Preparing for a New Academic year - September 2009

It is preparation time again. This means yet again we are reviewing and attempting to complete as much of the teaching preparation done as early as possible. This initial preparation at the start of the semester is important as it helps in the management and organisation of teaching sessions. Students need to be reminded that they should be organised and they need to prepare before the start of the academic teaching sessions.

Initial organisation for us includes the development of teaching schedules. For students it is about working out what sessions they have on at specific times and what timetabling choices are the most appropriate for their needs. I remind students about work life balance and I feel that we need to remind ourselves about work / life balance as support workers it just as important for us to ensure that we are not over tired and able to focus on the sessional needs of our students.

Half the battle for us as support workers this months is the juggling the stage return of the various institutions we are working in due to the different teaching start dates. R&R have been back since the first week, I returned on the second week of the month and J was lucky last in the last week of the month. The different dates has not meant that we were madly rushing about but it was a looming overbearing feeling of impending doom.

The feelings of doom due to the organisational conflicts of the student have been compounded with the concerns we have had of the Student finance situation and what are the likely aspects to this has on our future outcomes. The financial situation and the current political discussion, clearly indicates that there is high chance in May next year we will have a new political party incharge of government policy. The real question is where will we be in 12 months or 18 months.

Action Plan

• development of centre schedule which contains all the teams schedule using the new dms.
• watch the current political discussions
• maintain current knowledge of the economy through the reading of the Financial times
• Remind students about work life balance and the development of effective schedules.

Strategic Review - August 2009

The July - Swine Flue saga we were had some success with the diversification activities and this additional funding helped the bottom line of our bank statements. After the confinement of July the additional funding stream took off in August that was marvelous for us. The new demand has created additional areas for further development and following up and thus our organisational task list has increased considerably. After last months experience what can you do but start at the top and work your way down.

As a team we had a lovely strategic away visit to Shropshire in the first week of August and it was a chance to review what we as an organisation entity want to achieve. Danesfort Consulting is our collective management organisation for the team members skills while enabling individuals personal professional development opportunities through access projects which the team are interested in which their normal institutional organisation does not support. The primary focus of the organisation is the provision of support services to students in higher education to enable them to reach their full potential in the university environment.

The additional funding stream is something from a completely different sector and is aimed at developing the collective’s individuals’ creative so that financial benefit can be developed from winding down activities and funding to support future activities.

Action Plan

• To improve the organisational practices
• Streamline administration tasks
• Ensure that regular billing occurs
• Develop the new income streams
• Undertake further research for continuing professional development programs.

Swine Flu outbreak - July 2009

The month of July for us is the time when we celebrate the success of our students by attending their various graduation ceremonies. As usual I attended as either an usher or part of the academic parade so that I could see the students whom I have supported graduations without taking a seat that could be allocated to a family member. Thanks to my attendance at one institutional graduation ceremony I contracted Swine Flu and as a result the rest of the Danesfort team had to be quarantined.

The July financial statments were also hit by the new organisational set up of Student Finance Company being the primary SpLD account manager. Already we are starting to hear how this changing in operations is creating complications and there have been processing difficulties for new students applying to university. It does not look like we will transition well in the Support sector as if they cannot get the bog standard students right how are they going to deal with complex needs. I have a feeling that old standby of paying the support agencies last will be occurring yet again. We took a hit with the Swine Flu the new academic year and the continued fall out of difficult economic conditions in the economy has every warning flag to say again we are going to have difficulties. The Swine Flu episode reinforced how a minor incident can created major hiccups that can lead to disastrous impacts. One of the key lessons from the Swine Flu has been that no matter what contingency planning you do there are problems that you do not even consider.

From this force confinement of isolation the work life balance of certain individuals has again raised itself as organisational issue that needs to be addressed. While as an organisation we conform to the Work Health and Safety regulation it appears that some individuals are putting in extra hours on their computers that are above and beyond the call of duty and what I would describe as reasonable. When speaking to staff members they all provide a similar rationale that if they don’t do it they will not be prepared for their appointment sessions and there is no one else who can do what they are doing.

Growth and managing growth in this type of organisation is difficult. We have undertaken some diversification to further the funding stream but we are still not at the point where the additional administrative support can be funded. We have hit that crisis point where we have so much work on but not enough bodies to do it but still not enough regular funding to support a part time administrator. With the current uproar about Student Finance England along with the great levels of uncertainty in the UK economy as an organisation we have decided to delay the employment of an administrator until the financial situation seems to be more stable. It always seems that in periods of change and transitions between systems that support workers and educational consultants have rely on alternative forms of funding to ensure that they receive some form of income stream. The diversification into another market sector is planned to provide funding and activity during the summer months as this is normally the university support workers lean period of the year.