Wednesday 12th January 11

Up early as Ali's daughter had to go to school and I was sleeping in the living room, and Ali's PA arrived at 7.30am to get the little girl up.  So I woke to CBBC.

But Ali and I had to get going quite early too.  We had our first PA/Carer and Playworker interview to conduct at 9.45, at the Friends Meeting House in the centre of Sheffield.  One of her existing PAs came with us and we divided up the questions between us.

We interviewed 3 applicants before lunch and went to Blue Moon to eat.  We had a fourth after lunch.  Four really good and different applicants, all of them able to be offered work under Ali's Direct Payments scheme.  This means she and her daughter (who also has care needs) are assessed and allocated a budget which they can spend on care more or less how they want.  But this also means that Ali is responsible for advertising for and recruiting carers, and today was the end of the latest round of that process.

So it was a fruitful day and I came home tired but happy that Ali had got more carers, and her daughter has a playworker who will help her with her needs.  I was happy with a cheque for the hours I'd worked.  And some logs from the journey home. 

And then in the evening I had a good chat with a friend using the new Googletalk voice messaging service, which is a bit like Skype, but perhaps not quite as good quality sound.

Friday 26th June 09

Up ridiculously early as a very early meeting in Sheffield this morning... so up before the boys, breakfast, got various Fiddlesticksy things packed, loaded the bike and trailer, and woke the boys up to say bye... and down to the station to buy tickets and get the 7.44 train.

First part of the journey I just quietly read my NewScientist, but then chatted with a future student who was off to Birmingham University Open Day (some good chats about his hippy parents!) and a banker going for interview in Cheltenham to re-apply for his job, as the bank have slimmed down by half and everyone has to reapply. He seemed confident, and curious about cutting his oily footprint, since his job involved oil futures markets, and he was aware of 'peak oil' and Hibbert's Peak.

Sheffield came soon, and I didn't have long to wait until Ali rolled up with a car-full of PAs all helping her prepare to interview another batch of prospective Personal Assistants. The interviews were in the Friends Meeting House, 9 were scheduled but 2 didn't turn up, and in my opinion, all 7 who had been shortlisted for interview were very capable of doing the job. Three stood out as definites and one, a summer-only temporary was taken on there and then. Ali will have to work out timetabling to see how many of the others she invites to work for her. She has a 'Direct Payment' scheme which means she and her daughter are allocated a certain number of hours care per week, give a budget and told to get on with it! Well, almost!

We had a break for lunch, extended by one of the no-shows, and went on til after 4, and we left the building on the dot of 5pm. We then collected Ali's daughter from after school club and went home, where there were four local pre-teen girls waiting to play with her. One was Polish and chatted away to Ali's Polish PA. I did a bit of unicycling at their request, and let them do some devilsticking, then made them all a balloon model as a present.

Ali decided to take us to the Norton Pub for eats which was nice, I had veggie lasagne, chips and onion rings. And a Koppaberg Pear Cider, yummy!

Arrived home in time to watch Glastonbury on't elly. Ali and I both miss John Peel.

Tried to have not too late a night as I'm performing at Sheffield Green Fair tomorrow.

Thursday 12th February 09

Not an easy start to the day but everyone got out of the house on time. I cycled our youngest to school, with him sitting on the luggage rack, as there was snow forecast for the afternoon and Gill didn't want him having to cycle back in that. However, my drive-cog wheel (sprocket?) is somehow slipping under the chain when I push hard on it... which was more than a bit of a nuisance. I had to walk up the hill away from our house but once on the level, so long as I didn't accelerate hard, I could cycle relatively easily and got to school on time. Time for a service, methinks!

I then cycled gingerly into town and dumped the machine at the station and got my ticket to Sheffield, where I was due to help Ali with a day of interviews for new personal assistants. I had a really good chat with a lovely South African woman from Harrogate, called Julie, who was heading to a conference in Birmingham. We discussed any number of interesting subjects... religion and evolution, polyamoury and cheating, Zimbabwe and politics.... a train trip which helped me feel a whole lot better!

Ali met me at the station and we went up to Blue Moon Cafe to look at all the applications and discuss the questions to be asked in the interviews. One of Ali's other carers Sarah arrived to help, and we had coffee and cake to help us with our deliberations. At midday we toddled up to the Friends Meeting House where Ali had hired a room for the day, as a neutral space in which to interview the six applicants. One phone call message arrived saying one had withdrawn, but we interviewed five really lovely people, including two Poles and two Africans, one a refugee pleased with recent residency papers. All of them had the ability to do the work and fit in with Ali's family and their care needs. Because all of the applicants were good, choosing who got the jobs was difficult, but Ali was glad to have the two of us to bounce ideas off. Over lunch, another of Ali's friends arrived and stayed for an hour, and he joined in one of the interviews too!

We finished the interviews and spent nearly another hour discussing the notes we'd made and who might fit best in Ali's household.

We left at 5.30 an I got a lift to quite close to the station... and grabbed a baguette for tea before getting on the 5.47 to York via Wakefield and Leeds. This 'CrossCountry' was rammed full... standing room only, and it was a cold hour in the lobby area between the main part of the carriages. However, I got a seat from Leeds to York, and had a nice chat with Zena, travelling fro Oxford to Durham to see her boyfriend.

Once in York I had no time to go home before the Transition meeting started, so I struggled in the snow with my poorly bike along to the Stables, where just five of us came for our regular fortnight meeting. I was really tired and cold, but had a good meeting, getting a lot done. The Carbon Detox Show tickets are selling well, and our Transition Initiative project is moving forward.

I was glad when it finished though, at 9.40, and got home for 10pm. Gill had had a tough day and was happy to see me to tell me all about it. I had over 70 emails to deal with and was up til nearly 2am doing that and this blog, having a bowl of pasta and soup supper and watching BBC News 24.

Wednesday 2nd May 07, York Rotters Interviews

Up early so that I was able to be at the Council's Ecodepot by 8.45 am, as the Project Manager job interviews start at 9am. We interviewed 5 candidates, all of whom could have done to job. The interviews were very structured, with a list of printed questions with the initials of who was asking the question, and a box for scoring out of 10 the answer given, and a box for notes. There were 11 questions including two relating to the presentation we had asked them to prepare... 'you have a 5 minute presentation to members of the public about the benefits of home composting', one score for presentation and one for content.

There were also a few questions about practical issues, such as a CRB police check, availability to start work etc. After this 'formal' interview the candidates were taken over to St Nicks to meet other Rotters and St Nicks people for the informal part of the interview process.

Once all 5 had been through this, and after lunch, we all met up and we added up the scores and one person came out ahead of the others, with the second close behind. However two of the interviewers had scored the highest overall scorer with the most points, the other two interviewers preferred another candidate. This provoked lots of discussion, especially when the other St Nicks staff came and gave their feedback, it didn't make the process any easier. We discussed and argued for over an hour before managing to decide. A really difficult process, but made possible by the points system which really helped clarify things.

Managed to get home just in time to go and collect the children.