High winds

A request from Fr Mark arrived over the weekend to take the funeral of a parishioner next Thursday. This morning, I made contact with the deceased's partner and arranged a meeting to discuss the service. It wasn't convenient to make a house visit, so funeral directors Pidgeon's kindly gave us a room to meet in at their place. 

I walked there as I had a couple of tasks to do on the way. It was raining and the wind was gusting sharply on times. It's odd to be hit by a sudden gust as you're walking, which blows just your leg off course in mid stride, without buffeting your whole body, and nearly causes you to trip. Spiro, the hairdresser, was standing in the road opposite his salon, watching a couple of roofers replacing tiles that had been ripped off the roof earlier. "They weren't keen to come out," he said, "but I insisted. With this wind I could lose the whole roof in a couple of hours."

Later, I braved the wind again and went to the CBS office to re-establish the spare computer for myself in the vacant workspace, and generate an invoice for a new RadioNet subscriber. Jobs done, I headed for the comfort of home, and an evening working on material for my daily Lenten blog on prayer, which I'll start tomorrow with an introductory posting. 

 

Markers of achievement

There's nothing like a spell of pleasant weather, and a little pressure free time in the office to making catching up on work tasks to be completed quite a pleasant way to spend the afternoon. That's how it Monday to Wednesday slipped by cheerfully. The only thing of interest was the arrival of a Blackberry work phone upgrade for me. It's hard to believe that it's more than eighteen months since I first acquired one, and started fuming and fretting over its tiny keyboard and screen. Much as I've disliked the standard Blackberry Bold, however, its connection reliability at home and abroad has always served me better than my Android devices, so it goes with me whenever I travel.

BT Business informed us of a contract renewal deal on a Blackberry Z10 touchscreen smartphone. It received good reviews, but appeared just as the parent company RIM started to go downhill fast, so fearing the worse some sections of the global market went for other devices instead. RIM has had hard times, but this doesn't seem to have been reflected in the robustness of its network connectivity, only its profitability. So, on the basis of the reviews, we signed up Tuesday afternoon, and the new phone was delivered eighteen hours later, backed by a couple of text messages to advise me of a straightforward SIM activation procedure.

It was late afternoon before I collected it from our 'other' office and took it home to unpack. It's an impressive piece of kit, with Blackberry's own user interface rather than the common Android arrangement. It'll take a bit of getting used to, but the clarity and slickness of the display make it a pleasure to interact with. By the time I got around to SIM activation, I found myself with an overnight wait. It's procedure initiated via the internet but overseen by humans, and BT no longer provide a 24/7 service, so the old phone with its larger format unswappable SIM card stayed in use overnight. Hmmm. Even so, I know I'll enjoy using it.

The other good thing about Wednesday was agreeing a satisfactory end of lease deal with our company financier. By this weekend we'll own every piece of equipment in our possession, and owe nobody anything. We've worked very hard for this, never defaulting on a payment, relying on direct revenue, no grants or subsidies. I look back to my time at St John's, and recall how the Tea Room raised a similarly huge sum of money over a decade of selling drinks, sandwiches and cake with a few dozen volunteers - enough money to redecorate the interior and transform the tower porch entrance into an elegant and appealing point of access - I feel proud to have been associated with and supported both of these voluntary social enterprises that in their different ways have done so much good for the city.

It's a delightful co-incidence that I should receive an invitation today, to attend a porch dedication ceremony at St John's next Tuesday. The Mayor and Archbishop Barry will be there.

 

Back on the job

Adjusting to an hour time difference after returning from Europe is nothing compared to the adjustment of ten degrees cooler, and worse, overhanging grey skies. For a few days I wonder if I'm unwell, since the change makes me feel so different. But, at least it was dry enough to put washing outside, and the sun did put in an occasional experience during the day.

Clare and I went into town together at lunchtime. I accompanied her to the station to catch a train on her way to looking after Rhiannon one night, then attending her youth theatre group end of year performance tomorrow. I then went into the CBS office for a few hours to try and sort out problems with Ashley's computer. The sound and webcam don't work properly since his hard drive failure before Christmas, and it seems that although the requisite software was re-installed, a couple of hardware links to the mother board, running the Blu-Ray player, sound channels and webcam were either not reconnected, or came loose. Only the virtual web cam, avatar image displays, and it's a monumental irritation. So, another call to the Dell service engineer is required. I wonder how long that will take?

After work, Owain and I met up for a coffee at Pipi's, and then we walked back home together, discussing the hows and wherefores of a little digital media campaign to help boost interest in the crime monitoring functions of our CBS Business Crime Reduction Partnership. Now that we've got our own Intranet crime intelligence database up and running, and the organisation running nicely, it'll be good for all our users and citizens to raise our public profile. The last year has been one of real progress for us, and yet there still new technical challenges. 

Yesterday saw the topping out ceremony of the Admiral Insurance tower block being constructed between St David's shopping centre and Motorpoint Arena. It's taller than the St David's Centre, and the sheer mass of its metal framework will have an impact on how radio signals will propagate right across the city, and introduce reception dead spots in its immediate vicinity. Soon we'll be able to assess the impact on the RadioNet system, and figure out with our engineers what needs to be done to maintain the quality of reception at its highest. That's something we'll need to budget for that wasn't on the horizon until permission to build was received, two years ago.
   

Funeral offices and business meetings

Yesterday morning the monthly Radio Users Group took place, and there were thirty people present. It was the best turn-out for a good while, but I couldn't hang around for long afterwards as I had to get home and prepare for a funeral early afternoon.  The service was in Pidgeon's funeral chapel, and there was a similar number present to make their farewells to a man who'd died in his early sixties due to collateral damage from diabetes. I had no appetite for work when I returned home, apart from cooking supper. The first Tai Chi class of the new term left me feeling grateful for the good health and modest fitness I enjoy.

Today was the CBS Steering Group meeting, for which I have done a good deal of preparation this past few weeks, right down to early this morning, assembling at the crack of dawn an up to date detailed account itemising all the Terms & Conditions attached to a RadioNet subscription and use of equipment. Nobody needs to have all that stuff to refer to in separate documents if they are coming to it for the first time. Trouble is, those of us who've worked with the information for so long get used to shuffling pieces of paper - and this can try the patience of people of good will learning how the business works. Now it's done, and the document was something I could deliver when the meeting finished, an hour and a half after it should have done. 

A tour through the draft Constitution produced all sorts of discussion about how the future is meant to work with many more people involved. I wonder if any of the keen ones realise how much they'll be have to work at without any sense of the benefit of an organisation as well adapted to the conditions and needs of its users - there's just so much detail involved in everything RadioNet must do.

When I got home, there was an email from the Area Dean about yet another funeral next Wednesday. It co-incides with Fr Mark's final meeting as Area Dean as he hands over to colleague Bob Capper. I had to turn down a funeral request for today because of the Steering Group meeting which I couldn't miss. It's important to me to give as much support as I can to the full-timers. Their numbers keep on shrinking, but the number of families still wanting funeral with a minister for their loved ones doesn't diminish. It's no more than a holding operation. Sooner or later the churches must see the sense of training lay pastors to officiate at funerals and offer bereavement counselling when needed, the way the French Catholics do.

 

Santes Dwynwen

The first meeting of the new CBS RadioNet steering group was this morning, convened by the city manager, not unreasonably impatient to get on with set-up business even though we still await the appointment of representatives from retail users. There were half a dozen of us, and after a wobbly beginning - we'd not been informed until the last minute that the start time had been deferred an hour - and it was a little difficult to get clarity about lines of responsibility on some issues.

Ashley and I have the longest continuous memory of how CBS was designed to run. Unfortunately the original intentions have been poorly pursued because the stakeholders who should have taken careful interest from the outset didn't, and the exercise of keeping CBS firmly tied to its mission and ensuring its viability was simply left to CBS volunteers to get on with.

After five years of poor support, all sorts of people are starting to take an interest who don't have sufficient background or understanding of our highly regulated framework. Assumptions are made which aren't always accurate, so getting clarity of communication at the outset is essential to avoid grief later on.

Anyway, after a few awkward moments, the meeting outcome was positive. We will be meeting on a monthly basis for the rest of the year. That'll keep us nicely on our toes.

If I'd known about the morning meeting delay in advance I could have organised myself better. I missed an opportunity to attend Mass for the Conversion of St Paul, and that was a disappointment, as he remains one of my top ten Saints.

After working in the office through lunchtime, I went home to work on a document to circulate to students on the whys and wherefores of creating their personal portfolio, then went up to College at the end of the afternoon on an errand before Clare and I went out for supper at Stefano's restaurant around the corner. It was a special fund-raising evening to raise money for a  de-fibrillator, featuring a quartet of Welsh National Opera singers performing popular romantic arias. It was, in the old Celtic calendar Dydd Santes Dwynwen, the Welsh counterpart of St Valentine, both belonging more in folklore than in history, unlike St Paul. 

The food was good and the singing delightful. It was most enjoyable conclusion to a dark chilly wet, yet nevertheless busy winter day.