Bank Holiday Bells and Baking

There’s something that goes hand in hand with bells and baking really. Many a #bellringing meeting takes place after some actually bellringing, but more importantly what is known as a Bellringers Tea.

A bellringers tea consists of a mountain of sandwiches, savouries, the rare sighting of a salad, but the most important ingredient, and one that teas are often, silently judged on, is cake. Lots and lots of cake. Preferably homemade cake at that.

I’m not sure what came first for me, bellringing or baking? Probably baking actually. Watching my grandad bake and mum having a Sunday afternoon bake up. I do remember a sibling competition on who could make the best choux buns. I seem to remember winning that one!

Anyway, today I did a bit of both.

As usual for Friday mornings, I joined my sister’s group as we practiced some more Wells Surprise Minor and Cambridge Surprise Major, the methods of the month for my Thursday night sessions, that she wants some extra goes at.

As part of the BakedIn baking club, I sent off for the Chocolate Orange Hot Cross Bun kit, and they really had to be made today for the Easter weekend. They were quite straightforward to make, and I cheated by using the kneading hook on my Kenwood rather than busting a wrist trying to knead the dough. C and I decided to go whole hog and add the chocolate chips AND the raisins that were part of the kit as an alternative.

Whilst the buns were on their second prove, I attended a virtual bellringing meeting with the survival and recovery steering group. Lots of good things coming. During the middle of that I had to check on the buns, so before I muted my mic and video, I declared that the answer to everything whilst I was away was “no”, just in case they had any funny ideas about giving a load of actions whilst I wasn’t there to defend myself.

Buns were now in the oven and meeting resumed. Lots more good things discussed and planned. Then I had to rescue the buns from the oven and glaze them, so made another hasty disappearing act. I was quite disappointed that the buns had spread rather than risen too much. They looked ok. They smelled ok. And when we taste tested them, they tasted ok too.

Someone suggested toasting them and slathering butter all over them. That sounds quite disgusting, but then I don’t like butter, or similar, anyway.

Can’t be in 2 places at once

Last night had a clash of #bellringing diaries. I should have been at an advanced district practice but also needed to be at a Central Council exec meeting.

This clash now happens very month. Last year it wasn’t a problem because we weren’t running the advanced practices. However we decided to put them back on the virtual agenda this year and try them out. Last month was the first one and as I set up the Zoom I kinda needed to be there so sent my apologies to the CC meeting.

This month though I needed to be at the CC meeting as I was on the Agenda. I did set up the advanced practice zoom session but needed to hand it over to someone else to run.

It was an interesting experiment. C attended the advanced practice on the PC next to me on my laptop attending the CC meeting. We both glanced over at the other several times and at one point were both talking to our respective meetings at the same time.

I missed out on practicing Little Bob Major and Yorkshire Surprise Major and the fact that they finished soon after 9pm. My meeting went on until 10:20pm.

Next month I’ll probably go to the advanced practice and give apologies to the CC meeting. I’ll probably end up alternating.

A different frame of mind

I think I’ve probably mentioned this before, but how we choose to respond to outside stimuli, pressures and events is entirely within our own undertaking. We can choose to get wound up by things, or we can choose to let it go.

My first day back at work this week was horrid. By the end of the day I was absolutely sure that the conversation when I got home was going to be around how much longer I would have to put up with this. C was his usual stoic self and confirmed my worst fear that I would have to stick it out for a few more years yet. Damn. I felt exhausted after just 1 day back in the office. I felt dejected. I felt well and truly fed up. This has a physical impact as well. I was unmotivated to do anything else and I stuffed my face with crisps and chocolate. I felt physically sick at the prospect of having to go back the next day and deal with it all, all over again.

Fast forward a few days and I’m in a much better frame of mind. The plans I put in place on Monday have had a positive result and things are looking ok for the coming week. I’ve also made the conscious observation, out loud to others, about what I am currently employed to do versus what I get dragged back in to, through necessity, but that I shouldn’t really, and the impact that is having both on trying to deliver what it is I’m supposed to be doing, but also providing the right kind of support to those in the department. A fuller conversation as to how that plays out is happening later this week.

My point being, my mind-set had changed. I had chosen to not allow the frustrations at the beginning of the week to overshadow the rest of the week. I packed that day away and moved on. I’m not pretending it was an easy transition. I still woke up on the Tuesday really not wanting to go to work.

According to the Mayo Clinic (https://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/stress-management/in-depth/positive-thinking/art-20043950), whether you are a pessimist or an optimist can have an effect on your longer term mental health, but also has physical manifestations too. Being more positive doesn’t mean that you gloss over the difficult things but that by approaching them in a more positive way can be more productive. Making the best out of a bad situation. Thinking positively can improve life span, reduce depression and distress, provide greater resistance to colds and better psychological and physical wellbeing, cardiovascular health and general better coping skills.

By focusing on positive thinking we can identify areas of life that may need changing, stopping to check on our thinking and finding ways to put a positive spin on it. By being open to allowing yourself to have a laugh during difficult times can help you feel less stressed. Following a healthy lifestyle is often cited, and probably the one I do least of. Surrounding yourself with positivity will rub off on you and practicing positive self-talk will help you realise that you have a lot to be thankful for.

I’m heading to the end of this week with a much more positive outlook that I had at the beginning.

Making the most of time

No surprises but there are 24 hours in a day. How we spend them is our choice. Whether we spend them wisely is debatable. Some people profess to be really good at time management whilst others feel that there isn’t enough time to get everything done. Is time slipping away from us or are we wasting it?

The latest dossier in Psychologies Magazine goes into some detail about where commitment lies, understanding procrastination, understanding how we currently spend our time and prioritising what’s important. It offers some advice on timekeeping tips for the proverbial laters. Then comes the inevitable 10 question test to determine what stops you making the most of your time.

My results indicated the dominant trait of overthinking, putting hours into mulling over events, conversations, decisions and tasks. This leads to being overwhelmed and worry that others seem to be more productive. Others may be unaware the extent of the overthinking because the outward impression is one of calm. It suggests that I should schedule worry time and limit it to 15 minutes.

A close second was overcommitment, a difficulty in saying no to opportunity and helping others. But if that time does not align with core values it will undermine wellbeing. The challenge here is to find space in my life to connect with the people I love and nurture new connections. Resist the urge to fill all the time up.

Both easier said than done. Today for example. First day back at work after 2 weeks off. By midday I was already feeling that I’d had enough. I didn’t want to be there. By the end if the day I was starting to seriously consider my get out strategy. I had a meeting in the evening I had a zoom call which was fine, not anything stressful, just a bit of preplanned for something which may, or may not, be happening next week.

I’ll try and give tomorrow a fresh start and not worry about the things that I can’t do anything about. And it’ll be C’s birthday so I intend to spend the evening with him and not worrying about what else still needs to be done.

That was the week (or 2) that was

The end of my 2 weeks annual leave has arrived. Monday morning sees the return to the office. Have I had a good holiday? Do I feel relaxed and rejuvenated?

Yes, I’ve had a good couple of weeks off, considering. I don’t particularly feel relaxed or rejuvenated thought. But I suspect that’s to do with the fact that we’re in lockdown and we can’t go anywhere or do anything or see anyone.

If we have been able to do things, I might have felt more energised. As it was, I spent most of the week not venturing far from home.

The first week I took the opportunity to undertake an online Mindfulness course. This was quite interesting and useful, but not something that I’ve suddenly found enlightenment from. It did give me some focus for a few days.

I had 7 virtual #bellringing sessions during the fortnight, some which I ran. I watched a funeral online. I attended 4 meetings and 1 virtual dinner. In between, I did some reading, played some games on my tablet and celebrated my 50^th birthday, lockdown stylee.

I did spend some time, quite purposefully, doing not a lot. C still did all the housework and cooking.

This sort of gave me an insight to what life might be like at a time when I could give up paid work completely. However, if that was the case, things would happen very differently. I would see a fair distribution of household labour. I would also probably do some form of exercise, whether down the gym or online stuff at home, or more walking at least. I would definitely do more baking and cooking. I do miss that a little bit.

I’ve had a good couple of weeks off and enjoyed not having to get up early and go to an office and get grief all day. I’m sure that feeling will be short lived when I open the office door.

Lost Emails

I wondered whether it had all gone quiet, I was being ignored, or something was amiss. I usually get about 20 emails a day to my various “home” accounts, excluding spam. By that I mean my own email address, my Association emails addresses and my Central Council addresses. For the last few weeks I’ve had significantly fewer.

Needing to be on a Zoom meeting I was concerned that 24 hours before the meeting I hadn’t had the Agenda and supporting papers, nor the link to the Zoom meeting. A quick fire email to the right person and it seems that my name had dropped off of the email group so I hadn’t received what had been sent out.

Because I was using my laptop, not the main PC with the main email stuff in, I had to log into my Gmail account, but the email that had been sent with the meeting information wasn’t there. I was frantically trying to log into everything. Outlook, Gmail, Office 365. Depending on which of the aliases used, depends on where the email ends up. Ended up having to email it to myself from the home PC to the Gmail account. Eventually got in, but not without some angst.

Whilst I was logging into various emails boxes, I also came across a couple of other emails that seemed to have been sitting in a Spam folder for one account but were not showing in any of the other redirected accounts. They were quite important emails too. I thought that all the email redirects were supposed to find their way into at least one of the 3 main email address locations.

Apart from my work email address, of which I have 2, I have 6 other alias email addresses for various roles. The majority of them get redirected via our main location but with the recent addition of Office 365 for some ringing activity, that seems to have thrown a spanner in the works. Sometimes I get duplicates, sometimes I get none. Sometimes I get someone else’s reply before I get the original message. Sometimes it takes 2 days for them to come through.

I’m reasonably IT literate, but this gets so confusing.

Making your voice heard

Have you ever felt like you’re talking to deaf ears? You’ve been trying to tell someone something for ages and they’re just not listening? And then they even have the cheek to say that you never told them?

Just lately, I feel that I’ve been telling people what’s been going on but the message just isn’t getting through. Messages either aren’t being recognised for their content, or not being considered important enough to disseminate, therefore others aren’t finding out, and feel like nothing is being done.

Case in point today. For the last, who knows how many months, I’ve been telling a group of people what I am doing to help alleviate a situation for a larger group of people. That larger group of people have not had that information shared with them, so are getting up in arms about things appearing not to be happening. Because the larger group of people are getting irate, they’re taking it out on the smaller group, who are complaining that they are being got at. I’ve explained so many times that if they bothered to share the information that I’d given them with the larger group, the larger group would be more satisfied and aware of what is happening on their behalf.

Other recent situations have involved one person complaining that things they are responsible for aren’t working properly, so I’ve given advice on things they might like to try instead to see if it improves things (and I know they do because those same things have been employed elsewhere and worked well). They don’t bother doing anything different and come back again complaining still that things aren’t working right.

Am I speaking Martian?

I’ve had times when I’ve felt that I’m just not being heard. What’s given me the strength to speak up was having read a book called “Thanks for the Feedback” by Douglas Stone and Sheila Heen. It gave me some practical tools to apply which ultimately gave me the courage to speak up for myself and get my point across.

Things that I have learned about trying to get my point across is that people need to be understood, be clear on what their own issues are, but also be clear on what my concerns are. People need to be educated rather than blamed or accused of something. It gets a far better response. Having clear expectations means that there should be no room for misunderstanding, and clearly people I’ve come in to contact with either need it repeating multiple times until it sinks in, or in writing so that I can refer them back to it.

Yet still some people don’t, or won’t listen.

Opening doors

When I get asked to give talks its one of the scariest things and takes me on a roller coaster ride.

My first question is why have they asked me? And the cynic in me replies “because they need to fill a slot and you’re an easy ask“. But maybe, just maybe, its because its a topic I know about and the person that’s asked knows that I can do a half decent job of it.

My first real worry then is what on earth have I got to say that anyone would want to listen to. I’m no one special. I haven’t done anything earth shattering brilliant or enlightening or entertaining. No one is going to want to hear me spout on about xyz when there are far more interesting and entertaining people who could do it.

Then there’s the “what am I actually going to talk about“. The latest ask hasn’t been too specific yet so I’ve asked the question. I could redo a talk I’ve given on a specific topic before, so I won’t have to prepare anything new, or do they want something different?

Then there’s the “how long have I got”? This is where, once I’ve written my talk I’ll time it to make sure it fits and I get all the main points across. I’ll read and re-read through it multiple times, including immediately before delivering it.

Then there’s the “oh my god, how many people will turn up? Supposing no one does?” Well, that’s not really under my control to do anything about. The one good thing about doing talks over Zoom is that you can change the view so you don’t have to see everyone’s faces and therefore don’t know if there’s one or one hundred people watching. Of course the trouble with doing that is then you miss out on any visual cues from the audience, like wanting to ask a question or wanting you to get a move on and shut up.

I generally don’t get nervous about giving talks, its the bit afterwards. Whilst I’m talking I know what I’m going to say, I’m well prepared, I’m in control. I’ve been to the loo, I’ve got a glass of water handy. But at the end when the facilitator opens things up to questions, that’s when I start getting nervous. What if someone asks a question I don’t know the answer to? Or worse still, I don’t even understand the question? The former can be resolved quite easily with a straight forward ,”you know, I don’t know the answer to that but I’m going to go away and find out, then I’ll let you know”. That’s all good if you actually do that, which I always make a point of on the rare occasions it happens. If I don’t even understand the question I’m not beyond asking them to rephrase it. Particularly if its quite a technical question, I’ll make a joke of it and ask them to dumb it down for those like me who are not technically minded.

The thing about giving talks is that they can open doors to lots of opportunity. An opportunity to meet new people, to listen to their questions and think about things from their perspective, to get involved in something else as a spin off, to be heard by someone who wants you to give your talk to a different group and start opening doors again with another different audience.

As much as I dread doing it for all the reasons above and want to say no, the chance of more doors opening and more new experiences happening is too great an attraction, however flattering the ask was in the first place.

Questions, questions

This coming week is going to be a week full of asking questions. As part of my new role I need to understand the detail of what I’m being asked to deliver and how what else is going on will impact, or vice versa.

I will be asking a LOT of silly questions I’m sure. But a silly question is not a silly question if it has to be asked. It is because there might be no immediate, obvious answer to the questioner. One might learn a lot through observation but in this time where we are barely meeting in person, it makes it difficult to observe.

Google provides many an answer and I’m not afraid to put that to good use. Then there’s the stuff that I already know or have some familiarity with. By targeting questions from a How? or Who? starting point, I’m more likely to get a better answer, or even framing it as a suggestion “I thought I might …” It might be off the mark a bit, but at least it would show some thought process. Framing a question correctly will make the question seem a little less silly.

Most colleagues are really helpful and are happy to give advice and support. Some are even willing to help further. It doesn’t matter how far you climb you won’t know everything and at some point, will need to ask that silly question.

Today I shall fully embrace that.

When 2 worlds colide

The trouble with starting a new job is finding your feet and who to talk to. In areas where you are less familiar you are more reliant on the information you can glean from others, and to which you must have faith that they’re telling you everything.

The trouble is you don’t know what you don’t know, and therefore don’t know what questions to ask of whom.

The first functioning day in the new job was to start a list of people to talk to over the coming weeks, then try to persuade them that its worth their while talking to me. I’ve started to set up the beginnings of a project plan, listed all the people that I’ve so far been advised to talk to, then attempt to book time in their diaries over the next 2 weeks. Its important to get in early to determine who I’m going to need to interact with regularly, and who I only need to check in with from time to time.

I’ve got a call booked with our Exec to make sure that we’re all expecting the same things and to put some solid definition around the project. I’ve got my Prince2 manual at the ready and have already set up a high level project plan.

I apply a project planning style to most things in my life, particularly around #bellringing as there’s so much going on sometimes its difficult to keep track of it.

Also interrelated are some guidance in PR writing around knowing the audience, hooking interest of those you want to engage with by writing an attractive headline, using words that are relatable, using action words that motivate them to want to talk to you, spell out the benefits of getting them to talk to you, telling the story of what the objective is then ending with a call to action, in this case persuading investment in service development.

Who knew the two worlds were so similar?