RAG Status – Q1

People ask me how I’m doing – what have I been up to? –  any work on the horizon? There have been times when I thought I had bitten off more than I could chew for the first 3 months of this year.

So here is Al’s RAG status for Q1. RAG status, for those who don’t know, is a simplified reporting method often used for business objectives. Red – behind schedule, needs a lot of work: Amber – needs some work but warning signs: Green – all good: RAG.

When I finished my last contract in November last year I immediately decided to enrol on a TEFL course – Teaching English as a Foreign Language – with the intention of somehow helping the Syrian or other refugee who made it to England, or perhaps opening up a different earning opportunity.

Add to this my Trusteeship of Music Alive, a charity organisation working with disabled people enhancing their lives through access to music (seems to fit my profile, right ?), which I have been involved with since March last year. And then there’s the planning and training for my bike ride…. and the daily stuff we all have to deal with.

My Q1 has been very busy. I decided to blast the TEFL course and focus upon it’s completion so that would be one down. “One hundred hours online study” was not an underestimate and it demanded some discipline. I guess you could get through with the minimum, but why do that?

Unfortunately for Music Alive, our new admin appointee resigned and we are back to sharing the workload amongst the few of us. We are about to embark upon a strategy project with The Cranfield Trust that will see us make decisions and changes to reshape the organisation to set it fair for the future. It is an interesting and exciting time, again with it’s time challenges, but a goodly number of disabled people who wouldn’t ordinarily have easy access to music in their lives are depending upon us getting it right. So if you know of anyone who can lend a hand as a Trustee let me know –  you can make a real difference.

Weaving in and out of this workload is my bike ride across Spain. Woo hoo !! Training has been as good as it could have been given the above and the vagaries of the British weather. I hired myself a Personal Trainer for a while to make sure that I wasn’t subconsciously shirking. ( Mrs. Monkey said that I wasn’t working hard enough at the Gym. ) So Rach gives me a beasting once a week and I hobble back down the Gym stairs, a broken man, reflecting upon my gradual development into something resembling a speed skater.

I have thought I might post up here, in a different section, some of my training rides for those interested. Given that I am lucky enough to ride around a large section of the Cotswolds other mamils and mawils, or ymils and ywils, might appreciate some ideas for a nice trundle out, particularly if you are strangers to the area.

Anyway, that aside, Q1 summary – TEFL course done – Music Alive strategy and recruitment, ongoing – thigh development, bulging. Someone recently said to me, “ You don’t stand still, do you?”

Nope.

(Gotta get more guitar practice in, though.)