Awards Night

Well as Terri said in her opening speech it was going to be bigger than the oscars or the gramamies and getting it organised sometimes felt like it. But it was well worth it - it was a huge success.

Our team provide a service to two sites primarily and so our customers at those sites are the management teams. So when they tell you how impressed and happy they are then it's a wonderful feeling - keeping your customer satisfied! In fact so happy were they at one site that they have nominated Terri, myself and Paul - the three of us who made it all happen -for a Bravo award. This is a very new innovation within Rio Tinto to recognise excellence within the business. So as you can imagine we're feeling very proud. We also heard last week that our other two submissions for training awards have made it to the finals. One of them Chris - my immediate boss prepared and Terri as team leader is being interviewed about that this week. The other one I did the bulk of the submission with a bit of input from the others here and there and it's being announced on the 24th July at the regional finals which this year are being held here in our local area and so the whole team are going - except me who will actually be cruising the Greek Islands on that particular evening! But my fingers will be tightly crossed. We're feeling very proud of ourselves - our first year of entering any of these awards and already we have won one and in the finals for the other two.

So now a few photos

Me just about to leave for the evening.  This is the LBD I talked about a couple of posts ago

These are the new black shoes I bought - they are killers - I knew they were going to be before I left and said to Bloss with one of another black pair on one foot and one of these on the other - which ones these or the killers and he smiled ruefully and said 'the killers' and they bloody were - I was nearly crippled by the time it was over - on my feet constantly from 4.30 to 9pm.  Things you do for elegance.

A bit of the old soft focus with the B&W here

And this is the team of people I work with - from the left W who looks after Licensing and Legislation - machinery tickets etc, then S and D the two ladies who look after all the document management, data entry, new starter programmes, enrolements for certificate programmes.  The two men behind them are S who is joining our team for the next 6 months to replace Paul who looks after all our apprentices and then M who looks after all our confined space and working at heights training as well as our site in Gove in the Northern Territory.  Then we have Terri, our team leader, myself who looks after creation of skills matrices for all the roles and the subsequent reporting, manages the Frontline Management programme and the Asset Management Programmes, manages the course and qualification catalogues for our Learning system and generally administers it for across both business units and on the side copes with little gems like Awards Nights! and Paul who looks after apprentices but who leaves tomorrow to spend his 6 months long service leave travelling round Australia with his wife and three children.  Finally we have Chris who is the systems and technical specialist who D and S report to and I do some of the time but a lot of my work is done directly through Terri.  And now you know all about us.

So that's a bit of an update on the event which had been ruling my life for the past four weeks and now I'm feeling this wonderful sense of lightheadedness that it's all over.   Terri called round the day after with a beautiful gift for me - a travel journal, a beautiful embroidered luggage label "I was never meant to travel economy" and a CD called Chocolate Lounge - funky groove music and also told me to take an extra 2 days leave to make up for all the early starts and late afternoons I'd had pulling it all together.  It's so lovely to feel appreciated!

I'll be back later in the week to update you on the final preparations for our trip - only a week and a day till we leave - but first another crazy week at work - month end reports and cost report, 2 day Frontline course on, new team member starting - so a handover ..... but then I'll really appreciate my holiday won't I?

See you all soon - and weight holding steady - mean to try and get a little bit more moved but just can't seem to find the time to focus properly on it. 

Love Zxx