MTA-GTS Submission

Just put the finishing touches to an Application by the Motor Trade Association Group Training Scheme (MTA-GTS) for funding to extend their apprentice training Skill Centre at Royal Park and delivered it safely to its destination.

My thanks go to:

• GTS General Manager Paul and his team at Royal Park;
• Executive Director John and his team at Greenhill Road for their support during development of the submission;
• Tracy and her executive support colleagues at Greenhill Road for their help;
• Susan for help with risk management and project scheduling
• Alan at DFEEST for his invaluable advice during the Application development.

Now we wait patiently for the outcome.

Grandstanding

Pulled up at the traffic lights this morning behind a truck taking equipment away from the Clipsal 500 motor race that took place over the weekend. On the car radio someone was complaining about the $700,000 it costs to take down the grandstand and re-erect it in the Parklands each year.

Some people just don’t seem to be able to connect the dots. Here we are in a major global financial mess with jobs at risk and most developed countries providing various economic stimulus packages to try to get money back into their economies and save jobs.

Couldn’t help thinking about all the people that the $700K keeps in work – like the truck driver, the forklift operators, the riggers, electricians, carpenters, laborers and so on. Not a bad use of the money. Most of it will be spent locally and provide income for the second level goods and service providers – the retailers and so on – who are also struggling. I’m fairly comfortable that the tiny portion of my taxes that goes towards this project helps keep other people in work

As a bonus, it also gives us back our Parklands for most of the year.

Strange Gig

Just resurfacing after a fascinating week: redeveloped my website ianshort.com with WordPress; reviewed and edited a submission to the SA Govt in response to their RFP for managing and operating their emergency radio network; completed an Application for the Motor Trade Association Group Training Scheme for funding to construct new training facilities at their Royal Park Skills Training Centre; all nicely finished off with a visit to the dentist and a strange gig at Aberfoyle Park.

The strange gig was at three schools’ combined fair on Sunday. Great campus, but we were in an odd spot – a sort of courtyard halfway between the oval where the main action was and a stage where students were performing for parents.

Most people used it as a thoroughfare between the two places. But the main problem was that nobody had given the running schedule to the teachers organising the kids’ shows. So just as our band was due to start rocking the place, the kids were about to do their thing for an hour.

It just didn’t seem a good idea to drown out the cute junior xylophone group. So we negotiated a delayed start, stopped every now and then to let another school group strut its stuff for ten minutes and cut six songs out of our second set to help keep to the schedule.

Parents and kids loved their shows – and quite right too, after all, that’s what it is all about. But it didn’t make for a well-structured, dynamic set for us, our audience or the next band. Nor was it much fun. In fact, if we hadn’t been there at all it wouldn’t really have made much difference to the success of the day.

Still, our Warriors show finished only an hour later than scheduled and with the help of the last band (White Noise, who did a great job in difficult circumstances) we got everything packed up and into the Warriors’ trailer just before it started to drizzle.

It is interesting how quickly you travel down Flagstaff Hill when you’ve got half a ton of band equipment behind your car helping you along.