Sorry!

Sorry for the miserable posts recently. I do feel better today, even though nothing much has changed:-) I did say that I would use this blog for catharsis, so I'm afraid every now & then you get misery.

I have made the definite decision to actively look for another job - either a proper career job that I am qualified & experienced in, which I have already been applying for, but also for any other job that will give me a bit of flexibility in working hours & pull in more than minimum wage.

I spent the day sorting my stuff out then wandered off to a meeting on our regional plan. All sports have to write a national plan, which should be informed by the 10 regional plans (Sport England specifies 10 regions, some sports have more/less/different bounderies). The SW region already had a plan, but it was coming to the end of it's life so we had to update it. Originally we were given a deadline of less than a month to get it all done, so all the regional officials got together, went through the old plan, spent hours re-writing all the targets, wrote it up, met again to check through everything & adjust the figures in line with current targets, & sent it off to our head office.

4 months later it came back with LOADS of corrections, changes, queries & requests to "comply" with the Sport England template. The volunteer officers (everyone except myself & my counterpart) decided they'd spent enough time on it, & were pretty busy with major competitions & stuff, so it fell to us to sort out all 60 pages of it. Fortunately my counterpart ended up doing nearly all of it, as it "had" to be done while I was off sick a few weeks ago, so today was just a quick meeting to check through all the changes she'd made & make sure I was ok with them.

It didn't take long at all as I just said "yes, fine" to pretty much everything:-) I'm thankful that she did it all, and not too bothered what she's said, as I don't anticipate hanging around to see it through. I also know what happens to these things: They get sent off to Sports Development officers in local authorities, regional partnerships etc, then shelved & forgotton about unless that organisation particularly wants something from that particular sport. I know this is true because I spent most of my career on the other side of the industry & thats exactly what I did with the 32+ regional plans I was sent (32 Olympic sports, plus a few other organised ones).

Right, so now you all know the history of sports regional plans:-) Basically, the meeting was easy, and I feel able to cope with work knowing it's not going to be long term. Of course being told that the meeting tomorrow will need a 7am start didn't particularly cheer me (or Nanny A who is babysitting) up, but c'est la vie as they say.