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June has been a busy but productive month.  A personal highlight was the completion of my doctoral thesis which has now been submitted to the various external and internal examiners for scrutiny.  Whilst still only part-way through a process, this does feel like a significant hurdle ‘jumped’ and there is a certain satisfaction in seeing all the months of  early preparation, reading, data collection and analysis culminating in a final product. A synopsis of the research and keyfindings can be downloaded from the project webpages, although I intend to transfer this information to this site in due course.

During June I also had the pleasure of working with students from the SCOTs project to present our pilot work at two very different conferences at DeMontford University, Leicester.  The financing for the pilot phase of this work ended at the end of June 2009 and with it, the temporary contracts and all arrangements for the students that were running and implementing the pilot.  Sadly, it appears that there is unlikely to be any continuation or growth funding for this innovative project, which is particularly disappointing given its success and the interest it has stirred, nationally. I do still intend, however, to ensure that this work gets written up in a way that it might be considered for publication in the future.

I have not had much time to work on these web pages recently, but I have updated some photographs and my publications page and have started to make use of the new University repository, making some relevant links on the publications page of this site.  I still have more work to do on this, but I am gradually getting accustomed to the process and think is it is useful addition.

I had occasion to visit London twice during June both for working meetings. One of these was my first meeting on the SEDA (Staff Educational Development Association) National Scholarship, Research and Evaluation Committee, to which I am honoured to have been accepted as a member.  As a committee member I am also an editorial board member of the Taylor Francis journal Innovations in Education and Teaching International (IETI), which is the journal of the Staff and Educational Development Association (SEDA).  Lots to get to grips with here, but much of my learning from working on the editorial board of Practice: Social Work In Action is transferrable. 

On one of these trips to London, Dai and I stayed over for the weekend and went to see ‘We will rock you’ at the Dominion Theatre, which was really good.  We also spent several hours on the Sunday in the British Museum at the Henry VIII exhibition.  Perhaps as a result of my disengagement from history lessons in school, I found the exhibition very informative and interesting.

Betty and Barney (my cats!) have had a good month too!  We (well more accurately, Dai) built them an outdoor cat run, attached to our home, so that they can go in and out safely (they are house cats) – I have added a new video clip to Youtube, follow the link and smile ! 

May has been another incredibly busy, but very productive month, on a number of fronts. My doctoral thesis has received positive feedback from my supervisors and with some minor amendments should be finalized for submission next month. I have also now signed contracts with Sage Publications to sole-author two social work books over the next two years, details are on my ‘publications’ page. This is a really exciting opportunity and, as I always enjoy writing, I look forward to getting ‘stuck into’ this work very soon. I have also submitted an abstract proposal for a chapter in a new edited book to be published by Continuum, but I am not going to say too much at this stage, as this has yet to be negotiated.

May has been a month for completing all the marking and beginning to think about teaching commitments for the next academic year. The marking process is lengthy but is now in the latter stages with reports being prepared for various examination boards in the next couple of months. I know that students wait anxiously for confirmation of grades, so this is an important time of the academic year.

At home, the kittens, or rather ‘cats’, were one-year old. As pedigree pusses, they are house-cats, but following a safe exploration in the back garden, it became clear that they would enjoy the experience of fresh air and some different scenery. So amid much laughter in the family, my ‘other half’ has agreed to build them a cat run – I will upload some photographs here when the run is finished and in use!

Well I am not sure what happened to February, it went past in a blur and suddenly it is March and I haven’t put an update in for last month!  So I will try and summarise the last two months of blur, in this blog!  This term is a busy teaching term for me and whilst much of the direct teaching is now done, students are still needing support to complete written work and the marking process has begun.  I actually quite like marking as I see this as one of the few opportunities to interact on a 1:1 basis with students and hopefully honest, supportive feedback will be prove meaningful and developmental.

The SCOTs project has also begun to be fully implemented in that last couple of months. I participated in the facilitation of a two-day training induction programme and whilst this was initially postponed by heavy snow in our area, the two-days were really enjoyable and got the project off to a sound start.  Now the co-ordinator is overseeing the day-to-day running of the project, which gives me some relief.  With three students from the SCOTs project I attended a Higher Education Academy subject centre conference The Festival of Learning in Wolverhampton.  We presented a workshop on the project and were overwhelmed with the interest and enthusiasm with which this was received.  Here is a small photo of us all taken at the end of the conference.

The CPD framework project that I am involved in is also moving apace now with a structured project plan in place through the hard work of the newly appointed project co-ordinator.  Again, a project close to my heart that was instigated as a direct result of my early local research, so it is particularly pleasing to see such progress.

Another reason for the blurring of time over recent weeks has been my self-imposed schedule of writing the final chapters of my thesis.  Sometimes this feels like walking backwards through treacle with flippers on (whatever that might be like) and at other times I really feel I can see the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’.  At the time of writing this blog, I have four out of six chapters in good draft form, with another part-way there and the final chapter also roughly planned.  I hope to have a first full very rough draft together by the end of next month – I am ever optimistic!

As ever, I don’t like to forget to mention that I still have another life, despite the busy times…and last month managed a long weekend away from it all in the bright lights of London.  Dai and I went to see The Lion King at The Lyceum Theatre, which was a spectacular performance; we also saw Carmen at The Royal Albert Hall, this time a spectacular venue, but also a wonderful performance that was only being shown for 12 nights.  Whilst in London I was treated to an ipod classic and have had great fun since ‘playing’ with my new toy – I love new technology!   We also enjoyed a more local show recently, when my son, Rob, solo’d at the ‘The Burn’, a local acoustic club – whilst I might be accused of being biased, I thought he was fab!  Hopefully I will be able to put a link to his new CD or DVD on these webpages soon. The cats are fine; I cannot call them kittens anymore – if you want to see up-to-date photos of them, click here to see a new slideshow on youtube ENJOY!