chilly this morning so I needed to do something to warm up and decided that there were Christmas presents ready for wrapping, so cracked on with that. This is the most advanced I’ve been with Christmas preparations in, forever! Had a need for something warm for lunch and attacked cheese on toast. 😋 Simple, yet effective.
A #bellringing meeting followed with lots of good things discussed, agreed and actions assigned. It was noted again, that C was on cuppa and snack duty. Something that he doesn’t require prompting to do.
I then finished reading the fabulous Troy by Stephen Fry. I’ve read all 3 books in the series in a short space of time because they are so easy to read and such fun too. I’m slightly bereft that I’ve finished them. Have nothing to read now.
Only then did I allow myself half an hour to do nothing. I snuggled under my sofa blanket and shut my eyes for a while. I didn’t quite get to nap as C and I were chatting about all sorts of things, especially plans for the Association Training Day, but it was nice just to relax for a bit.
Dinner and a glass (or 2) of wine, followed by giant chocolate orange buttons and televisual viewing sorted for the evening.
What you allow, you encourage. What you condone, you own.
This phrase was mentioned recently with regard to leadership. I don’t think that this should be solely levelled at leaders. I think this is something that anyone at any level should look to.
If you see a damaged piece of equipment is it solely the responsibility of the leader to fix it? They may well have the responsibility to get it fixed, or purchase a new one, but if staff on the shop floor keep walking past it “oh yeah, that’s been broken for ages” without either reporting it or removing it, then surely they are complicit in any accident that may occur later on if someone tries to use it. The same if something is untidy or a behaviour is unacceptable. If anyone allows it to continue without addressing it, at a commensurate level of responsibility, then they are promoting, allowing or condoning.
As a leader though, you can be quite constrained about how to deal with an issue. Policies and procedures may require certain levels of challenge. Start with an informal conversation to address a behavioural problem, set some improvement objectives, revise them. If after a period of time there is no improvement, escalate to a more formal stage, then repeat the objectives and review. Then, if there’s still no improvement, escalate again and so on. Sometimes there may be 4 stages before anything final is resolved. All of that takes time and of course may have to be kept confidential. That means the rest of the team may think that nothing is being done about it.
For replacing equipment it might be an easier process, but again it has to go through several layers of authorisation before an actual order is placed. That takes time and it looks like nothing is being resolved.
Bring that back to something like parenting. I remember saying to my daughter, when she had books, toys and other stuff strewn across the floor “move it or lose it”. If she hadn’t tidied up within an agreed time frame, I would scoop it all up and put it in the bin. And I mean the outside bin, not a waste paper basket or the kitchen bin.
Mostly with my daughter you only had to tell her once, or on the rare occasion of following through, I did actually put her school work in the outside bin. She threw a wobbly and had to fish it out. But next time I asked her to tidy up “move it or lose it”, she did as asked.
I think as parents, or leaders, shop floor folk, or even family members or friends, it is something that we should all adhere to this mantra, in any situation, walk of life, relationship. If you permit the bad things to happen, you are promoting them as acceptable and the norm.
A group of us picked up where we’d left off in the next session of a leadership course being run by the Trust, and spent a while discussing reflexivity: the examination of your own beliefs, judgement and practices, with the purpose to have a better understanding of what we do with that knowledge.
We were asked to consider what attributes of teams get the best out of us as leaders, and what attributes of ourselves bring out the worst in our team.
For me, the former requires focus, direction, lateral thinking, autonomy and timeliness. For me to function at a higher cognitive level my team needs to be focused on the task at hand, to all be pulling in the same direction for the same purpose, to find solutions to problems using their own skills, experiences and initiative, and to keep to agreed timescales. Then, I can fully support their needs, priorities and strategic direction.
I probably set some high expectations and then expect my team to deliver to the same level and quality of output, at the same pace, as me. Of course I’m heading for trouble there. I am a world away from their reality and have a very different skill set. I need to remember that and make concessions. Of course this is going to irritate them because if they are unable to deliver to my expectations, they may feel under pressure, unsupported, or even like they had failed. And if I don’t get what I expected then I might feel let down and frustrated.
Having recognised this over the years I have tried hard to acknowledge different skill sets and work with people’s skills rather than against them. I try to ensure that people are comfortable with what is being asked of them but at the same time stretch them a bit and help them develop new skills.
Being able to do this will lead to my team being more autonomous, focused and problem solving. Thus enabling me to be more strategically supportive.
Emotional intelligence (EI), sometimes referred to as Emotional Quotient (EQ), is the ability to understand, manage and use your emotions in a positive way to help relieve stress, effectively communicate, empathise, overcome and difuse difficult situations.
This week’s #MSEBuddyNetwork focused on understanding our EI. We were asked to complete a questionnaire to determine our current state of EI in the 4 areas of self awareness, managing emotions, motivating oneself, empathy and social skill. At the end of the questionnaire you tot up the scores and there’s a brief descriptor of how to interpret the scores. If you score 10-17 this indicates a development priority, 18-34 suggests giving attention to the weaker areas and 35-50 indicates this area of strength.
Having an understanding of you EI affects your performance at work, your physical health and mental wellbeing, your relationships with others and social intelligence.
I scored 40, 37, 36, 37 and 29 in each area respectively. No surprises that the area I need to work on most is in social skills. I’m not a great mixer. I like my own space and am close to a very small group of people. I’m not an outgoing sort of person and not brilliant at networking. But this area is key to my every day work and some of the roles I occupy in a voluntary capacity. Its about persuasion, building rapport, collaboration. I’m OK at the reflection, change management and leadership side of social skills.
The Skillsyouneed.com website has some useful resources and suggestions on how to develop in these areas as well as suggestions on further reading.
The other thing I thought would be useful to do would be to get someone who knows you reasonably well to do the questionnaire but about you. That way it could validate your own perception of your strengths and weaknesses, or shed some light on your blind spots (Johari window).
Bells, Bakes & Bettering Myself 