5.10 — weeknotes — two months today!!! — Easter, too much chocolate?

Mark Lumley
3 min readApr 14, 2023

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Last couple of weeks continue to be busy but has been nice to have the Easter weekend off. I had the Tuesday off as well so had a really nice longer break, that extra day made all the difference, actually felt like a break. Nice to see a bit of sunshine as well, summer is just around the corner. Ate far too much chocolate so pretty standard Easter! Almost able to start to sort the grass out as well — a pretty ongoing battle of mine against squirrels and moss!

Had the digital strategy board last week, a packed agenda. Went through and approved a couple of business cases, went through the top actions from the shape digital action plan and an update on Enterprise Architecture.

I know I have said it before but those days where you have back-to-back, half an hour meetings, just make the brain go mushy…. By 5 on Wednesday I was ready to escape the house so had to go to the gym.

Thursday started with a fun major delay on Southwest Trains and very limited train service, to be fair not really had many issues for a while. But when faced with most platforms at Waterloo being shut, it is never going to go well. I had to go on a bus — that is all…. But worth is as was a good day in Hounslow House with the team to go through the service planning and roadmap for the next 12 months!

There has been a lot of cyber activity in the sector over the last couple of weeks that have kept a number of teams across Local Government and partners more than a bit busy. We have certainly increased the communication internally to be ever aware!

Another great LOTI session as well last week — an update and some introductions to new colleagues, so much going on but always thinking to the future, had a really good chat with Eddie as well about the future!

Two months today I will be the President of Socitm…. Wait! What?? How the bloody hell did that happen… It only seems like yesterday that I was voted into the team during Covid — I genuinely have no idea where the time has gone. But I am really proud of the work that Socitm has been doing and the plans for the next couple of years! President Conference (13 and 14 June in Brighton) is going to be amazing!!! Drop me a line if you want to know more.

Tune of the week: A bit of a feel good one this week — love this song! Galantis — Peanut Butter Jelly (Official Video)

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Mark Lumley

Director of Digital & IT for the London Borough of Hounslow