Neil’s Week: Anacondas and Startling Statistics

Sunday. I attended a second audition as a potential volunteer performer at the 2012 opening ceremony. Among 14,000 of us embarking on this exciting journey, there was an extraordinary buzz of excitement. We were instructed to keep the audition details confidential. “Tell people you’ve been wrestling anacondas,” the director joked.

Monday. My role spans IT and finance. We are about to commission a new contact and grant management database. I spent hours planning the rationalization and deduplication of our contacts and historical data. With about 12,000 records on our old grants management database and another 4,000 on spreadsheets, including data from our Vinspired National Awards ceremony, all contact data must be cleaned and structured in Excel before uploading to the new system.

Tuesday. I met with my Commercial Director to discuss the Government’s new £1 billion package aimed at getting 400,000 young people into work. As a delivery partner for the Future Jobs Fund, we eagerly awaited its replacement. The new funding is just 35% of its predecessor per placement. With over 1 million young people unemployed, we concluded that the scheme has potential if administered inexpensively on a “light touch” basis. In the evening, I attended a Rock Choir rehearsal. After recent performances at the O2 and Wembley Arena, we learned details about an upcoming secret show in March.

Wednesday. I attended a seminar on cloud computing. Vinspired is currently optimized in terms of servers, using Citrix for remote access. In the medium term, we’ll consider server virtualization and cloud computing, so staying updated on these technologies is crucial. In the evening, I rehearsed for a local production of Beauty & The Beast, playing Cogsworth. The costume is enormous, and fitting into the wings is a challenge. I aim to be word-perfect in a month as we open in a fortnight.

Thursday. I attended an investment conference. It was beneficial to benchmark our investment policy against the latest thinking, confirming equities as ideal for long-term investment but unsuitable for less than a twenty-year horizon. The most startling statistic was that half of all SMEs are financed using their owners’ credit cards.

Friday. We had a meeting of the Blog Group, led by our Head of Digital. Our goal was to maintain a steady flow of interesting, well-written, bite-sized entries on the Vinspired blog. These entries should express individuality and cover diverse issues and opinions. We agreed on the next week’s entries, which include contributions from staff, directors, and volunteers, including many first-time writers—myself included. I quickly searched for “Blogging for Dummies” online…

This blog is based on an article published in Third Sector on December 6.

Explore more about Neil’s Week: Anacondas and Startling Statistics and related stories like My week: Neil Goulder and The highlights of vJemima’s year.