Ten year Plan - How it is going!

With Hindsight!

Word Count 833 

A friends wedding nearly six years ago  prompted me to start considering where I was heading.  It may have been the beginning of the "mid-life" crisis or a realisation that we were heading for major changes in my career path at the time.  At the time I did not realise quite how much of the crowd I was!

An interesting career that had experienced a lot change up to that point http://www.linkedin.com/in/philipspalding66, was about to become more interesting.  I sat down in the pre-wedding gathering in Weymouth (it had only just been announced as an Olympic venue) and contemplated the 10 year plan.  I made a statement that I would not be teaching full time in the classroom by the age of 50 (Eddie Izzard's new 40!).  I had an early night on the final night went back to the B & B.  Early next morning I boarded the ferry from Weymouth to Jersey.

In Jersey I stayed at my usual hotel in St Helier, the Mountview, and contemplated my statement.  I had a few pints in the more traditional pubs in the West End of St Helier.  A very good one with sporting prints from "antique" times was the venue to watch the Test Match and listen to the sage at the bar who also turned out to be the chairman of the Jersey Cricket Federation.  Picked the right pub!  But then you only have to look at the outside of the pub sometimes and know it is not going to be just q quick half to test the beer and atmosphere.

A few days of visiting my distant cousins in the north of the island (http://www.durrell.org/).  The orangutans seemed well, the funky gibbons were being funky.  They share an enclosure to simulate the Sumatran and Borneo rain forest habitat.  By the end of the break as I flew back into Stansted I had a bit of a plan.  Not quite a cunning plan but one that had light at the end of the tunnel which did not seem to be generated by a Eurostar! 

Another year on from this the following August and certain career paths appeared to be getting narrower (now we see the result good or bad?  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060 ).  I was sitting in the bar in Pefki, Rhodes with a good friend shooting the wind as we  prepared for the Wedding.  A Rhodian escape started to be planned.  The mad engineer friend of mine combined with the agri-IT-scientist-teacher came up with a cunning plan.   A sustainable living/ well being plan, but in essence still a plan.

Two days alter back at work and the plan was shelved for another year until I went to Crete.  Fabulous island, cradle of European civilisation (forget mainland Greece)!  Schools Organisational Review (SOR) was just stating to come in and Haverhill along with Lowestoft was in the firing line.  A little bit of relaxation in Hersonissos led to realisation that work-life balance was really not balanced favourably on the cliff edge.  A couple of good nights spent in the company of a very attractive and relaxed Irish girl from Dublin and we started planning again!

The plan was expressed graphically in the Logo above. Sometimes you do not always need to write things down since the written word can always be misinterpreted by "experts".  Visit to a local print shop, and day later had the plan on a disc, five polo shirt (I went there and got the Polo Shirt, T-shirts were not good enough quality).  Scratch Rhodes, Crete would appear to be part of the plan! 

So back to work and another year of battling career change I finally hit the buffers.  An article in the Harvard business review started me thinking.  A position I had occupied through major career traumas such Ofsted, special measures, six (not really sure if some were actually allowed to be) head teachers and school federation was that of a Middle Manager.  The Harvard Review produced some insights (http://2pointfiveageofman.blogspot.co.uk/2010/12/death-of-middle-manager.html).      I had started to blog by this time.  The following March, I made a clean break and walked away from the pressure of achieving continual goals against the trickle down management culture of similar to First World War Generals.  Whistle goes and then over top! (Blackadder Goes Fourth clip here  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IglUmgYGxLM).  

Two years on from the break with the treadmill and the BlackAdder goes Fourth clip seems apt in the context of the East Anglia Daily Times article  http://www.eadt.co.uk/news/suffolk_cabinet_member_under_fire_after_suffolk_slumps_in_league_tables_1_1472060.  

Still have weathered all this, the ten year plan is half way through!.  I have achieved the stated aim of not needing to be in the classroom full time or managing change (for change sake?).   Last time I jumped out of a plane I definitely had a parachute, this time I have to construct it on the way down!  Necessity does become the midwife of creativity and invention!  Here is to more blogging and on ward and upward up with up hill skiing!

Καλημέρα σας και είναι εδώ για τα επόμενα πέντε χρόνια! Ή θα έπρεπε να είναι ένα νέο σχέδιο δέκα χρόνια!

The Saturday Supplement

The first time I went in a plane
I jumped out of it.  A Reims Rocket
 was the plane. This was
 not such a silly idea if you
plan ahead and have a parachute
It is only the last inch of 2000ft fall that
does the damage

Started 15th January 2010 09.18 GMT
Number of Words 286

Saturday again time has come round really quickly.  I am going to take this opportunity to take my foot off the gas a little.  Three blogs running, two domains and countless, alright a few, meetings this week around the subject of a micro enterprise designed to support social entrepreneurship has been quite tiring.  But rewarding.  I have distilled down the root cause of my career change into what I feel is a reasonable game plan. I can go and watch  whatever sport I choose this afternoon.  I will be without that now unnecessary and lingering feeling of guilt for not doing the never ending mountain of work expected as a teacher. So  I will  select some of the best experiences of the week.  

Web 2.0 has been a theme.  I came across this video of a little kitten which I used as a final link in yesterday's blog.  We also as the cricket was finishing had a visit from Batman and Superman. 

On the subject of cricket a very good book is Bob Woolmer's Art and Science of Cricket.  I recommend that any parent whose child is taking up cricket should read  pages 616 and 617 which show a bowler's  logbook .   Youngsters can easily become over bowled if they play for school, local club and if good enough county.  Even if you are not a cricket fan the Chapter10 is a brilliant guide to physiology and fitness for any sport. Which leads me onto the final point of mention that a new gym aiming to promote Wellbeing is opening in the town.

I will have a wander down the High Street and complete the Saturday ritual by buying the East Anglian Daily Times

The Saturday High Street experience

The view of the church on the High Street from Tesco
in Haverhill, Suffolk

Started Saturday 8th January 2011.  10.10 am.
Words 747

Saturday morning.  Woke to a feline nose pressed up against mine.  The subtlety of the cats' mind to sneak up and gently rouse you as opposed to the canine method where back legs overtake front as they career up the stairs has a lot of merit.   Being fond of both dogs and cats leads me to give both a certain amount of leeway. 

So having answered and filed all those emails, and added those that needed sorting out to my calendar, I walked down the High Street to Tescos.   At  about 8.30 in the morning Haverhill High Street is usually populated by the older generation who are queuing as the British do, at Paul Firmin's Vegetable stall.  I was reminded over the Christmas period that I was in the same school year as his brother towards the end of  one of those evenings in British pubs (The Royal Exchange in this case) that happen near Christmas.   At that time of year the world and his wife come out to play, you might then not see them again for another year.

As I walked further up th High Street I met up with somebody who I hadn't seen for a year owing to career change issues and hibernation (see yesterday's blog).  About 14 months ago we set up an allotment society in Hundon.  This was to spark interest in getting people to use a set of allotments in the heart of the village. The villagers were concerned that this prime area might fall to re-development.  We were the Hundon Ploughmen Society, very informal group with a cheesy name.  The reason we were the Hundon Ploughmen was  because we met to discuss our horticultural endevours at the Hundon Plough 

So to Tesco.  Many years ago before Tesco arrived there was great debate in my local pub as to whether it should arrive.  The site was the former Haverhill North Train station (we are still apparently one of the largest town in the UK without a rail service) and RHM Flour mill, the view from the store steps you can see above.  I was of the opinion that it would be good for the town, and so passionate about it was that I wrote my first and only letter to the local paper. I sandbagged the local editor who I used chat to occasionally at that time on the night before the  press deadline.  He agreed to have a look.  I'd put the letter in a sealed envelope so he wouldn't feel bullied in to reading it there and then.  It was published.  I don't delude myself to think it really made any difference since Tesco would be coming anyway, it was only a matter of time.  Big Supermarkets have a factor of  inevitability about them.

In my time at a local school I saw the phenomenal amount of computer equipment we used to get from the Tesco Voucher scheme.  And we didn't have a Tesco.  This represented a size able chunk of the local collective earnings, as I intimated in my letter, being spent outside the town.


There are more jobs for my former pupils to choose from now Tesco has come along.  That can be a much overlooked factor in a rural area.  Haverhill is "twenty miles from anywhere", approximately twenty miles from Cambridge,  Bury St Edmunds, Braintree and Sudbury.   Opportunities used to be few if you did not have the skill set or inclination to work in the local pork processing factories, chemical factories or myriad light engineering factories (everything from the Formula 1 components to stage s for Andrew Lloyd Webber stages are made in town).  

A hunt round the aisles of Tesco for Feta cheese, chorizo and tea bags occupied only a short time.  I tend to buy those items that I can't buy from a local trader in Tesco. I like keeping the cash local for those goods and services run by local people.  Other people in the town do this as well. This is probably why we have a diverse High  Street and not just charity shops, Estate and Travel agents as found in some other places. 

Shop Local and you won't have to complain about the fact there are no independent traders invigorating your High Street!!!

Enough for now, going to read the East Anglian Daily Times and see what's happening in my backyard (bit larger area  - Suffolk) next week.  Then plant some pots of Cat Grass for the cat on the Kitchen windowsill.

Meerkats in Suffolk show entrepreneurial way

Fresh fields, right preparation leads
 to green shoots, hopefully
Allotment society I have been involved with in the past

Started 5th January 2011  2.30 pm
Words 852

The secret is out.  The Meerkats website has been gathering dust in Suffolk all along. Reported in the East Anglian Daily Times today Aleksandr Orlov's latest kinematic extravaganza (advert) was filmed in Suffolk at Kersey.  I noticed this story as I leafed through the paper having a look for  the those events and news on social and  micro-entrepreneurship and the general job market.  If it's good enough for Mr Orlov to do business in Suffolk. then .......... Simples.

Joking apart this blog has started a little later in the day then intended.  This is not due to any technical mishap but a success in the use of social networking in generating business opportunities.   The Strategy I have been employing has started to generate conversations that can lead to income generating activity.  Owing to technical problems with BT, my strategy of generating content in a dynamic blog backed up with  non-identical twinned static sites really only started on 21st December 2010.

Since that day (16 days ago) the blog has generated 500 page views.  Which is not too bad on a free website that I am only starting to optimise for journalistic style so that it is search engine friendly.  It also has to be remembered that people have not been at their desks. The majority of blog surfing that is attributed to company time has not been available. 

From the traffic that has visited the site 4 new opportunities so far have presented themselves since yesterday morning when people returned to work. These have not been solicited by me writing letters, emails or sending CVs.  People have seen something in the Blog that has made them think the skill set on offer may add value to their activities and to make the first step and contact me.

Using traditional methods to generate five hundred opportunities for people to  view the skill set would have taken 2 to 3 hours of company research, adapting CV typing a cover letter etc.  So 1000- 1500 hours ( 25 to 37.5 working weeks of 40 hours duration) would have been required to generate that number of view opportunities.  In the terms of time spent blogging under the revised strategy the 500 view opportunities have taken 8 hours (half an hour targeted time).  The validity of the strategy therefore would appear to be tenuously proven.  Refining of the content and the style of the Blog to optimise the yield of contacts to view opportunities is the next step.

The application of these techniques therefore appear to be a good additional tool in the armoury when considering career change.  The principles also are applicable to marketing of products that have added value that is price independent, ie the cheapest is not necessarily better than somebody elses. 

So as I leafed through the paper I came across an event that if I was not otherwise pre-booked I would have attended,  This is the University College Suffolk (UCS) Event Social Entrepreneur.  A very laudable event being held at Trinity Park a show ground I have been to on a number of occasions.  The only slight problem is that booking is recommended, but there is no contact details to book in the advert. I cannot find anything on the show grounds' events board or at the UCS site.  I hope this is just a slight oversight as it does look as though it may provide a handle on what social entrepreneurship might look like.  

On this blog I am going to include a new to me site I have found called Dipity.   This allows timelines of events to be put in a social network format.  This is useful not only for education in the traditional sense of making timelines but also in running a diary.

So next few hours will be spent brushing up my HTML skills (they have got a bit rusty recently).  I have both a Dummies guide (I'm not proud!)  to just remind in almost bullet points of the key skills.  I do not often watch James May just in case I recognize some of the Last of the Summer Wine type activities in myself that he seems to be slipping into.  However, he did in his programme about his sister's toys show the Ladybird book How computers work that the Ministry of Defence ordered with plain brown covers to instruct people in the basics of the new technology.  The Dummies series is much the same ilk, so I'm quite happy to follow the MOD's lead.

If you would like a more detailed explanation of some of the techniques I am starting to use in social networking follow the link to 2pointfiveageofman.nett or kritirecharge.co.uk.


Open the email page or contact us.  Supply your details and I should be able to send you a PDF file in the net few days.

Tomorrow's Blog is about topics related to Wellbeing.  This is the last topic of the week in the new Strategy plan.  So I will start again on Friday by looking back over the week.