Wednesday, July 05, 2006

29th June 2006


Last Thursday was a busy day. Spent the early part at Parkwood School chairing an interview panel for two new teachers. A couple of years ago we would have struggled to get enough applicants suitable for appointment but now we had 28, most of whom were shortlistable. Also interesting was the fact that most of them had not come into teaching thru the traditional routes but had had other careers first. We even had the proverbial merchant banker who decided it wasn’t rewarding enough!

I had hoped to get away in time for the official reopening of Manor House tube at 4pm, but we took ages making the decisions on whom to appoint. I did make a quick meeting with the Building Research Establishment on Kings Crescent Estate. They’re helping us to ensure the maximum possible amount of the materials created during demolition, are recycled. Then it was off to the Town Hall for a meeting.

One of my minor roles is as Vice-Chair of the Audit Committee – yes, every bit as exciting as it sounds. At it’s meeting on 29th June, among the many fascinating reports we had to consider, was a list of the council's assets. It started as you might expect with

24,292 dwellings
2 town halls
30 office blocks
43 primary schools
etc

and concluded with
21 items of civic regalia
1 sculpted javelin
1 anglo saxon long boat
1 reservoir

(Glad someone's keeping an eye on the reservoir. You know how hard it is to find one after you put it down somewhere.)

Anyway, in case it keeps you up at night wondering, our net worth is approx 2,489,987,000 pounds. Not too shabby!

Brian.