Friday - and what would that be without....

May You Live in Interesting Times.......

This week I learned something 'interesting'

The number 40 when written in English is the only number that is spelled alphabetically - I read this on the back of a seat on a Ryanair flight as I winged my way home to Dublin for a weekend.

Anyway, I have had two short weeks in a row, coutesy of a long weekend at home and so have had to throw myself into a heap of work when I got back.

This week I finally finished the Acronym list, which may be of help when it comes to checking what some of the more cryptographically written publications land on your desks. It has been a labour, not of love, but maybe pig headedness. Anyway I do hope it is of some help to you. It is accessible through the Glossary page.

Lucy has been very busy ensuring the course sections are kept up to date and that information on each course is accurate. As you can see she has been exceptionally busy as we have quite a sizable schedule in the Autumn. We will be running some courses from Boots (the Chemist) and as these are the first time we will have used them it will be interesting to see what the outcomes are.

We will also be running some courses on Optical Care and Foot Care, possibly in late October, but the dates have yet to be confirmed.

Lynne is working hard on the next Newsletter, and the deadline for the submission of any articles that anyone would like to submit is August 20th. I would encourage you to think about this as it is a great way for you to tell people about new ideas and practices that you have been trying out and also a way of asking questions about any issues or problems that you may be facing. Please email us here to submit anything.

It has been a constant source of surprise for me over the last couple of weeks as we find new people to carry out our training, have sourced new courses and have fulfilled many requests for some non main stream training.

Maybe Ryanair have it right and show that learning can be found in the most surprising of places!

Have a good weekend and I will write more soon

Eoghan and the team

A Great Philosophy!

July? Incredibly it's true!

Well here we are, now in the back half of the year already, and no sign of the fable summer yet. I am beginning to think the whole thing is a rumour put around by the Met Office!

Anyway enough of my endless complaining about the weather.

We are entering the 'summer' hiatus, where things quieten down for us from a training point of view and we have the chance to take stock and make plans for the next phase of events.

Lucy has been working hard catching up on all the course feedback and we will have a dedicated page to that on the main website soon. We feel this is the best way to let people get feedback from the courses and see what other thought of them and they types of people that have attanded certain courses.

I have been meeting with Carol Barkwell with a view to us putting on a small conference at the end of the year. We think we will be calling it 'New Types of Business' and aiming it at the owners of Care businesses with a focus on the new and different ways that you all approach your businesses and looking at new methods that will help you achieve your goals. It will be a chance to share good ideas and to see how other are innovating. I hope that I can put a more detailed posting on here in the next few weeks. If anyone would like to take part of contribute to this or ask more questions please email me here and we can have a chat about it.

We are also looking at the next round of courses and the venues for them. The next Steering Group meeting will be on the 31st of July and the members can have a look at some of the porposed new courses at that point. We will be welcoming a few new members to the group, Alsion Lear from the Royal Devon & Exeter Hospital will be an NHS representative and Tina Norman will be representing the Rainbow Trust as well as her own perspective as a service user and carer. They will bring some valuable knowledge and life experiences to DCT and will help us keep a broad view on our targets and goals.

There is not much else to tell really - so I will wish you a good weekend and update you again next week

Regards

Eoghan