Good news/bad news

The good news? I've got the promotion to become the Team Manager at long last.

After taking the post on in a temporary unpaid capacity back in Sept 05, I've been covering all the duties except the line management of the team - organising the workload, sorting out IT issues etc etc.

When the post was finally advertised a couple of months back I got an interview but they couldn't separate the two internal candidates (only 4 points between us out of a possible 150 I was told). So we were given a project to do that involved some joint working on drafting a job description and then coming up with your own proposals for a restructuring and producing a couple of managerial risk assessments for not doing anything and for implementing your proposal.

The second interview was last Friday morning. I was the second one in having lost the toss. Finished the interview at about 12.45 having been in there since about 11.15 and was called back just after 1 to told I was being offered the job. The had to go to lunch with the interview panel and the unsuccessful candidate. He was obviously not happy with the outcome but had the good grace to congratulate me and chat over the meal.

After such good news, what could possibly be the bad news you might wonder?

After 20 years, I've stood down as a union activist. I couldn't continue in my many union roles and be a full time team manager. So I have told the branch that I am no longer a steward, convenor, or Communications Officer, and have told the regional office that they I am no longer Chair of the Finance Committee, a member of the Regional Committee, Regional Council delegate, or Chair of the Notts County Forum.

I'm carrying on briefly to produce my last edition of the Branch Newsletter and to keep the website up to date while someone else is nominated/elected/"volunteered". I'll be writing a "how to guide" for both the newsletter, the website and the branch blog to hand over to the next lucky person who will spending their weekends hunched over a keyboard trying to fit 3 articles into space for 2 when a 4th article would mean you could have an extra page that meant no need to squeeze/edit.

I've been at this union steward business a long time. I got roped in back in Stevenage - "Bob, can you just hand out leaflets in your work place?" back in 1987. Within 2 years I was vice chair of the NALGO branch and a delegate to the Eastern Regional Council. After the move to Nottingham in 1989, I became the local steward for my workplace and have worked my way up through numerous restructurings and elections to become a departmental convenor and Branch Officer as well as taking in various roles in the East Midlands region.

I survived the merger conferences as NALGO, NUPE and CoHSE became UNISON - being delegation leader for the first two years after merger was stressful - herding cats would have been easier than trying to get 8 ex branch secretaries to recognise that they were now all in one branch and couldn't vote how they felt but had to follow the mandate of the members' meetings we'd held back in the branch a few weeks before. My unofficial policy from the merger came to fruition - the "old generation" retired and us "youngsters" outlasted them to become the leadership of the union and we now have new activists who only know UNISON. After 20 years, it can be argued that I'm now one of those who needs to step aside so the next generation can get on with it. So I've done it. I wish them well.

My advice to the next generation?

• Don't make "no" your automatic response, ask "why?" instead.
• Be honest.
• Recognise when you don't know the answer and say so. Don't make it up but go find out and then get back to the person who asked the question.
• If the member is guilty as charged they need to be told that it's about mitigation, plea bargaining, or jumping before they're pushed
• Negotiating on the basis of a "half truth" can undermine your position now and for all future negotiations
• Some people will never be happy with what you do but they'll not be willing to come up with a suggestion of what they would do instead. Ask them if they want to become a steward as they feel so strongly about the issue - they'll either shut up or stand up
• Make links with others so you can learn from each other
• Think! Union negotiations are more like chess that poker - it's not about the cards in front of you but the next three moves after this one (badly mixed metaphor but I hope you know what I mean)
• It's not easy but the satisfaction of knowing that you are doing the right thing for the majority of people for the majority of the time will help you sleep at night.

So that's it for me as a union activist, not sure what I'm going to do with the spare evenings and weekends but it'll be something productive - might finally clear out the garage, put up the shelf in the bedroom, and sort out the dripping kitchen tap...

evaluation and restructuring report

The last couple of weeks have been pretty manic at work. The Job evaluation scores came out on 17th October and people now know what the scores they got back in March mean in the pay packet. Those who have lost form a significant minority (that includes me) of just under 20% while 75% will gain and about 5% stay the same. Some of the losers have been very vocal in the anguish with personal attacks on the negotiators on the webpage of the local paper and setting up an e-petition.

I've not been complaining much as we remembered to lodge an appeal back in March about how the evaluation of our job was wrong on 10 out of the 13 factors, plus the job has changed since 2002 (the date for the scores) and we have registered the changes for re-evaluation, plus it is about to change again after a recent restructuring. On top of this, I have up to five years of pay protection to sort things out and the employer has agreed to a thorough review of all jobs to see if responsibilities etc can be increased legitimately to maximise JE scores.

What has been interesting to see is stewards who argued in the past so strongly that we must do something for the low paid front-line workers being unhappy with a set of proposals that do just that. The advice you are usually given is that JE schemes traditionally result in 1/3 going up, 1/3 going down and 1/3 staying the same. One of the complaints on a message board was that the person had been to a meeting where he was told that 40% would go up, 40% would go down and 20% stay the same, and he was unhappy that the proposals were for 75/20/5! I'm not sure how having more winners and less losers is a cause for complaint...

It was also interesting to see the number of managers who spent the day the results came out posting messages on the local paper's website about how badly their team had been treated in all this. My personal view is that their time would have been better spent supporting their staff rather than hiding in their office typing messages about how bad it all was.

A bit more talking and a bit less typing would have suited me if they were my manager.

I'd want them to reassure me that the changes to the job since 2002 have all been recorded and sent for evaluation, that the appeal that the manager had helped with back in March (they did help their team lodge an appeal, didn't they?) would go some way to sorting out the problem, and that as a manager they hadn't spent their time in the original interviewing saying that "the team doesn't do that, I do it as the manager".

And just to make life interesting, the second interview for the promotion has come round. The two candidates have been given a task to carry out on Tuesday afternoon that involves rewriting a job description and producing a report on how to restructure the team to include the posts covered by that job description. We interviewed the people who do the job on Wednesday
morning, drafted the jd that afternoon, got it checked by the people in the post, and I am typing this after spending the second day working at home on the restructuring report that has to be handed in on 1st November. I then have to produce a risk assessment of not carrying out the change and of carrying out the change that has to be in on 8th November for an interview on 9th.

Better finish now so I can get things ready for Sonia to come home with the shopping.

Goose Fair 2007

We went along on Thursday night to meet up with Bill, and Chris & his kids. Took a load of photos, which got edited down to these on Flickr.com.

Got another load to sort out from the Saturday visit with Stephen and Molly, and some more photos from the Sunday day out at the Leicester Space Centre and the Melton food show.

long time no blogging

Well it's been a while since I last posted anything here. I was drafting a write up of our holiday in Malta (for Flickr pictures: click here) back in March but have been busy on so many other things at work and home that I've failed to keep this up to date.

Since then I've been taken away to Bowness near Windermere for my birthday in May (photos here), had my uncle Michael visit from Australia (introduced him to British real ale pub culture of sitting around, talking and taking the mickey out of the gang while getting sozzled before stumbling into a cab to get home), and been over to Londonderry and the Inishowen peninsula of Donegal to visit most of Sonia's relatives (photos).

In between these holidays, we've continued to try to do something different on the first weekend of each month: visiting Lincoln (photos), the Riverside festival (photos), and Cropredy festival (photos). The latter weekend was spent with Sonia's aunty Julia and her husband Joe, and I think everyone enjoyed themselves.

I've also been round Nottingham quite a bit taking photos. The Heritage Open day meant I was able to get into the Bromley House private subscription library (photos) and the Adams Building (photos), while the Big Wheel day out at Nottingham castle meant we were able to get into a luminarium, Levity II (photos). The latest jaunt out was an early walk into Dovedale, up and over the hill to Stanhope before trekking back down to the car park for a picnic (photos).

I hope to keep this blog updated a bit more often, but must go now to make Sonia's tea as she's due in from her new job soon.

Sunday walks

As part of our get fit regime for the new year, we have started to go out for walks on Sundays when the weather permits.

The first stroll was through Sherwood Forest. I took a lot of photos as usual and you can see the results here. I had a go at using a long bow near the Major Oak. The long bow was taller than me by several inches. Managed to hit the target with most of my arrows.

Last week we went for a walk along the old Grantham Canal. Started off near Harby and stomped our way through the mud between the hedgerow and the reeds. We crossed over near Plungar, following a footpath that took us through a stable yard before cutting back across the fields and disused railway tracks down to the canal. It was below freezing when we headed out (ice on the canal and the swans struggling to act as icebreakers) but had warmed up to +5 deg c when we got back a couple of hours later. We had a picnic lunch of olives, parma ham, and coffee sat on the back bumper of the car watching the swans resting on the canal bank before heading off to the warmth of home. Again, took a lot of pictures that can be seen here.

Christmas and New Year 2006-07

It's been a hectic few weeks and this is the first chance I've had to post for a while.

We went over to Norfolk for Xmas to see the family. Drove over on the morning of Xmas eve and the roads were very quiet so didn't take as long as the horrendous journey when we went over for Dad's birthday (over 4 hours). Walked round to my sister's after lunch and had a play on the Nintendo Wii. Edward was able to show me how to play various games and everyone else felt free to sit on the sofas making "humerous" comments about my technique. A quiet evening in front of the TV having a few drinks with my parents. Xmas day was a late start, (nothing to do with the "few drinks") but I had a delicious breakfast of scrambled egg and smoked salmon on toast and we then settled down to wait for Alison, Andrew and the kids to come over before opening the presents. We created a small mountain of wrapping paper (which was tidied up for the recycling bin), thanked people for the presents they had given us and had a bit of a play with the toys (my racing grannies were funny as one of them kept veering off). We then had a go at playing a board game version of "Deal or No Deal" that Sonia and I were given by her brother David's family. It kept people busy making the little red boxes before we could start, and several readings of the rules to work out what we were supposed to do, but it kept us busy for a while until it was time to set the table for the big meal. Sensible portions of turkey, roast & mashed potatoes, etc etc etc were followed by Colston Basset Stilton and Port for Dad and me. We all settled down to watch the movie and other stuff on the TV while the food went down and after a while Gemma's boyfriend Chris turned up, so we had another round of present opening before a light supper and Dr Who. Once everyone had headed off we had a few more drinks in front of the TV before collapsing in bed. Boxing day was quiet. I checked the local paper shops to see if The Guardian was available (it wasn't). We had a visit from Elaine and headed back to Nottingham after lunch as Sonia had to be at work the next day.

Wednesday 27th December was a cold but clear morning. Sonia headed off to work, grumbling about the lack of leave and the rota that meant she had to cover the office. I waved her goodbye before wrapping up warm and catching a bus into town where I met up with friends. The three adults and four children walked down to the canal to find a narrowboat owned by John, a mutual friend, who had offered to take us all out for a trip. Once we had found him moored near Castle Marina, we left the kids and hit the nearby Sainsburys for the vital supplies of bacon, cobs and beer. We got underway and headed off towards Beeston and The Trent. I took lots of photos along the way and these can be found on my flickr.com site. We made it through the lock at Beeston and after turning round on the Trent moored near the lock before heading to The Victoria pub for lunch. A couple of pints and a good warm lunch later and we were back through the lock and headed back to John's mooring at Castle Marina. We left John to secure the boat, with some promising to meet him in the Lincolnshire Poacher for a few pints. I headed home to see how Sonia had got on at work and to down load my pictures.

The rest of the week was spent quietly at home, playing with the pictures for posting on Flickr, buying & installing updated antivirus software, buying a "pro" account for Flickr, and sorting out some UNISON case papers into date order ready to send to the lawyers.

New Years Eve came along quietly, and stayed that way. We caught a bus into town before they stopped running and met up with friends in the Lincolnshire Poacher. Once they had all gathered together we headed over to Chris' house to see in the New Year. It was all very civilised, no vomiting, no smashing of glasses, just lots of beer, food and "a good time was had by all". I think we left at about 1.30 a.m. and managed to flag down a black cab on the Mansfield Road who took us home for £10.

New Year's Day was not as nice as New Years Eve at first. A bit of a hangover - self inflicted, so no sympathy forthcoming. We decided we needed some fresh air and a walk so we drove over Attenborough Nature Reserve late in the morning. We couldn't get into the car park as it looked like everyone else had decied to do the same, so we turned round and drove off to the canal and weir at Beeston lock top take some pictures after a walk along the canal that I had cruised along on Wednesday.

The next day (Tuesday 2nd Jan) was my first day back at work and I had back to back meetings: 9 to 11 meeting of UNISON stewards in the department, 11.30 to 12.30 Joint Trade Union meeting with stewards from the other unions in the department and then 12.30 to 1.30 a members meeting about the restructuring of the County Council. By the time that had finished, and I had to spoken to some members who wanted me to come to a meeting in their workplace I barely had time to drink my home made soup before I headed home to write up the notes of the meeting, prepare some letters and deal with some other UNISON paperwork. Not a wonderful way to see in the New Year at work, but necessary given all that's going on.

You can see why I've not posted, been a bit busy.