I’m on a course at the moment that I am finding inspirational and so I thought I’d share my experiences with you. Sharpening Your Edge is a strengths based leadership course for women who are at senior positions in their career. Each cohort is a small one with one half a a dozen women on it – so the approach is very personal and therefore really useful.
The course is run by the inspirational coach and trainer Carol Coombes who used to work for Caret but now runs courses and projects on a freelance basis. The course starts with the Strength Finder which is a psychometric test that gives you your top 7 strengths and the whole course looks at how you can use your strengths to get even better at what you do rather than focussing the whole time on your weaknesses.
You do 1 day per month for 6 months. I’ve done 2 months so far and I’m already benefitting (I can’t wait to see how I feel at the end!). We have been looking at how your energy works throughout the day and what things feed your positive energy and what things zap your energy. I’ve already used this to help me with those days when you look at your to do list and just can’t get started! I’ve also used what I’ve learned as I’ve passed some of it on to people who I have some responsibility for managing and/or motivating. And it seems to work!
I’ve already realised why I hate small talk, why I love problem solving and why I spend all my time being conscious of what I don’t know. I guess the thing is now to use what I’ve learned to to work smarter not harder.
I know that it can all sound a bit like hocus pocus – but actually I was quite cynical about psychometric tests – and now I’m rethinking my position.
I thought that I would keep you posted about how the day’s affect my working days as the rest of the days unfold. Apparently I’ll have a personal 5 year plan by the end of it and as that will take me up to 40 – I’m quite keen to see what I write!!
Categories: Uncategorized
It seems that I overlooked a challenge set by Jaki Booth in February to write ‘Seven things you’d never need to know about me’. But now I’ve seen it I feel the need to rise to the challenge – and it is quite hard - not sure how much of this will be news to you but:
1) I love cooking and entertaining – in fact last year I won our choir’s in house version of ‘Come Dine with Notorious’.
2) I married my childhood sweetheart – meeting Richard when I was 17 on the Birmingham School’s Symphony Orchestra trip to Paris in 1991.
3) I am scared of spiders and most creepy crawlies – in fact it’s not a joke I have nightmares and everything!
4) I love gardening – but I don’t really research it – it is more of a hit and miss approach of planting things and see what happens. We also have Koi pond and I get over excited by the frog spawn every year.
5) I can’t do small talk – nothing strikes fear into my heart like being put on a table of people I don’t know at a wedding!
6) I have my grade 8 clarinet and bassoon – but they are both dusty and in a cupboard at present (maybe when I retire eh?)
7) I have moved back to the part of Birmingham where I grew up and my daughters both attend my old Primary School
Categories: For fun
A few months ago I was asked to get involved in a European project called MELT. It is quite an experimental project bringing together musicians from Birmingham, Genoa, Istanbul, Vienna and Sighişoara.
The project has been going for a while now and involves musicians working together to ‘melt’ their cultures and make new music.
For this final leg of the project there was an ambition to bring choirs from different communities of Birmingham together as part of the ‘melting’. Ian Chapman – crazy composer aka Gurdan Thomas is the overall music director from Birmingham and was commissioned to write a MELT choral symphony for our performance on March 18th.
I was then dispatched to teach parts of the symphony to Muslim women’s choir – the Ulfah Collective, the Catholic School choir at English Martyrs in Sparkhill and to my choir Notorious. We also worked with singers from the Zawiya in Birmingham.
We weren’t quite sure how it would all come together – but it did in the end was possibly one of the most moving performances I’ve been involved with for a long time. I need to get some piccies – and I’ll add them to the blog when they arrive!
The project is a credit to Claire Marshall – someone who I’ve worked with for years who is the Birmingham/UK Co-ordinator of MELT.
Categories: Events · Singing
I’ve been working on one of those jobs that makes my work such a pleasure recently. I was asked by Sing Up – the National Singing Campaign led by Howard Goodall to run their celebration event on 14th March 09. This was exciting enough – but then it transpired that the venue was the Royal Opera House in London.
I don’t just blog work stuff – but this event was one of those special memories worth recording. Yes, it was a logistical challenge (polite term for it!) – 600 performers made up of primary aged children and their teachers and a 2000 strong capacity audience!
But more importantly the spirit of the day was really amazing and the quality of the singing of the young people was stunning. Amazing moments included Howard Goodall turning up and the choir from Lichfield stopping their performance to sing ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ which is Howard’s theme tune from the Vicar of Dibley! He was mighty chuffed!
The group coming from Sing Up Burton were so impressed that they were singing at the ROH that they had asked their teachers if the red carpet would be out for them! As it happens one of the entrances to the ROH has a red carpet and so they were very impressed with that and they fact that when they went on the backstage tour we’d organised – they got to the see the Royal Box and the Royal Loo (yes there is one!).
Anyway – here are some pics:
and on the way home the wonderful Brummie event team that came with me sat in First Class eating takeaway Pizza – classy!
Categories: Events · Singing
January 26, 2009 · 1 Comment
I’m trying to get my husband to audition for this (my bassoon skills need more than a week to be up to scratch!) but in the meantime have gander at this: The Youtube Symphony Orchestra. You can download the sheet music for your instrument – have a bit of practice and then send in your audition tape for a chance to play at Carnegie Hall. Sounds like fun to me. I’m even tempted to get my bassoon out!
They describe it as:
Interested in joining the first-ever collaborative online orchestra? Professionals and amateur musicians of all ages, locations and instruments are welcome to audition for the YouTube Symphony Orchestra by submitting a video performance of a new piece written for the occasion by the renowned Chinese composer Tan Dun (Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon). We have tools to help you learn the music, rehearse with the conductor, and upload your part for the collaborative video.
And how do you get to Carnegie Hall? Practice and upload. Send us your talent video performance from a list of recommended pieces. Finalists will be chosen by a judging panel and YouTube users to travel to New York in April 2009, to participate in the YouTube Symphony Orchestra summit, and play at Carnegie Hall under the direction of Michael Tilson Thomas.
The deadline for all video submissions is January 28, 2009.
Go people of the West Midlands!
Categories: For fun · Uncategorized
I’ve watched with interest how the blogging community in Birmingham and beyond have got behind Created in Birmingham’s nomination as the Best UK Blog in the 2008 Weblog Awards.
The last few days all the key blogs in the area have got behind it and it is a great example of how the good work of Created in Birmingham has gained them respect from all sorts of quarters.
Vote today – as it is your last chance!
http://2008.weblogawards.org/polls/best-uk-blog/
Categories: Uncategorized
This was the cry of a perturbed delivery man who banged on my home front door at 6pm this evening.
‘Erm… no… we work’ came my reply.
Now is it me – or is this fairly typical? You order something online – they try to deliver – you are out.
Now I work from home – but I still have to go out. Amazon and the like aren’t able to give you an exact time for delivery – and I am not able to stay in all day just in case a delivery comes.
I’m happy to pick up when I am in – but usually the sorting office is only open when we are at work too – so we generally end up going on a Saturday – by which time my registered delivery is often out of date!
Are we so unusual as to not be in during the day? Should the delivery man be quite so stroppy about it?
Discuss…
Categories: Uncategorized
December 9, 2008 · 1 Comment
On Sunday I went to see a brilliant concert by Ex Cathedra. It was great for lots of reasons:
1) I wasn’t singing in it (so I got to listen!)
2) It was a programme entirely made of up of some of my favourite music by Benjamin Britten (my fave composer)
3) Ex Cathedra sang really well
4) Town Hall works really well for this kind of music
The concert opened with A Ceremony of Carols – a great piece just for SSA and Harp. The Ex Cathedra women folk (and a few male altos) were joined by a host of young singers from the Ex Cathedra Academy of Vocal Music. What an opportunity for those young singers! I remember doing just that as a young singer alongside Ex Cathedra in Coventry Cathedral – if the memory of that performance lasts with them like it did me – it will prove to be a lifelong inspiration.
A Boy was Born was great too and the gallery singers did a great job in a difficult role. Anyone who criticises Britten for not writing complex symphonies should listen to this piece and try to work out how he came up with such amazing textures!
Finally - St Nicolas – and yes I was crying when the pickled boys came back to life! [if you don't know the piece - go and see it!]
Categories: Singing · Uncategorized
December 1, 2008 · 1 Comment
Well now I’m back in the UK there has been no time to relax. This weekend started with possibly one of the most surreal gigs that Notorious (my choir) has done since its inception 11 years ago: We were asked to sing at a special service for the Bishop of Birmingham at Lifford Lane tip!
The idea was a good one – the Bishop is trying to encourage people to think about the environment and recycling as we enter the Christmas season. For any of you who know Lifford Lane Recycling Centre you will know that they have a lovely collection of garden gnomes and at this time of year a spectacular display of plastic christmas decorations (all previously dumped by the people of Birmingham I presume!).
Anyway – singing at 9am is not our strong point but we had to put our best voices forward as there were tons of press there including Midlands Today.
Here we are rehearsing at Ruth’s house up the road at 8am – it was probably our earliest rehearsal ever:
and then at the tip in our attractive high vis jackets!
Then in the evening Notorious performed Faure’s Requiem in St Paul’s in Hockley – a notable concert for us as I wasn’t conducting – thank you to Ula Weber for holding the fort while I was galavanting around India. It went really well and I got to enjoy just singing for once which was a real treat.
Sunday saw me joining my Ex Cathedra buddies and singing in the Nutcracker with Birmingham Royal Ballet. I’ll be doing about 6 performances of this in December – and it always helps me get into the Christmas spirit! Anyway – we went to the second performance of the day as a family and had a lovely time – I felt tired just watching the ballet dancers – how do they do that?
Categories: Events · Singing
My thoughts go out to all those great people we met in Mumbai – since hearing the news today I have checked in with Tas – and she is ok – but it is still depressing to see the city I have become so familiar with rocked by this news.
Our thoughts are with everyone affected.
Categories: India
