Optimistic October

Every month I download a copy of the Action for Happiness Calendar. I don’t always do what it suggests but sometimes things are relevant or a good reminder to do something positive. As today is the 1st October, todays new month starts with writing down your most important goals for this month.

OK, where to start….

1. Get new job description – I am aware that a secondment opportunity is in the offing and its something that appeals to me. I know that the JD is being authorised, so the job should be being advertised soon. Need to sharpen up my Expression of Interest notes.

2. Find more ways to spend quality time with C and R – there has been an awful lot of things going on at the moment with work, ringing meetings, talks etc that sometimes it feels that C and I don’t spend any real time being together. Getting to see R now is more difficult too as her working patterns have changed so her days off no longer coincide with mine. I need to give some priority to finding things that we can do together that mean we spend actual time with each other to the exclusion of it being perfunctory, like putting in a new front door. Sure, we will spend time together to do that but it’s a job that needs doing, not something that is necessarily spending quality time together.

3. Focus on some PR activities – as you know I’m the PRO for both my local #bellringing association and the Central Council of Church Bellringers and we need to get some more good news out in the public domain.

4. Bake – I want to carry on with the weekly baking challenge of making something from the collection of magazines that I’ve accumulated.

5. Lose weight – probably counter intuitive given #4, but I really must put more effort into this area instead of just playing at it. My overall health will thank me for it.

There are probably many more smaller ticket things to focus on too, but by spending more time on each of these bigger areas, my whole wellbeing should be much improved and I will feel more resilient and ready to tackle most things.

Busy week ahead

Monday night is the only evening this week when I haven’t got something in the diary. As well as a full time day job, I have 3 #bellringing meetings on Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday, one presentation to deliver on Wednesday and 2 RingingRoom sessions on Thursday and Friday. Everything has come at once. Thankfully its not like that every week otherwise my head would explode.

Considering that there’s very little actual ringing being done, there’s still a lot of work to do.

In order to be able to get to a point when ringing can return to anything like it was previously an awful lot of things are bring planned and delivered behind the scenes. Some people are saying “what’s the point if we can’t actually ring?” To me, the point is that if we don’t do all of these things now, there may not be ringing to go back to.

I fear that we will have lost an awful lot of ringers during this hiatus. Some due to age or infirmity but others who were only just setting out on their learning may find other things have tempted them away.

Within our own Association I see that some districts have been really good at getting people together virtually having district quiz nights, even having their scheduled meeting by video conference. Some have even managed to meet up where social distancing can be maintained and before the Rule of Six came in. Others have barely tried. It demonstrates the variety of leadership styles and levels of expectation rather starkly. I’ve done my bit in our district by holding a virtual district practice on the evenings when we would have been holding a proper district practice but attendance hasn’t been overwhelming, but then it never was at the real thing anyway. The district meeting and training day that we should have had didn’t place. There has been no discussion about plans for next year yet.

One of the meetings, on Saturday, is the Association management committee meeting. All districts are required to report on activities since the last meeting and I am looking forward to hearing about what’s been going on in other districts. I’m hoping that there will be some direction on how we should approach next year, particularly with the Annual District Meetings that take place in January and how they can successfully be conducted.

I will keep doing my little bit to keep things going as long as I am able.

That was the week that was

Well, here we are at Sunday already. I’ve had a fantastic week off and feel that I’ve achieved quite a lot really and managed some down time as well. However, I do feel a little anxious about returning to the office tomorrow.

I know that in my diary for Monday morning is interviewing for new staff and I’ve done that so many times, so that’s not going to be a problem. I know that there can’t have been any disasters as I haven’t had any phone calls and I have every confidence in my number two. I know my email in box will have about 500 emails, most of which will be circular stuff that can quickly filtered out. I know that Monday will whizz by pretty quickly as I catch up with things.

I think my real anxiousness actually surrounds the things I still want to do at home and then not having the time during the day and having to rush things in the evenings, not spend quality time with C etc. I do wish sometimes that I could give up work and spend more time on the things I want to do.

However, go to work I must for now so I’ll try and make the best of my last day at home. Albeit housework and lunch preparations for the week ahead. Maybe I’ll get some time later to make a start on reading a new book. Ho hum. 😁

It’s all about the preparation

Bellringing and baking have at least one thing in common. They both require a certain amount of preparation.

For an experienced bell ringer learning new methods requires homework to be done before you get to ring it. Printing the blue line off, writing it out lots of times, practising on a simulator, reciting the work of each bell until it sticks. Then, when you get to ring it, either on tower bells, handbells or virtual platform, doing it over and over again until you “see” the patterns and it starts to stick.

Baking requires a plan of what to bake, when to bake it, what ingredients are needed and equipment. Not to mention the “to share or not to share” debate.

Of the two, I’ve always found baking easier to prep for. I can spend a week or longer deciding if I’m going to bake something, what it might be, what day I’ll bake it and when and who gets it eat it. For example for a week now I’ve been thinking about what to do with some left over mascarpone and homemade raspberry jam. Sunday lunch dessert would be a perfect opportunity. Hmm, what to do though? KISS, keep it simple, stupid. Buy some meringue nests, slather the mascarpone and jam on top et voila. Dessert is served.

This coming week I need to learn two bellringing methods. Ipswich Surprise Minor, which I have rung in the dim and distant past, and Bourne Surprise Minor, something completely new.

Ipswich is needed for Thursday night and Bourne on Friday. When will I start preparing?

My trouble is, if I know I’m only going to ring it on the one occasion is it worth the investment of all that preparation? I have learned new methods for quarter peals before, just enough effort put in to get through the quarter, then instantly forgotten as soon as we’ve stopped ringing.

However, other people I will be ringing with will have put considerable effort into learning the methods. In order to support them I really should too. And it would help my own ability to ring other things more regularly if I made the effort to learn it thoroughly.

The quality of the output is commensurate with the quality of input. You get out what you put in.

Well Sunday lunch dessert looks OK, hope it tastes good too. Will my ringing next week be equally prepared?