meetings meetings meetings

A great meeting this week. The artists providing the Opening and Closing ceremonies of the Centenary Camp met with the Fusion artists and the Fusion 4. The creative forces were assisted by a Spanish tapas meal and a glass or two of sherry - on a boat. It all helps with the ideas I find! Can't say too much about what's planned as that would let the secret out of the bag but let's just say there will be a lot of fire, water, earth and air. Got the theme yet?

Other than that, we've been preparing for the CMG tomorrow in London and writing text for the Centenary Champion briefings. I've been checking minutes for accuracy - well things can get a little blurred when you drink sherry at the same time, appointing a Treasurer and finishing the first draft of our risk log.

Fusion Dozen.

It's all coming in thick and fast now. The team meeting was great on Saturday and it was the first time the entire team (the Fusion Dozen) have all sat round the same table. Looks like we're all going to get along fine which is just as well as we need to get on with it.

We've got some contracts to sign that need checking and a Centenary Management Group (CMG) to prepare for so there's quite a bit of paperwork this week (my favourite thing, not).

Tomorrow night we're meeting on a boat in Salford Quays so that the Fusion team can meet with the 2 external companies contracted to deliver the opening and closing ceremonies of the Centenary Camp (Walk the Plank) and Fusion (MIA). Looking forward to really starting to scope out the creative elements of the 3 events. Lots of opportunities to share ideas, equipment and concepts.

A bit more about the Fusion Dozen, the affectionate name for the core team. We are:

• 10 females and 3 males. (that's me plus a dozen)
• 1 scout, 11 GGUK appointment holders and someone who is about to become an appointment holder
• a project manager
• an accountant
• an Ofsted Inspector
• a printer
• 2 local government managers
• a Mum (about to become a Mum again)
• someone who works in the City
• a member of staff at Trading
• an Insurance something
• a sound and light something
• a school secretary
• an HR something
• we live in Sefton, Cheshire, Essex, Cumbria and Stockport so meetings will have to be in the Midlands somewhere and we're going to try to Skype our way through as much as we can.

quite an eclectic bunch but they've all got loads of experience of running large scale events for 20 years and more and they are a great bunch to work with.

Team meeting

Tonight I've been planning our first full team meeting. It's in Birmingham on Saturday and I've been reading the first set of reports on what my various team leaders have been doing since they were appointed. We've also got to sign off the contract for Harewood House so it's getting real now. We all get a buzz from the creative side of planning these big events but we've also got to keep an eye on the more mundane stuff too like budgets, risk logs, risk assessments and reports. They are not my strong point so thank goodness there are people on the team who actually enjoy filling in forms............

There's just so much to do!

Things are starting to pile up! There are piles of paper on my desk and now a second pile has started on the dining room table. There's also a bit in my bag. I remember it got like this during World in one City and there's still 18 months to go yet so I need to get more organised. Deadlines have started appearing too. We've got a team day in Birmingham on Saturday so I guess we'll sort it all out then. Memo - MUST make a list and must start some filing.

Urgent things are:

• appoint a Treasurer (weird as I'm the County Chair of Finance but I won't have time to look after the Fusion money on top of everything else)
• work out how many first aiders we need as they may be getting sponsored and we'll need to pitch for them
• write a report for CHQ for the next Centenary Management Group meeting
• make a list of what we need to talk to our Centenary Camp colleagues about
• finish the draft budget - how exciting, we've got nearly £1m to spend
• think about how many staff we need and how we're going to recruit them
• start to write the copy for the Centenary website

Now that feels better....................

Fusion...what's that?

It all starts by taking a look in the Ways to Celebrate brochure that came with this month's edition of Guiding magazine. In amongst all those fantastic events and projects for the Centenary you'll notice something called Fusion. Fusion is the large celebratory event for the Centenary and 30,000 lucky members will experience a day like no other at Harewood House near Leeds on Wednesday 4th August 2010. Think Glastonbury (but hopefully without the rain and the mud) and you're getting there. Harewood House has beautiful large grounds and GGUK has secured sole use of the grounds for that day. No members of the public other than us, which gives us the freedom to really celebrate in style. If you look at the pictures in Ways to Celebrate you'll see that it's a huge participative arts event. Everything from dance to street theatre, jugglers, fire eaters, performance hairdressers (what?!) music stages and lots of other crazy things. It's all out of doors in the open air and there will be a bit of walking between the performance spaces but it will be up to you on the day how you spend your time. There will be hundreds of simultaneous things going on and you and the girls can just wander about from area to area or follow one performer round all day or just set yourself up in one of the areas and stay there all day. It's up to you really, but one thing is clear; there will be 30,000 different stories on the bus home and you'll have a day to remember. It will be a case of, 'I was there'! Go on, make sure you're going to be there!