‘I’m over the moon!’ Were my exact words when I was told by Lyndsey, Robinson and Howell’s Information and Project Administration Manager, that I was to be the newly appointed Information Assistant.

Now, I’m still on Cloud Nine. It’s my first day and I’m already sharing the great creative visions of the company and planning on how we can bring them to life. At Robinson Howell Partnership not only are they all equally creative, quirky and dedicated to their jobs but they all share the same passion to change Lancashire’s cultural landscape through the arts.

So, here I am saddled up on my saddle chair, (yes, really!) with my own telephone and desk feeling, well, rather important. There’s a lot on here at Robinson Howell Partnership and I can see over the coming months that my work will be cut out for me. The fantastic participatory and community arts magazine mailout will be stepping in to a new digital age in January, Spot On Events are filling up the calendar and Christmas is only around the corner!

No panic however as reassurance comes in the form of Lyndsey, Rob and Sue – and not forgetting Mr Charlie Brown. The excitable yet loveable Labrador dog that on our first encounter nearly pushed me backwards down the stairs – but admittedly, has already melted my heart.

With 2011 soon approaching I have a sneaky feeling that this will be for Robinson Howell their best year yet. With spectacular shows and new innovative ideas in the pipeline there couldn’t be a better time to join such a unique company. So without further ado, I would like to say a big hello from me, Claire Williams, and I look forward to speaking to you again very soon!

I arrived at work this morning to discover that I officially win the numpty award for leaving my keys on my desk. Rob and Sue are both at a meeting and away from the office.

Now some would just give up, and go get the bus back home, but I am determined to make the most of my working day, so the kind people at Source Creative have offered me a desk and a computer. This gives me a really good chance to be on hand for the development of the new mailout.co website and at least their office is warmer than sitting outside in the rain.

So I think the team at Source Creative need a massive THANK YOU for helping me in my time of need, and I need to create a new system for remembering my keys.

This morning I arrived at the Robinson Howell Partnership office to discover a card and a cake. It has been a whole year since I first arrived at RHP and the year has just flown by.

When I signed up for this job I was full of enthusiasm for the work that RHP do, although it took some time to get my head around it all! I was excited about the prospect of helping Sue with Spot On and working together to develop the promotion of events in Lancashire. I was a little nervous about helping to edit mailout, and I don't think I had contemplated writing for the magazine, certainly not as much as I have done this year.

I don't think I'd ever anticipated how involved I'd get with Spot On, I try and see at least one performance from each company and I've been having great fun writing my blogs after each event.You see, what I've come to realise about RHP is that as a team we only do work which interests us. We like to feel passionate about the projects we work on, and as a consequence we really enjoy what we do. I have the greatest pleasure in telling everyone I know that work is fun because I'm a firm believer that if you're going to spend most of your life doing it you should be getting a sense of achievement out of it.

Arriving at RHP has meant some changes for the team. I'm the systems person here at RHP, this is most evident when you see the charts and calendars and lists which are strewn around the office - there is a deadline for everything, but it means we all have something to work towards. I have commandeered the meeting room downstairs and at certain times in the year it becomes parcel central for Spot On. I am also grand high ruler of the stationery cupboard, those who enter had better leave it as they found it! I think all in all we're a very happy bunch of people at Robinson Howell Partnership, even the dog plays an important role here.

So I am a very very happy iPam (Information and Project Administration Manager), I am full of cake and I am full of admiration for the lovely Directors of the company who had the good sense to employ me in the first place. I can't wait to see what the next year has in store!

 

Brrr, it’s cold out there. I smell bonfires and pumpkins... it must be Halloween or Bonfire Night... or both!

Yet another busy month at RHP HQ. The whole team (apart from me) have been out seeing Spot On shows. They’ve got this campaign going at the moment it’s called ‘£2 a year keeps the arts here’, so they’ve all been out giving speeches about how important it is to support Spot On and show that government ... Nick Cameron is it?..  that we are here to stay. It’s meant quite a few quiet nights at home for me, which I like because I’m mostly sneaking onto the sofa when everyone is out.

So far they’ve seen Mervyn Stutter, Charity Shop Cabaret, Clive Carroll, Susannah Hamnett, OperaXposed, Rainbow Beach and The Kosh. November looks jam packed with more shows, so it looks like a few more nights alone for me. They’ve posted loads of photos and even got some video footage so keep looking at the Spot On website for new updates.

As well as gazing into the future and finishing the next Spot On menu for promoters for Spring 2011, Sue has also been meeting some people from the Netherlands. Sjoerd and Valentijn came over to start some ideas about our Preston Guild project, Sue and Lyndsey had two busy days showing them around Preston and further afield, they even went to a pub quiz with Lyndsey and they won! Sounds to me like they’re a clever bunch of people. Sue says they’re working on some really exciting ideas for 2012 – I just wish she’d work on taking me for a walk this afternoon instead.

I did get to go on a visit recently. Lyndsey and Sue drove to Chesterfield to meet the mailout board members and collect all the paperwork because we’ve started a new role as administrators of mailout. It seems to involve a lot of paperwork and extra computers and lots of transferring of files and information at the moment, but apparently it will help make the plans for the electronic magazine and the new website loads easier. You can keep up to date with the new website by visiting www.mailout.co.

As we’re doing lots more mailout and getting so much busier we’ve been advertising for a new Information Assistant. We had 76 applications, and we had to read them all and shortlist down to 6 people. It was very hard because so many people were excellent. Some even had PhD’s, but unless it was in dog walking or grooming I wasn’t interested. We’ll be interviewing the candidates in early November, so I’ll be sure to let you know who is going to work for us. The new post will be good for me too because today I got told I’ve been given a promotion at work, I am now the IT Manager. I’m responsible for our IT accounts and our social networking sites. I’m hoping the new Information Assistant will help me with this as my typing is still a little rough. (Sorry)

So Sue has been out delivering a seminar to Manchester about worklessness, and she went to Lancaster to meet up with the Northern Rural Touring Schemes. And Rob is still on his infuriatingly named ‘LEAD’ course, and he’s been to London and even went to a spa with Cartwheel Arts to do some consultancy work. He says he didn’t take his swimming trunks, but we all think he secretly had some treatments while he was there. He’s been up to something called Podulation as well – I don’t understand it but it involves Pods and Creative Partnerships. He’s even Podcasting now!

Lyndsey bought a house this month. It’s been a long time coming and she now spends a lot of time talking about bathroom fittings and boilers, but we think she might be able to use her brain for work purposes again soon so that’ll be nice. I have to say a special happy 1st year at Robinson Howell for Lyndsey. On the 1st November she’ll have been here a whole year, I don’t know where the time has gone, I also can’t remember what it was like before she came, but I am a dog of very little memory.

Let me begin with an apology to my faithful blog readers, I am fully aware it is mid September and I haven’t even blogged August yet. Well I’ve been busy ok... it’s tough being a Labrador in a busy working environment, sometimes you just have to prioritise... and I had a bone that I needed to work on.

My word of the month(s) is ‘hectic’, seems like nothing ever stops in this place... well, I say that but I did manage a holiday to the kennels in August, Rob and Sue went to Pisa and Lyndsey is literally packing her bags as a I type as she jets off for a holiday in Crete this week, that’s why I thought it was time to blog again, I go a bit quiet when she’s not around.

We started August with Rob’s birthday, best not say how old he was but he’s still not as old as I am. Nine and a half times seven makes me sixty six and a half. I should be getting my bus pass by now. He got a very interesting book about caravans, they look like really big kennels to me, and maybe I shall get myself one when I retire.

Cath Ford came to see me, she said it was to discuss plans for all the Creative Partnerships stuff she’d be doing in the new term but I knew it was really so she could tickle my ears while I fell asleep on her foot.

A nice man from the East Lancashire Chamber of Commerce came to see Rob and Sue. It all sounds very grand, I think it’s a big palace where people talk about shopping, Rob and Sue said that they are joining so maybe I’ll get to visit. What with Chambers of Commerce, Rob’s Lunar Group and Sue’s DINNER Club, me and Lyndsey are starting to feel a bit left out. Maybe we’ll start a club... perhaps the Association for Anyone who Regularly Goes Holidaying (AARGH), I think everyone needs a bit of AARGH in their lives.

Yet another acronym thingy-bob keeps getting mentioned in the office and this one is really cruel. Rob has started a LEAD course, now I’m sure we’d all agree that talking about leads is not kind when one has no intention of walking one’s Labrador... people should be more careful when they invent these names! Anyway, he’s got some funding from Business Link so he can go on his ‘LEAD’ course. And Sue has just come back from ‘The Claw’, she says it’s a Clore short course about change management but I think that Clore sounds like the baddie from a Marvel comic, and really, what is change management? Is it where you count all the money in your pocket?

So, as the guard dog of the office I’ve spent a lot of time meeting and greeting the many visitors we’ve had, Louise the Business Angel has been back to make Rob and Sue think about their core values, I was a bit upset that ‘Labrador’ wasn’t one of the key words on the list. Julian from Action Factory came to see Rob and they decided who was going to design the new mailout website – it’s really exciting because we’re not going to be doing a paper version of the magazine anymore, nope, it’s all going electronic. So, Source Creative are going to build us a fantastic website so that we can upload articles and people all over the world can read and contribute.

Sue has been all over, she’s still working on something for Preston Guild and she’s busy sorting out a big meeting in Manchester about routes to employment for young people. In amongst all that she went to Edinburgh Fringe for a week and spotted some new talent for the next Spot On season, and she’s nearly finished building the menu for the Spot On Promoters to select their shows for Spring 2011. Sue is always busy looking into the future and she does it all without a crystal ball, we’re just about to start the Autumn 2010 season and she’s already planning Autumn 2011!

This week Sue flies to Canada, (she says it’s not a holiday) she’s going to see lots of artists who want to work in the UK, maybe they’ll be in the next Spot On brochure? I just hope she brings me back a moose... or a bear... or even some maple syrup.

Lyndsey is off on a well deserved holiday to Crete this week, maybe she’ll bring me some feta cheese and some olives? She’s already been to Edinburgh and spent three days rushing from one show to another, again I have to question whether it really was work, but she says she did enjoy going up there and being part of the Fringe. When she came back all the publicity for the Spot On season was ready to be parcelled up and sent out, some most of the time I’ve just listened to Lyndsey parcelling up packages with the scary brown tape dispenser. At least she has a nice man called Tom who comes and collects the parcels; he’s our Spot On courier.

Everyone keeps taking about cuts and I don’t think they mean cuts of meat or other interesting things to eat. It’s all a bit worrying as I’m told that my food is paid for with arts pounds.  There’s a big campaign called ‘I Value the Arts’.  Sue has started tweeting about where arts pounds end up.  Some of them in my food bowl.

Everyone has been so busy in the office and we all realised that the mailout stuff we’re doing is going to make us even busier so we all decided to advertise for another member of staff. So we’re looking for an Information Assistant to help us out in the office, you can find the job description on our website.

And finally, yesterday I went for a day out with Rob and Sue, we were followed all the way back home by a mysterious cube. Rob says it’s his new project, Sue says it’s a new meeting space, and I think it’s my new kennel. Hmmmm!

I got into the office this morning to discover that my iBone had arrived! You see, all you have to do is ask for things nicely and they arrive the next day! I'm so happy... now how do I get it off the screen and into my bowl?

Many thanks to Stephen Mellows-Facer (Spot On Ste) for helping to send it to me.

July has been mostly wet, with a chance of rain and a hint of downpour, it’s been so bad I’ve not even felt like going out for a walk for fear I’d have to swim home. So my word of the month is ‘drenched’ and it looks like it’s going to stay that way until Christmas.

 

 

 

 

As you can tell, I’m in a grump and I don’t plan on dragging myself out of it. Everyone seems so busy and all they want to do is eat biscuits and cake and chocolate and then they don’t bother to give any to the starving Labrador in the corner, oh no, they just sit and work and leave me to it. Well, I might be exaggerating there a bit; I mean Sue and Lyndsey played a very strange game with me last week. It involved a big pile of audience questionnaires, chocolate drops and me. Basically they kept putting chocolate drops on the floor on top of the piles and then whichever drop I ate first was the pile I’d chosen. Very unfair if you ask me – they kept taking the chocolate away, and then putting it back and I was very confused... but at least I got some chocolate that day. Apparently it was to select the winner of the Spot On prize draw, I chose a lady called Sally from Barnoldswick – maybe Sally will bring me some chocolate drops?

Rob’s been really busy writing school reports, I thought that was what the teachers did for the pupils, but he says he has to do it for his practitioners, what with him being an agent and all... I don’t get all this terminology. He’s been out on an agent’s day again in Avenham Park; he could have taken me, but no... he didn’t. He took Lyndsey to Pendle Vale College and they worked with some pupils there to help them think about their future and the type of activities they might want to get involved in, but he didn’t take me (I’m sulking). When he’s not going off being an ‘agent’ he’s in the office doing mailout. Sounds to me like big things are happening, he’s written a lot of stuff about the magazine and the future – I didn’t know Rob could see into the future but from what he says I think mailout is definitely in it.

On the other side of the office, Sue has been busy using her enormous brain to calculate the sums that make Spot On happen. Lyndsey and Sue have been busy making the autumn brochure and getting things ready for the start of the autumn season and they’ve been off to see some people in Preston about ‘The Guild’. It sounds very ominous... I’m not sure who ‘The Guild’ are, but there were a lot of them and they had to present something in front of a big group and they got asked lots of questions. I suppose I’ll find out more soon enough.

Sue went to Essex for the NRTF, I think it was a conference for Naughty, Rebellious Theatre Fans but Sue says it’s the National Rural Touring Forum. She spent a whole week with some Canadians and she talked to lots of Swedes...aren’t they a vegetable?

Then when she came back she had some meetings with some new promoters who are going to start putting shows on in their village halls in spring next year. I like the Spot On promoters, they are always really excited and enthusiastic about their job. I just wish they’d put on more shows for dogs – I’ll fill out a questionnaire and make sure that comment is in there. Speaking of the questionnaires, we had a new member of staff in the office this month, Eoin has been helping Lyndsey and Sue. He has been putting all the information from the questionnaires into the computer so they can use it for reports. It can’t have been a very fun job but he seemed to enjoy reading all the comments from the audiences and looking at some of the drawings they did.

Apart from having a whole week off, Lyndsey has been glued to her chair this month. I’m worried she’s going to get square eyes if she stares at the computer screen any longer. She’s been planning her workload and is being very productive, the Spot On brochure is done, the tickets are on order, the website is being worked on... she says she just needs to find a cure for world hunger and establish world peace next Tuesday by 5pm and then she’s got everything done on her list. I wish I could be as enthusiastic as she is. So she can do more work remotely, Rob and Sue are getting her an iBone for.. What’s an iBone for?... I want an iBone! Lyndsey says it’s something to do with Apples, so I ate an apple core today in the office, I’m waiting for the delivery of my iBone, and I hope it’s a big one.

 

My word... another month gone! And what do I have to show for it?... Well, I’ve had a lovely holiday!

So the word of the month for me is ‘holiday’. I took Rob and Sue away for a couple of weeks (well somebody had to hold the camera and pitch the tent) and left Lyndsey to run the office while we enjoyed a selection of Scottish Islands. I went to Arran, Islay and Jura and had a very relaxing time, mostly jumping in the sea, chatting to local deer and walking Rob and Sue. I liked it so much I even brought a few friends home with me (sheep ticks) but they’ve gone now which everyone seems really pleased about.

While we were away Lyndsey had a fun time in the office, she’s been doing something technical with all our websites again, apparently there’s a things called Posterous and you write to it and then all your websites and social networking thingy me bobs all post the same information. I don’t understand all this stuff but she says it is saving her lots of time and meaning she can contact lots more people with one piece of information. Sounds a bit preposterous to me... get it?!

Lyndsey and Paul Hartley did some work together about the Plugged In project, she had to go all the way to Rhyddings School to show the pupils there how to work the fantastic database of arts activities she built for them and she had a bit of an adventure to Darwen on the way back. She has also had her hours increased so that she can do more things with mailout magazine so I get to see her for a whole extra day a week!

Rob has been off out with his Creative Partnershipping again, he did a creative facilitation day with Cath Ford at the Solaris Centre in Blackpool, they had lots of fun and Cath made a fantastic photo collage of all the things they created.

The team left me to manage the office last week while they had an away day in Belthorn, any excuse for pie and chips at the The Dog (how appropriate). Many important changes at RHP were discussed and much pie was eaten, but at least they brought me some chips home so I didn’t totally miss out on the day.

Did I mention I was in The Guardian a few weeks back? There was a work related dilemma about office dogs and I felt compelled to reply with my perspective. I got Lyndsey to post it to my blog; you can have a read and let me know your thoughts on office dogs. I’m pro office dog myself. Of course because I got in The Guardian, Rob got jealous and had to get in on it too, so last week he discovered that he was in it as a cartoon drawn by the Visual Minutes Company at a Curious Minds event he attended. I got Lyndsey to post that one too so Rob didn’t feel left out. I suppose it’s just Sue and Lyndsey left, I wonder what they’ll do to get in the papers?

Speaking of Sue she has been busily programming the next Spot On season. She says it’s a bit like doing a big jigsaw, and sometimes you don’t have all the pieces, but I know she’ll figure it out soon. She is currently suffering from a serious case of answer-ma-phone-itus, lots of people to call and lots of answering machine messages heard, maybe everyone is on holiday? Speaking of which, I could do with another.

We reckon Rob must have been a little bit jealous about Charlie's exploits in The Guardian a few weeks ago. If you look really closely at a picture drawn by the Visual Minutes Company at a recent Curious Minds event you'll spot him! 

Anyway, we thought you might want to have a read of the article

We've just helped to produce a new leaflet which advocates some of the many arts organisations based within Pennine Lancashire. For more information visit the blog www.whoneedsthearts.wordpress.com and have your say!