General Update
This year is one to be stepping out of some comfort zones. A significant change is that I've gone down to 4 days a week at work so I can persue "other things". The general nature of these things is intended to be heading towards "stuff that doesn't require being based anywhere in particular". Or to look at another way, stuff I can also do/be based in Cornwall while suetekh does her stuff, while still keeping a base in London as that's handy for both of us.
Last August, I volunteered for the first time as a steward at Towersey Village Festival and was put on the artist liaison team - basically making sure the acts had turned up, knew where they were going, when their sound check was and in one case, setting up the stage of one of the acts. That seemed to go quite well and the chap in charge of the team said I could do the same this year if I wanted to apply so that form will be going in the post soon.
Whilst there I also worked with a couple of the people who organise Shepley Spring Festival and got invited to go do the same job for them. The practical upshot is that I get two festivals which have pretty much all the acts I want to see, just for the cost of diesel. Bargain. All good public facing stuff to go on the CV anyway.
Also at the back end of last year I did a door supervisor (DS) course and now have a SIA Door Supervision licence. The upshot of this is that I can try and get paid to go to festivals too. Long hours, not terribly good money necessarily but still interesting and can be fun if things don't kick off too often or better yet, at all. Recruitment for that starts to pick up in April so looking forward to that.
My usual approach to anything, especially a new field like security where I have no prior experience, is to network like crazy, build up a reputation for being helpful, sensible and generally a good egg and start making contacts. As fall out from that, I've been helping with proof reading and making comments on a book by an experienced DS (from when it was acceptable to bounce people out of the door and probably off a few other things). A credit in the book and a nice little testimonial. Not a big start but still positive.
I have an application in for a Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector course to hopefully start in April, the interview for which is coming up soon. I did a basically similar course about 15 years ago when I taught a few adult ed./evening courses but I need something up to date in order to approach training companies with a "select range" of IT and Security courses. Course outlines are starting to be written but haven't made it off the other laptop thanks to O2 screwing up my mobile broadband, bless 'em.
And I've still not entirely given up on the counselling idea but that's on the back burner for the next couple of years. Still keeping my hand in though, going to a seminar along with orddu on working with people who've experienced sexual abuse. Seemed like a good follow-up for the one on working with people who self-injure I did last year...
That may all seem rather fragmentary and it feels it but I think there is some semblance of a Plan in there. Only time will tell. All the workish stuff is starting to appear on www.floatingmetal.co.uk
Just back from Redemption 09, the highlights of which included playing Tarrant in the "Man of Iron" reading (an unfilmed Blakes 7 script by Paul Darrow), working on the newsletter, seeing people that aren't seen often enough and meeting new people to not see often enough. Entirely failed to go to half the items I wanted to but that's pretty typical as other fun stuff was happening instead.
Last August, I volunteered for the first time as a steward at Towersey Village Festival and was put on the artist liaison team - basically making sure the acts had turned up, knew where they were going, when their sound check was and in one case, setting up the stage of one of the acts. That seemed to go quite well and the chap in charge of the team said I could do the same this year if I wanted to apply so that form will be going in the post soon.
Whilst there I also worked with a couple of the people who organise Shepley Spring Festival and got invited to go do the same job for them. The practical upshot is that I get two festivals which have pretty much all the acts I want to see, just for the cost of diesel. Bargain. All good public facing stuff to go on the CV anyway.
Also at the back end of last year I did a door supervisor (DS) course and now have a SIA Door Supervision licence. The upshot of this is that I can try and get paid to go to festivals too. Long hours, not terribly good money necessarily but still interesting and can be fun if things don't kick off too often or better yet, at all. Recruitment for that starts to pick up in April so looking forward to that.
My usual approach to anything, especially a new field like security where I have no prior experience, is to network like crazy, build up a reputation for being helpful, sensible and generally a good egg and start making contacts. As fall out from that, I've been helping with proof reading and making comments on a book by an experienced DS (from when it was acceptable to bounce people out of the door and probably off a few other things). A credit in the book and a nice little testimonial. Not a big start but still positive.
I have an application in for a Preparing to Teach in the Lifelong Learning Sector course to hopefully start in April, the interview for which is coming up soon. I did a basically similar course about 15 years ago when I taught a few adult ed./evening courses but I need something up to date in order to approach training companies with a "select range" of IT and Security courses. Course outlines are starting to be written but haven't made it off the other laptop thanks to O2 screwing up my mobile broadband, bless 'em.
And I've still not entirely given up on the counselling idea but that's on the back burner for the next couple of years. Still keeping my hand in though, going to a seminar along with orddu on working with people who've experienced sexual abuse. Seemed like a good follow-up for the one on working with people who self-injure I did last year...
That may all seem rather fragmentary and it feels it but I think there is some semblance of a Plan in there. Only time will tell. All the workish stuff is starting to appear on www.floatingmetal.co.uk
Just back from Redemption 09, the highlights of which included playing Tarrant in the "Man of Iron" reading (an unfilmed Blakes 7 script by Paul Darrow), working on the newsletter, seeing people that aren't seen often enough and meeting new people to not see often enough. Entirely failed to go to half the items I wanted to but that's pretty typical as other fun stuff was happening instead.