Day 49 – 14 March 2014
It turns out that Durham County Council has won the ‘Council of the Year’, a prestigious award promoted by the Local Government Chronicle. It’s like an Oscar for best movie, an excellent achievement and some reward for the five years of hard work following Local Government Review when the council came together by merging all of the former district councils.
We had a small part to play in the award. Apart from being part of the council, which I hope is obvious, we were also involved in the development of the supporting brochure that brought our story together. Drinks all-round?
Before I get on today my last meeting yesterday was with Steve who’s team had delivered the Pacific Class exhibition at Shildon, a sister museum to the York National Railway Museum (in my humble opinion the best museum ever). Our get together was good and he told me a great story. During the exhibition which had the engines in steam, there were four internments of people’s ashes into their fire boxes. Mourners, vicars, the lot made their way onto the footplate to say their last farewell. Fact or fiction? I’ll have to believe him but what a way to go.
Today was tight. I had six meetings in a row from 9 until 4 without a break in-between. I know that’s daft and I should take time out to stop but there are so many interesting things to get on with.
My first was my weekly catch up with Tony the Digital Durham programme Director. (These happen on average every two weeks). As you know the programme is really underway now and we only have to get our heads around the financial complexities of BDUK. I explained my colour coded diary to Tony for when he needs to put some meetings in.
We’ve put out a concession agreement to try and get wireless broadband access into all of our town centres. This is something we tried in 2012 but the telecoms market was more interested in the Olympics then and we didn’t manage to pull it off. If you want to understand concession agreements think ice cream vans.
My next meetings were on Resourcelink (our HR system), housing and two meetings with Heads of Service. I had a long discussion with one about a project that had not gone like it should have. He felt as if we had passed him from pillar to post, told him things were fine when they weren’t and had not taking the issues seriously. There are some serious lessons to learn here including for me as well. Not good.
Finally we had a meeting to discuss our trading company, Newco.
Only 27 meetings this week.
Learning points for today: More people went to see the Mallard 75 exhibition at Shildon then the Lindisfarne Gospels at Durham Cathedral; Good percussionists are very hard to find; we have 80,000 street light columns;
Today’s enjoyment rating 6/10 – Felt I’d let down one of the Heads of Service.
Thoughts from a Guerrilla Worker 