News - 2007

December
2007

• Temperature down to -4.5C and the pool to +8C - but swam every day. End of another challenging and interesting year.
• Drove to the Touraine and prepared for the holiday period of entertaining, painting the upstairs of the house and ending the year with the family.
• Drive to Paris but then continued to work on a presentation / video for the Unit Head.
• Final farewells for the Director and by me for 2007.
• More artwork & presentation development for senior staff in Brussels; negotiations on time and contract extension for 2008.
• Back to the the Loire to select / order the kitchen and chase suppliers for more work on the house - at least no strike this weekend.
• Completed special Newsletter for Director departure, more web site cleaning and preparation; monthly reporting.
• Usual accounts and house maintenance, lunch at the club with partner & friend and back to St P: partner to Paris and me to Brussels.
• Eurostar to London - first time to St Pancras - quicker to St P but lost the advantage on local travel back to CHL - forgotten how bad the Tube is in rush hour.

November
2007

• Made two more Video Tips (Word & Excel); research on International Financial Reporting Standards; the special tribute Newsletter for the departing Director of Finance; graphic artwork for three document covers; special announcements and old and new web site work.
• Updated details of David Farbey and his CV in the Download section
• Again stricken by the French railway strike!
• Paris for the autumnal colours in the park and the local ‘vide grenier’ (empty the attic) local market. Spoiled by my solicitous partner into recovery from my cold.
• Returned to Brussels for a busy week with yet more software challenges and dogged by a serious cold; started MIS Business Plan.
• Super visit to Portsmouth’s Spinnaker Tower with good weather and great views.
• Dentist, haircut and assorted maintenance, along with lunch at the club and Bangladeshi and Nepalese dinners.
• Taking ‘the bridge’ (le pont): since 1st November was All Saints Day and a holiday in Europe, back to London for the CHL administration and updates on the network. 

October
2007

• Thalys TGV to Paris and home for the weekend.
• Updated details of David Tebbs and his CV in the Download section.
• The French train strike stopped a visit to the Touraine but stayed occupied in Brussels.
• Made another Newsletter, departmental report and two videos. Much work on the Intranet administration, development and software testing. See also Training / Video. Preparation for department presentation.
• Updated details of Jurgen de Dobeleer and his CV in the Download section.
• A weekend in Belgium with visits to the lakes and park of the Woluwe and a great birthday party of a friend in Tremelo.
• Lots of technical issues (or problems as I prefer to call them) with software, but mostly sorted out. See also Tools.
• To London for the usual accounts and VAT. Meals out with friends and another one on the Eurostar return trip.
• To Ghent & Leuven with visitors from France - well worth a visit for churches, canals and ‘maton’ or ‘mattentarte’ (brilliant cheesecake in pastry!)

September
2007

• Many interviews and photographs to do for the September News as well as the report for the senior governors and next year’s vwork programme.
• To the Touraine for an important birthday as well as research on kitchens and collecting tiles - best weather this summer.
• Translating sensitive emails, completing Unit reports, new web site navigation and catching up with the Belgian neighbours.
• Back to London for accounting, dinners with friends, the stack of mail and errors by the Bank and the Taxman. Then the overgrown lawn and bushes - also cuts and bruises.
• A shock return to the mixture of busy-ness and routine of service announcements, technical issues and web development.; presentations. Nice comments in the August Newsletter though.

August
2007

• Another few hours on the tractor - grass grows in warm wet weather - and on to see old friends in Toulouse and Avignon. Finally back to Paris for the last weekend end and back to Brussels early on a Monday morning. Heavy traffic and rain :-(
• Paris overnight and on to the Touraine to holiday in very mixed weather. Stripping and painting beams in the attic, cleaning the pool, shopping and actually staying for the first time in the country home.
• A normal week in Brussels with reports, the Newsletter, another training video or two and planning the departure on holiday.
• A longer weekend in London for the usual mass of mail, accounting and updates, but more importantly seeing friends and to a club I have belonged to for a long time.

July
2007

• Drove to Paris for the weekend and also for the ‘Controle Technique’ of the car (MOT equivalent) - it passed.
• Home to Paris for weekends and also to the Touraine to view great progress on external repair / rendering of the house and internal tiling and plumbing - should finally be habitable for August - following our three year project!
• Attended training on the TeamSite upgrade that is coming soon.
• Very busy at work with providing tutorial support, finishing off the June Newsletter with a Microsoft Word education film attached, reports and learning / using more of Adobe PhotoShop for a Project Management manual. 
• Another visit to London for the half-year accounts and VAT, together with a slight re-jigging of budgets and updating the London PCs.

June
2007

• Another visit to the house in the Touraine - tiling and electricity inside and rendering outside - much progress.
• New web site design and new tricks in TeamSite, more presentations, publicity and Portal announcements; started work on screen films with Camtasia.
• Yet more web site development in the form of an HTML Newsletter for a new audience (well - new to CHL).
• Paris for a relaxed weekend including some walking, a second-hand market, an upgrade to the video editing software and a sneaky bit of work slimming down a couple of PowerPoint templates.
• From a dentist in London to getting my teeth into work in Brussels - monthly report, short term strategic planning, supplier management scheduling and the latest Newsletter. This latter item had links to both Internet and Intranet and to a film Stephen Helms made on the musical talent in the Division.
• London for the accounts, ten tons of mail, sorting out house security with a friend and doing the gardening. However, also basked in the sun and cooked dinner for another friend.

May
2007

• More interviews, reports, 5-year plan and presentation templates. Web site planning and development with TeamSite.
• Trip to the Loire to review progress and cut the grass with new baby tractor.
• Visit to Leuven and its cathedral and Etterbeek.
• Checked out my neighbour’s computer in Brussels while surveying the French Presidential election via Internet and radio. Also did some research for a possible banking client in Dublin - already it is a busy month.
• Aching from the gardening and working through the April Newsletter and Report as well as dealing with poster designs and checking and putting new IT Policies on the Intranet.
• Started the month with a visit to the UK to sort out the mass of physical mail, bills, the house and garden. Covent Garden, China Town and an excellent meal as well as great views of London - seeing the Needle in Egyptian granite brought back memories of Cairo last year (see News- 2006).
• A mass of administration for the UK Government - end of the financial year so P11, P35, P11d, P11d(b) as well as the P14 and P60. All online and complete so following the unpaid work, back to the normal salary calculations and month end.

Apr
2007

• A weekend in Paris - a mixture of relaxing, seeing the neighbours as well as sorting out a number of company issues and watching my partner have the last of the moules frites for the time being...
• Starting the planning of a new web site while maintaining the existing one as well as gently introducing some new images, styles and ideas - fortunately all agreed with relative ease.
• Surprising need for internal publicity via start-up pop ups and in magazines of the corporate magazine - more PhotoShop work and creative work.
• Received a nice testimonial from the work completed for eircom during last year and early 2007 - see Comments Ireland.
• Back to busy Brussels, March monthly report, another Newsletter to research and prepare and learning and using more of TeamSite.
• Easter in the Loire with the family, reviewing progress on the property and some cleaning up.

Mar
2007

• Back to the UK for end of month and end of quarter Accounts, completion of the 2006 Audit and a visit to my local Italian restaurant.
• Also we spent the first weekend in Belgium - seeing Brussels again and visiting old friends in the south - a real pleasure to see them again since we have known each other for 25 years.
• Completed the final amendments to the online training course for the Irish telecom organization and put it on the Internet for download and subsequent transfer to their Intranet.
• In the meantime, MIS service announcements, new organization charts and presentation updates together with editing / translating the 2006 MIS Annual Report. A new manager for me too!
• Then the challenge of learning Adobe InDesign together with a recent version of PhotoShop to produce the monthly Newsletter and posting to the Intranet with Interwoven TeamSite. All in all, a few major items on the learning curve.
• Plunged into understanding the organization’s €700 million budget and financial cycle, interviews with finance staff about year end, procurement and issues of accounts payable.

Feb
2007

• Updated details of Liz Joynes and her CV in the Download section.
• All fixed - a splendid 65 sq. m fully furnished apartment after only six nights in a hotel. Now learning the culture, information and software of the new client.
• Accommodation apparently sorted but await the signing of the agreement before becoming overconfident...
• Visits back to Paris and then UK for the end of year audit and other essential administration - then back to Brussels for the client’s month end report and a quick search for local accommodation.
• Received a surprise support request for Management Information Services (MIS) internal documentation, newsletters and Intranet for a major European organization in the airline industry, based in Brussels. Everything agreed within a day and work started on site the following week.
• CD Backups of 2006 emails and project files - very dull but essential task to preserve completed work for future reference.
• Preparation work for new version of cosmetic dentist web site.

Jan
2007

Help for more clients in 2007!

• To see last month’s Online Introduction (with video, audio and slides) to the new Technical Writing course: click on Online Introduction (On a new page of Internet Explorer only). If you prefer, or if the connection is unreliable, download the film ‘Introduction to Technical Writing’ instead (6.9 Mb, Windows Media File).
• Updated the download CV of Duncan Williamson.
• Marketing & sales work for 2007 projects.
• Review and updates to this web site - chelverton.com including style changes and more information on recent projects, screen captures and photography. Contacts with associate consultants.
• Updates to demonstration version of Finest French Food web site.
• Update to Lazulinil.com.
• Wrote first draft of audit report.
• Checked and cleaned Registries of PCs in London and Paris; checked and scanned for spyware, adware, malware; checked firewalls; updated software to Internet Explorer 7, Firefox 2 and Acrobat 8. Control freak or what?