As ever work is pushing my snowboarding to the back-burner, so it’s a good job I love the work I do and truly believe in the ideas behind Synuron. Having worked on the project for almost 18 months before it got canned it’s great that those of us with nerves of steel and the guts for hard work are pulling together and pooling our resources to try and make a success of it.

So while a lot of the people I know are looking forward to a summer of glacial snowboarding and weeks sunning themselves, I’ll be splitting my time between work, more work and as many snowboarding competitions as I can get to. Hopefully I’ll reap the rewards as the business takes off but in the meantime I’ll be working on technology implementations, demos and account management while I try to help organisations in health & social care improve their HR and recruitment processes, in turn helping them save money, improve patient care and focus on what they need to to get their jobs done without unnecessary distractions and administration. So if I’m a bit quiet on the blog front I apologise, but don’t sit back feeling neglected, leave me a comment and nudge me into action.

I can’t wait to get back out to what is probably my favourite resort (followed closely by Mammoth) for a week of coaching followed by the British Snowboard Championships.  I’ll be competing in all 4 disciplines, boardercross, big air, half pipe and slopestyle and I’m looking forward to giving my Plastictastic 156 a proper testing as so far it’s only been used on a 135m slope and that’s really not enough distance to allow it to really get up to full speed!  I’m hoping it will help me quickly get used to the difference in speed required for the larger kickers I’ll be faced with (the Brits course is based on the course used for the Burton European Open).

I’ve had 3 excellent practice sessions recently, I’ve been lucky enough to have some more coaching from the crew at Maverix and it’s been good to get back on a board after a 12 week break.  I’m looking forward to trying to convert what I’ve learnt indoors to the bigger park in Laax.  If you want to read a bit more about the Maverix courses then take a look at this article from Cooler magazine.

I’ll do my best to keep you all updated on how I get on while I’m out there.

Here’s a slideshow of the photos I added to the group:

Funnily enough the first camera I bought Jools was a Powershot G5, and it was that that started him on the snowboarding photography, so it seems almost fitting that I’m now using its bigger brother.  Here’s a slideshow of the shots I’ve taken with it today, I hope you like them as much as I do.

Work’s been really busy, I’ve been travelling all over the place on visits to NHS Trusts to tell them all about the NHSE Membership scheme and that’s left me feeling tired and not really myself.  Sales isn’t something I love doing, I’m great at information transfer but actual closing of sales is something I struggle with.  Thankfully what I’ve been doing has been more on the info transfer side and because I really believe that the membership will make a difference, not only for the HR teams but the Trusts as a whole I think that that has come across in the meetings and I’ve managed to get quite a few Trusts on-board.  It still doesn’t stop me feeling a bit nervous and stressed going into the meetings though, and as January looks to be more of the same I think I’ll need to stock up on some more Bach’s Rescue Pastilles to try and take the edge of the fear off a bit.

Which brings me on to the New Year, yes we’re about to enter 2010 and I’d planned on it being filled with snowboarding and fun and big competitions, but as ever circumstances change and being a grown-up (well I try to be one sometimes) Jools and I have cancelled our unpaid month off in Laax this January and are staying at home to work instead.  This means no week of coaching and no Burton European Open (I guess 2nd time lucky just isn’t) for me.  We’re both pretty bummed out about it but I’m a strong believer that everything happens for a reason and so once 2010 officially hits I’ll be looking to the bright-side and making sure I get plenty of English shredding done so that I’m ready for the British Championships in March.  I’m going to miss being out there with all of my friends but to make up for it Jools and I are going to have a weekend break in the UK for his birthday.  It’s something we’ve been meaning to do for ages but never got round to so I’m hoping a weekend of fun and good food will perk us both up!  We’re also thinking that we might finally make it out to the board test this year, something else that’s been on the eternal to-do list but never quite made it to done.

In addition to exercising my body with snowboarding, Sports Active on the Wii and maybe even venturing back to the gym, I’m planning on exercising my brain a bit more too.  So I’m signing up to do a couple of short courses with the Open University.  I’m not sure if I want to do a full degree, I think I’m a bit lazy and not studious enough for that, but I like the fact that I can pick n mix a couple of subjects and who knows what will happen if I really get hooked.

As the New Year, and I suppose, new decade starts I won’t be making promises or resolutions to blog more or anything else really, what I will be focusing on is being happy, healthy and enjoying my life!

I’m starting this post on my iPod Touch while I travel 18 stops westbound on the District line from Upton Park to Victoria, skipping from one meeting with an NHS trust to another. It’s this skipping that’s kept me from following through with my bright idea to partake in NaBloPoMo, that combined with busy-ness, tiredness & laziness anyway. Last Monday should have seen post 2, instead I took the train from Chelmsford to Liverpool Street station, tubed to Paddington and trained to Chippenham. Then it was a taxi to Devizes and back for a trust visit before training to Birmingham via Bristol. I then spent 3 days on my feet at the annual NHS Employers conference talking to trusts about the benefits of joining NHSE as Full (paid) members before finally heading home.
It was my intention to type a post after dinner on Monday night but sleep got to me first and I just never found time to chill and blog at all all week….then it was the weekend so I slept instead!
I could have blogged yesterday as I took the train to Newcastle and back but I was playing catch up and dealing with 200+ emails so now that I’m underground with a flat Blackberry battery I’m trying to make amends.

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I’m home now, too tired to do anymore but at least I’ve got an initial excuse post out of the way!

I’m adding people to lists as they appear in my stream, so if you’re not listed yet don’t be offended.  Not all of my list names are obvious either as this Tweet from @Allix shows.  Depending on how the general feeling about lists goes with my friends I may end up turning them all back to private lists, except perhaps my sponsors list.  I’m not sure if when you follow someone else’s list you automatically end up following everyone in the list.  If that’s the case people may well prefer not to be included so as not to be mass added by spammers…..I need to dig a bit more on that I suppose.

For me the benefit in lists is personal, being able to find someone relevant to a question or a ponderance, or even something work related.  My initial connection with them might be because they’ve appeared in one of my keyword searches or maybe because they shared a conversation with a friend but I like to follow people I’m interested in not just someone who shares a similar interest (not sure that makes sense but what I mean is just because you snowboard doesn’t mean I will find you interesting as a Twitterer).  Therefore, just because someone I follow has categorized everyone they view as being a snowboarder, or a geek doesn’t mean I want to follow all of them.  So I can see lists meaning that your follow list gets out of control and you lose the value.  At this point who knows, it’ll be interesting to see how things go over the next few weeks.

It’s been really interesting work so far and there’s still a lot to be done….so I’d better get cracking!

Now the project has cleared this second hurdle I thought I’d take the opportunity to fill you in on what I’m doing.  As you know from my previous post, NHS Employers was going through a process to procure a Management Supplier, a company who we can partner with going forward to deliver our vision and support the work that we are doing.  Since the RFI submissions came in we worked through an intense period of short listing, engagement and cultural fit sessions before making a recommendation for the Management Supplier to the board of Trustees.  Our team has also been working on other exciting side projects (when we could squeeze them in!) such as the provision of electronic CRB checking and consideration of other technology based solutions for the NHS HR community.

At the Trustees’ Board they approved the move for NHS Employers to become a membership organisation by offering subscriptions for NHS organisations to access additional products and services from April 2010. What this means is that in addition to the provision of services to all NHS Trusts under the Department of Health (DH) contract, future members will now have access to new benefits that will help them as employers to deliver added value to the NHS and patients.

As part of the subscription services members will have access to the e-CRB solution that I’ve been working on with Atlantic Data Ltd, this will allow Trusts to save money by reducing not only the time spent sending forms to candidates, completing them and signing them off but also the actual processing time for the check itself (the electronic forms get into the system 48hours ahead of postal forms for a start!), this in turn will reduce costs of interim staff as the new joiner will be able to start work sooner.  Subscribed members will also be able to utilise a new state-of-the-art recruitment management tool enabling them to manage the back office processing of application forms, short listing & interviewing in a more modern manner than they are currently able to.

So over the coming months I’ll be continuing to work on the development of this membership model as we investigate other useful tools and products that we can offer to Trusts to enable them to support their staff and patients in a cost effective and efficient manner while also working with Capita (who were approved by the Trustees as the preferred bidder at this stage).

I have a feeling I’ll be kept quite busy but I really think it’s a good concept that will benefit the HR community within the NHS Trusts and enable them to support the key function if the NHS, patient care.  If I can find time between work and snowboarding then I’ll try and blog about the progress a bit more regularly.  We’re also starting to use Twitter within the organisation, so if you want to follow more work related Tweets then follow me here.

Dark clouds, originally uploaded by plasticsnow aka Kat.

I was on the train home from work today when I spotted dark clouds hovering over Chelmsford, pulling out my shiny new Nokia N86 I captured the moment. I admit I was initially a bit disappointed that it blurred but on reflection and viewing it full size I actually really like it.

Jools

Jools, originally uploaded by plasticsnow aka Kat.

For once I caught Jools on camera rather than the other way round. Taken with my new N86 about which I’ll blog when I’m less tired

I wonder whether they were working on Slingers when this was taken. Photo courtesy of Annie Mole

Twitter has brought untold amounts of awesome into my life, I’ve met some brilliant people (too many to list but you know who you are!), gained me snowboard sponsorship from Humanity Snowboards and introduced me to Tuttle (more awesome people).  It’s a Tuttler that this post is about Mike Atherton (Sizemore) has been writing a script for a TV Show, Slingers, he and another Tuttler, Toby Moores (Sleepydog) took the concept to LA, convinced that that it was the next brilliant Sci Fi offering and it’s moved on to what I suppose you could call pre-pilot stage.

Mike’s blog post (Here we go…) will fill you in one the details and if you like your Sci Fi then I’d suggest following him on Twitter because he’s going to me going all social media on the “sizzler” filming.  I for one can’t wait to see how this progresses and hopefully it’ll be a case of the pilot episode coming to the square box in your home very soon!

So it made me laugh at work today when I mentioned (& Tweeted) ….

that that I was feeling somewhat drained, and my colleague piped up that that he felt the same and it was a bit like the aftermath of a dementor attack!  It had been a pretty manic morning of meetings and presentation slide prep coupled with a whirlwind of negativity from life sucking interferences and I really do think that summed up quite nicely how I was feeling.  I may have to use that analogy more often, if only so I can treat myself to a bar of chocolate to aid recovery!

Here’s a picture of it in last Thursday’s Financial Times

So it’s exciting times, we’re currently firing out information packs and waiting for the responses so we can move to the selection of the Provider and the next phase of our programme.  Couple that with the fact that it’s our first Programme Board tomorrow and I sense things are going to remain hectic at least for the foreseeable future.  Not that I’m complaining, after vegetating in Southampton for 15 months this is exactly the kind of work I changed jobs for!

None of this matters though as I’m refusing to allow stress to get to me, if it’s fixable I fix it, and I’d not why should I let it control me?

Have a good Monday and don’t let stress get you down…acknowledge it, take a deep breath and release it into the wild!

Anyway, I just wanted to round out Brits week with an update on the slopestyle (3rd in Masters, 19th overall). I’ll admit to being a bit gutted with my overall position, I’d hoped to finish a couple of places higher but it wasn’t to be. On a positive note though, it was the biggest, cleanest slopetyle comp I’ve done in 4 years at the Brits, with my second run being completely clean with all kicked knuckles cleared. It really does go to show what some lessons and hard work can do! If anyone is in Laax and wants some freestyle tuition then Marc Pfander comes highly recommended.

Rebecca Cullum also got her rightful Big Air prize, no public apology though as she decided against having a presentation with just her on the podium (it’s not much fun, especially when it’s not your fault) but she appears in the right place on the results list so it’s all good.

Hopefully I’ll slowly ease in to work this week, luckily with Easter I have two, 4 day weeks, and a trip to Castleford & Halifax to look forward to. I’m going to do everything I can to keep the riding momentum going and get myself to a good enough standard that this time next year I’m blogging about the spins I’ve thrown down on the big kickers!

For a collection of Brits photos by Jools Smith, check out his Flickr set