Another school governor monitoring visit

Posted by Justin on Mar 18, 2010 in Abaddons Musings, cynicism, governor, local, small towns, Tenterden, Tenterden Infant School | 0 comments I have carried out another monitoring visit, this time focusing on “Community Cohesion”, which is a formal way of saying, “We all have to get along together, so play nicely” – I understate for effect, of course, but it does seem to require a lot of input for something that, in 90% of schools, must be taught and experienced automatically anyway. Ah, well, it ticks...
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School monitoring visit

Posted by Justin on Mar 10, 2010 in Abaddons Musings, local, small towns, Tenterden, Tenterden Infant School | 0 comments In my capacity as a governor of the Infant School in Tenterden, I today paid a monitoring visit to the schoolIt is always a delight visiting the school: all the children are well-behaved, happy and hard-working, and they really seem to thrive in the school’s positive atmosphere; It makes me quite proud to be a small part of that successMy visit focused on the “drop-off club” in...
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Making a rod for your own back

Posted by Justin on Sep 5, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, beer, lawyers, local, logic, lunch, pubs | 3 comments Pursuing a service standard of “Excellent” is definitely a case of making a rod for your own backIn my business, I strive for a truly excellent standard of service and, inevitably, I do not always achieve it. When I fail, I feel mortified, but (illogically) I also slightly resent it when clients point out how I have failed to achieve the standard I try to set – I feel unfairly...
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The Hoodeners Horse, Great Chart, Ashford, Kent UK

Posted by Justin on Aug 22, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, beer, local, lunch, pubs | 1 comment I have to post my thoughts on this truly excellent pubI have visited it twice for Tweetups, and took my family today for lunch. On every occasion, I have been impressed by the warm welcome (especially from Andy Setterfield, the owner, but also from all his staff), the real ale (and cider), the efficiency and the FOOOOOD!Today, I mainly drank the St Austell Tribute; after a few pints of that, I...
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Is Twitter useless?

Posted by Justin on Jun 20, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, lawyers, local | 0 comments According to Larry Bodine, who should know whereof he speaks, Twitter is “not effective for law firm marketing” and in fact can do positive harmWhile his analysis seems sound, I don’t use Twitter for marketing, but for fun and, as I read his article, it emphasised how I do not use Twitter as is apparently expected: 1: I do not seek to follow a large number of people – I...
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Networking

Posted by Justin on May 10, 2009 in Abaddons Musings, local | 0 comments As secretary of the Wealden Business Group (http://wbg.me) I have been finalising and uploading the minutes of our committee meeting last week. As part of the discussion was on the subject of other local networking groups and how WBG differs, I thought I’d try to find out a little abvout the competition.Not as easy as it should be! Some seem to have almost impenetrable websites that send...
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