Trip to Trinity Bristol

As I left for College, just after eight this morning, two traffic wardens were out in nearby Llanfair Road booking cars parked on four of the 'drop kerbs' at the end of our three side streets. Six new 'drop kerbs' were constructed only a couple of weeks ago. It's the first time I've seen the traffic wardens out locally at this hour. At first I wondered why they were bothering to annoy residents who'd had enough trouble finding a place in our car congested back streets to leave their vehicles overnight, and would soon be on their ways to work in any case. Then it occurred to me how fed up people walking with children in buggies to reach a day nursery, or wheelchair users out and about early to get to the surgery or shops would be, day after day, having their access to a safe and easy road crossing blocked by cars.

When CBS shared office space with Cardiff Council's Civil Parking Enforcement team, last years, I remember the phone calls received by desk officers from people complaining about cars parked in the wrong place, or from people complaining that they'd been penalised for parking in the wrong place. Both kinds were often harsh and unpleasant in tone, and I didn't envy those dealing with irate citizens. Very wearing, day after day. Having a car, keeping it and using it on the roads is not a right but privilege all to easily taken for granted. The finer points of the highway code are easily forgotten or ignored. Sometimes paying the penalty is the only way to bring home a reminder of the need to consider others. As I know from my own experience of being 'caught on camera' last year.

Today I went with six other College staff members to visit Trinity Theological College in Stoke Bishop, Bristol to see its implementation of the Moodle content management system. I was glad not to drive, for a change, just navigate to a place familiar to me from undergraduate days. From 1963-1965 I lived in Churchill Hall, one of the Bristol University student residences next door up the hill to a grand property which subsequently became the Trinity campus. The College is located in a noble mansion set in wooded hillside grounds which dates back to 1669. It's been much extended since it was taken over for College use back in 1971, but still presents an elegant face to those arriving.

We were shown around after our meeting and lunched with the ninety students and dozen staff in the refectory. There's a very lively buzz about the place, with spouses and children around. All their University courses are taught on campus, and that's a huge advantage for College life. St Mike's residential students have to travel in to the Cathay campus of Cardiff University, and effectively this loses them an hour and a half of time from each study day, and distorts the timetabling of many in-house activities. Would that it were different.

It was a very interesting session, encouraging us to think that adopting it would be a positive development for St Michael's. Nice to know too that experienced help and support is there as we figure out all the questions we should ask about our information needs, prior to setting up our own system.

After a quick cup of tea on our return, I went into the CBS office and had another go with the BT duty software support team at rectifying the remote access problem for our network drive, but with no success. Time to get in touch with Iomega, I think. No Chi Gung class tonight, so I had time at home to catch up on a few tasks waiting for my attention. The list never seems to get any shorter, however.