3.16 — weeknotes — week of the first jab
Back after a week off! Was so nice to really switch off last week. I didn’t know I needed to switch off as much as I did, so was great to be able to do pretty much nothing for a week. Was nice over the last couple of weeks to do a bit of returning to normal. The first pint in the beer garden was lovely as was the first gym session, although clearly not as nice as the beer!
Friday afternoon was a good afternoon — I am now in the latest category for getting the vaccination. So had the first of them at lunch time — I know everyone has already said this — but it was so well organised, in and out in less that 5 minutes. At time of writing no side effects, lets hope not famous last words.
I managed to get a crack in the windscreen of my car last week — on the first time I have been out of the house further than Sainsburys, typical! So had to spend 2 hours working outside a café in Crawley waiting for it to be finished. True flexible working, although freezing flexible working!!
Lots of this week was playing catch up — sorting emails, checking in with the team and other colleagues to find out what happened on my week off. Lots happening and nothing changing all at the same time is the simple way of explaining it. But lots of good stuff moving forwards.
One of the first discussions of the week was our Digital Inclusion Group — we have a great cross council team of colleagues looking at how we ensure that we bridge the gap with skills, connectivity and devices. We have made some great progress and continue to do so — this week we had the first meeting with community fibre for the first location in the borough to have their fibre installed and had a great meeting with colleagues on how we can ensure that increase the mobile coverage/capacity in the borough in ways that work for all. Have to save well done to Nick for driving these forwards and for Franco for chairing the Digital Inclusion Group!
It was the Socitm Share National Conference on Leadership, Diversity and Skills on Wednesday and Thursday — although I could only attend the first day and the Graduation Ceremony. As always such a great conference with some great speakers, lots of discussion and conversation and a number of great ideas to take away and think about things. The graduation ceremony is always amazing and great to hear some really inspirational stories from some of the attendees, particularly from the return to work scheme that we have been running.
We had another Design Authority meetings this week, was another really good meeting — we are really moving the conversation from theory of the approach to actually making decisions about the delivery. We had three projects that we discussed — two early ideas and one more defined. The aim is that we consider the proposals from a number of different angles and views from across the council (our levers for change) to ensure that we make the most of the investment and the outcomes for the community.
The whole transformation programme is really taking shape but there is a lot to do in linking it all up, and with digital and recovery etc. The DA really showed signs of making that happen though in really practical ways. Small steps…
Thursday afternoon was the launch of the Digital Creative Network — West London. The aim is to foster and strengthen relationships between large anchor organisations, start-ups and academia in West London. There is a wealth of companies that are involved in media and innovation here and there is a real hub emerging. We heard from a number of local companies and the work they are doing from being involved in the screens for the London Olympics, music concerts and broadcasting. Was really interesting to hear from Sky actually who talked about the amount of innovation they get from smaller local companies — great to be involved in such an event. Thanks to Bill Boler for the invitation and started the grey matter about how we can use this network to create more noise about digital in Hounslow!
We also had the rather scary situation in Crawley at the start of the week of reports of shots being fired at Crawley College. I can’t image how terrifying that must have been for everyone involved and it is now clear that there were some heroic actions from some of the teaching staff there! Certainly bought Crawley to a standstill and we had the police helicopter overhead all afternoon and evening. But the response from the police and the college was amazing.
Looking forward to a long weekend!
Tune of the Week (Vaccine themed!): Pat Benatar — Hit Me With Your Best Shot (1980)
