One of the things I’ve thrown myself into this term (or rather, was thrown into, cheers James!) was being Technical Director for the Van Mildert College production of Fame! The production was supposed to be a technical masterpiece, and despite some budget cutting that meant some of my cool gear got cut from the hire, we still ended up spending around £1500 on hiring some very shiney equipment, and the show itself was amazing - a real credit to all of the cast, crew, production and directing teams.

The production was way off of the scale of events I’d worked on in the past, and it pushed both my organisational skills (as a Director, co-ordinating a technical crew of 8, and trying to get the most out of my budget) and in a very practical sense by sound engineering skills to the limit. We ended up running out of mixing channels, submixing 12 radio mics into a further 20 channels of band, it was also the first time I’d extensively used a wide range of effects units in a single production. Everything went very smoothly in the end though, despite quite a few setbacks and I can’t thank the rest of my technical team enough for all their help, especially those so dedicated that during the rigging (which took nearly two days straight) they slept in the PA storage cupboard!

Photos courtesy of Seb Payne (http://www.sebpayne.com/), official Fame photographer.

So, where do I stand? Given I don’t have a separate bank account for VBE Software, I just work from my personal bank account, everything considered, VBE Software has currently made a profit of £450! Now thats not a real £450 in my bank account, its probably been spent by me, personally, already - but in theory thats where it came from, and in theory on demand I could pay the money back into the company for investment etc. Even so, I was quite impressed with a £450 profit, total income was in the region of £1450, but a lot of that goes straight through the accounts to me as wages for direct work, for example RMGS were billed by the hour for my work on their website and that was paid directly to me as wages by VBE Software.

Read More: VBE Software Accounts 2007-2008

My target for this fiscal year: keep proper accounts from the outset, so you don’t have to spend a whole evening rummaging through old bank statements again.

I recently came across udntgtme.blogspot.com, the website for a spoof band - udntgtme - that me, Steve, Andy and Chris formed for a day back in Sixth Form. I had completely forgotten this existed, and the only reason I realised is because I stumbled across on the images in my web server space. As if that wasn’t enough, I noticed a flash slideshow of photos (click Read More on this post to see it!) and wondered how it was being powered, turns out I have a flickr account as well! I wonder how many other things there are like this “lying around” on the internet, and how would I find them? In our so-called throwaway culture we are even throwing away websites and online accounts, polluting the www with redundant and out of date content.

“Why yes wygl dał laptop Ziobry when manifestations?
mp3-ki. Regular as customary is not uninspiringly. Whereas desponded to his house colleague ex militia as well interrogation (colleague overdraw ex pałowaniem) “

I was interrogating the laptop? I was in a milita group? I was despondent about my colleagues?

I’ve decided to try and make things a little more professional too, my homepage is now essentially my resume detailing things I am involved in and would like to be paid to do for you Please bear with me as I’m still getting things like my resource, and projects moved across but the blog and bits are done. If you find anything that doesn’t work please let me know.

I’m trying to just use Wordpress as my CMS and seeing how that works out. I moved most of my software projects into the new VBE Software website (which is a drupal installation) a while back so there’s not really much ‘content’ left outside of that which needs ‘managing’. Making things look shiney and nice again might hopefully spur me into blogging more frequently too…welll… we live in hope.

I’ve decided to try setting myself up a blog on this website in order to try and help keep everyone up to date on what I’ve been doing (or not doing), and to inform them about things going on both in and out of College which they might or might not be interested in.

As well as posting my weekly bulletins to this blog, I’ll also post other things which won’t be e-mailed around, maybe about ideas in the pipeline or just random burblings on what Exec have been upto. Ultimately we are all responsible to you, the JCR, so I think you have every right to know what I’ve been doing with my time.

Since becoming elected I’ve been working closely with James, and have slowly been taking over his roles as JCR Secretary. The role itself, like many JCR positions is quite undefined, which makes it quite interesting when the current isn’t entirely sure what the Secretary should, and should not be doing, let alone know what to handover to me! I should point out this is by no means anyone’s fault, its just the role has changed quite a lot over the recent terms, especially when it comes to the behind-the-scences work the Secretary does with room bookings and event management, and lots more changes are on the cards for the future.

I’ve also started thinking about how best to implement the ideas from my manifesto and speech, obviously many of you will have noticed that I set up a Facebook group which has already been used to promote several College events, I’ve written a guide for committee heads detailing how to use this group to best promote their events. We’ve also started talking about how we can further reduce the amount of e-mails being sent out by Exec members, and whether we can use other technologies more (such as this blog!) to report to you what we do and whats going on.

Anyway, thanks for reading through this far, I would love to hear your comments on any of the issues discussed on this blog, paul.nicholls@durham.ac.uk

Read the rest of this post, and keep up with the rest of my JCR Secretary Blog on the Van Mildert College JCR website, www.mildert.co.uk (Its under Latest News -> Secretary’s Blog, alternatively use this as a direct link )

Ok well I forgot to take one before we started work in the hall but this is the next best thing…

End of the night…

1. A Photo with Petra/Patrick/PortersI think we scared him

2. DSU Phonebox Cram

3. Conga Line on Kingsgate Bridge

4. Palace Green: Human Pyramid

5. Palace Green: Topless Run

Very, very cold

6. Macarena with Girls from Hatfield

They weren’t really getting in the swing of things

7. Signatures of 5 College Bar Staff

8. Human Pyramid on 4 Bridges

9. Kiss Bar Staff

10. Hugging a Local

11. Trade Something for a Paper Clip

Perfect for the morning after…

12. Impersonate the Statue in Market Square

13. A Love Scene in Love Shack

14. Best Photo with a Duck…

One Lucky Ducky

We were up on the top floor, merrily dancing away, when I look down and notice what looks like dry ice moving across the floor at our feet. I point it out to Hayley and Liz and we assume they’ve had new dry ice/smoke machines fitted.

The next thing we know, there’s an alarm going off, people screaming and shouting “tear gas”, couldn’t see my hand in front of my face for smoke, no-one can breathe, and there’s the most foul smell choking everyone. We all make for the doors, people are streaming down the stairs into the middle floor in coughing fits, smoke billowing down the stairs with them…

Bouncers and security staff close off the top floor and usher anyone who’s still coughing outside, where they’d stopped letting people in. Initially they said it was due to a tear gas release, but then (presumably to stop the spread of just this sort of gossip) they just called it an unknown gas release. We made our way outside, Hayley and Liz decided to go back for Liz’s brother then get a taxi, I had to go home as I was feeling really sick and still coughing pretty badly.

One suggestion made is that someone either let off or damaged a powder fire extinguisher, which when combined with the ventilation system could create the clouds of gas. However, a quick Google tells me all powder fire extinguishers are odourless, and that place definitely stank. It also wouldn’t make sense how it spread over the whole floor, looking like dry ice, then rose up causing the choking (surely the powder would sink to the floor, after all fire extinguishers are pretty directional if released properly, and if it exploded surely there would have been a cloud in one corner which then spread outwards?

Other ideas? Maybe it was a riot gas/smoke grenade of some sort? No-one was crying (directly due to the gas anyway), which rules out tear gas.

It does concern me a little that the place appeared to be staying open, and there was no sign of Police, Fire & Rescue or Paramedic response. Again, googling the “best case” scenario of a powder fire extinguisher release, H&S guidelines still say anyone who inhaled or got the powder in their eyes should seek medical advice immediately.

Can someone more “in the know” fill me in?

So much for a blaze-of-glory-last-night-at-tap-and-tin-before-uni!

And why?

Because I had a tail light out!

If I’m going to have a criminal record, can’t it be for something slightly more exciting than that?!?

Now I have to fill in a form to prove it gets fixed or I can be prosecuted.

Stupid Paul. Stupid Car.

Despite some initial reservations, all of this has however always been a stepping stone. I’ve learnt through the year that whilst working in ICT in the education sector is a fun and varied job, its not the career path I want to be following. To progress further I need to get my degree, and then look from there into my options in the Software Development market.

This last few months however, it’s almost like I’m not supposed to leave… It’s just been one thing after another at work, and I have to say the stress has been getting to me lately. Starting with Sam leaving for a better position, which promoted me to Network Manager, and then having a catalogue of disasters over the summer break; culminating in falcon, our core router, dhcp server, dns server and proxy server breaking beyond all repair; I’m starting to think its some sort of sign.

Yesterday should have been my last day, my contract has theoretically expired, however I’m going to be there for at least the next fortnight. I’ve had less than a week off (through holiday or absense) in the last year, and I’ve in fact been in for 5 hours today… On a Saturday! I’ve become a work-o-holic. I’ll be doing another few hours tomorrow from home, fixing moodle - another delayed summer job. I was supposed to be taking a holiday, I just don’t have time now. I can’t help but wonder how I’m going to cope at University without constantly having lots to do. Frankly, that’s what’s worrying me most at the moment - not having lots to do, not being under constant stress.

Is that normal?

One more month. I can’t believe I’ve worked there over a year now, its been such an eventful time but it has totally flown by. I’ve been so fortunate to have had this experience to work with some fantastic people, learn a lot of new skills and develop my existing ones further as well as - most importantly of all - have a good time.

One more month then I go to Uni…

One more month. Despite what I’ve just said I can’t wait to get to University, and to think its just a month away is pretty scary. It didn’t really hit home until last week when I went shopping for cutlery and bed linen, now things are quickly snowballing (Glasses, a Dinner Set, Mugs, Kettle, Water Cooler, Stationary, TV License, Iron) and I’m trying to keep up but I can sense the reality of the situation slipping away from me. In a months time I won’t live in Kent. I’ll be on the other side of the country. I’ll only know one person when I get there. I can’t “just pop home for some laundry”, “just pop to the pub and see Moira or Kim”.

I know its not exactly Timbuktu (although, I do have to be vaccinated before I’m allowed to go up north? Against Geordie-itis perhaps?), and I know I want to be away from here. I just don’t think everything has quite sunk in yet.

Obviously when disposing of old hardware in an environment where staff frequently handle sensitive and confidential information it is critical that proper measures are taken to ensure no data could be recovered from computers, laptops, etc.

We were on the roof doing some cabling, when an idea just came to us….

Disposal #3
Date of Disposal: 15/08/2007
Goods Disposed Of: RM Laptop
Method of Disposal: Seeing How Far We Can Throw a Laptop/Throwing Laptops at Mr Jennings.
Tools Used: a roof
Wielder of Destruction: Mr Nicholls, Mr Burrows and Mr Jinks… Mr Jennings was the one dodging the laptops and throwing it back to us.

Outcome: The first few throws didn’t seem to inflict much damage, the laptop just looked a little battered. Mr Jinks however employed a different throwing technique, which caused the laptop to shatter into pieces on landing… it was un-salvageable.

This was fun!.

Disposal #3
Date of Disposal: 26/07/2007
Goods Disposed Of: RM Laptop
Method of Disposal: Running it Over!
Tools Used: a Fiat Punto
Wielder of Destruction: Mr Jennings, Mr Burrows and Mr Nicholls all took their turns.

Outcome: The power lights came on, but nothing much actually happened. The screens were shot and the batteries didn’t stay in place properly. The best bit, which unfortunately was not captured on film was when we used two laptops as ramps to get up a kerb with. Film also missed Alex nearly crashing my car into a signpost…