End of Week: September 18th

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We end the week with a glorious sunny afternoon.  Of course, I'd love to say it's been like that for the whole week, but that would be an outright lie! Andy was asking for volunteers to edit the end of week earlier in thwe week and I foolishly volunteered - so here I am.  Let's get this party started. Gemma! What's been going on in the HR Team? Things changed a little within the HR team this week. Jen started her studies at Sheffield Hallam and so has only been in on Thursday and Friday. Laura has completed her first permanent week in the team job sharing with Jen (and is now sunning her self in Valencia). I attended a Best Companies workshop in Manchester which included a very interesting key note speaker called Linda Holbeche. The Rally took place this week so Barbs spent time organising the length of service slides and awards to recognise those valued old timers. She’s also been busy inputting all the Quarter 1 Performance review ratings and comments into everyone’s record in CIPHR. Laura has started making enquiries for the Health and Wellbeing week. It’s technically Health and Safety week, but we’ve decided to put our own spin on it. And of course there’s been the normal recruitment and relations activity. Finally, we’d like to recognise the celebration of Eid, marking the end of Ramadan this weekend. Matt, ever full of festive cheer, brings us his post-honeymoon update for the Comms Team: For God's sake. It's not even like I've been here the full week. I only landed back in the country on Tuesday morning and was jetlagged through Wednesday and Thursday, so I've got no idea what's been going on. I'll try and summarise my slightly foggy experiences. We've changed the way we do team meetings, which means they now take half an hour longer than previously but we all know who's where with what, which is nice. We can no longer eat food at our desks, which is slightly distressing, though we can have snacks. Needless to say there have been a number of discussions over what specifically constitutes a 'snack'. Unfortunately bacon sandwiches don't. Boo. Er, there have been a number of further projects underway that we can't talk about, so I won't. Suffice to say they're exciting and secret, sorry, sekrit. Chris still makes silly noises and silly songs.  (Ed. Lots and lots and lots) Bob still hates everything. James has an innate love for the Family Fortunes 'Fail' noise. Andy and Mand will soon be getting their own huge comms mugs, thanks to CParr breaking his. The fool. Other than that, it's the Derby tonight so if you see the news tomorrow and there's just a smoking hole in the ground where Sheffield was, you know why. It's been fun. Fortunately, Bob managed to find Chris a new mug.  Have a nice weekend! James