Charlie’s thoughts on May

May... a month of two Bank Holidays.

I like Bank Holidays, the working week is shorter, but quite why the banks need two holidays in May I’m not sure. What I do know is that everyone in the office is ready for a holiday, although looking out of the window this morning I suspect any holiday we have will have to be a wet and cold one.

The word of the month is ‘numpty’. It seemed to be the favourite word in the office, if it wasn’t being used to describe the election candidates or BT; it was mostly being used to describe me. Yes, I may have caused a bit of a fuss this month in the office as I decided to start limping and yelping a couple of weeks back. They took me to the vet, and after an injection and an anti-inflammatory spray I’m feeling a bit better. Trouble is they won’t take me on walks because the vet says I have to rest – I am not a happy pup. To make matters worse there has been a great deal of taunting from those around me – there was a peacock in my garden last week; he knew I couldn’t come out and see him off because of my bad shoulder. I wonder what peacock tastes like?

Rob has been out and about again. He says he has been having a lot of meetings about being an ‘Agent’. He even went to London twice for the National Creative Agent Sharing events; it takes a lot to train to be James Bond these days! All these meetings seem to involve quite a lot of cake, especially the ‘Agent Drop Ins’, if they are dropping in perhaps they should lay off the cake, they’ll only end up hurting someone or themselves.

Sue has spent a lot of time being inside this month. Not much fun having to complete the Arts Council annual submission but it’s done now and she can celebrate. We all spent some time looking through Sue’s piles... of possible touring companies for the next Spot On season. She gets hundreds of applications and they all live in a big pile at the side of her desk. She even took a photo to prove just how much she has to look through each season!

This time Lyndsey and Rob got to make some choices too so hopefully all the promoters will like what they have chosen. Sue says the theme is ‘austerity’, whatever that means. I like the show with the poo in it; it’s called ‘The Mole Who Knew It Was None of His Business’. Sounds like my kind of show.

We’ve had a busy time for visitors in the office. We had some students from Tor View Community School (a special school catering for young people with a wide range of specialist educational needs) they came to help us with a page of mailout. They spent the whole day thinking about why art is important to them and how they could document that within the magazine. Their visit was part of a series of visits to help them think about work experience opportunities. I think they liked the idea of an office dog - well they spent a lot of time stroking me anyway.

You can look at the next edition of mailout and the Tor View page really soon. It should be being distributed this week to all of our subscribers. If you want to know more or see the previous edition just visit our e-magazine.

And finally, it was Sue and Rob’s wedding anniversary last week. I forgot to get them a card so I am sending my belated wishes in this blog. With love, from your numpty dog. x

Charlie’s thoughts on April

Another month down and what do we at Robinson Howell Partnership have to show for it?

Well, we had a bit of a chat this afternoon in the office and we realised that we haven’t been out much this month and Rob says it’s because of the ‘newt axe year’. I think that’s what he said, I’m not sure what he means though, I mean, do the newts have axes or are we hitting them with axes? I don’t think I like the sound of it either way!

Sue says the word of the month is ‘reporting’. It is apparently year end (I think she has confused December and April again) and that means she has to make up ... I mean ... calculate lots of facts and figures and put them into pretty spreadsheets with coloured headers and complicated maths that Rob has to help with.

So it has been a staying inside kind of a month, which has not been fun for me.

Lyndsey and Sue are planning the Spot On Autumn season, Sue is keeping lots of information inside her head and then in a few weeks it will all spill out into a Word document and become the Spot On menu. Lyndsey has finally finished all the Spot On parcels – she did a little dance for joy in the office and then celebrated by tidying out the stationery cupboard (it never moves... get it! Sorry, bad joke). So now we have lots more room for all the new boxes and bags and sticky tape for next season!

There has been the occasional outing to see a Spot On show. Sue, Lyndsey and Rob have all been out to see things, and Lyndsey is still writing up all of her adventures in her blog. She has even roped in a friend now and he has been taking some really great pictures for the Spot On gallery. If you haven’t seen a show yet you better hurry, our last show is in early July and then there’s a little break before the autumn season starts, and those parcels start all over again!

It feels like April has been a month of getting ready for things, while the Spot On Team have been getting ready for the next season, mailout has been getting ready for another issue. Rob has been asking lots of people in arts organisations to write about all the amazing things they have achieved, so we’re getting lots of letters to put in the magazine. Speaking of post... is anyone else sick of the election? All we seem to get now is leaflets about voting for people... what about dogs, I say. Where is the Chocolate Labrador Party? I’d vote for them every time. They could use my manifesto about more bones for working dogs, equal rights for canine employees, implementation of wee-mail as a valid message service and of course regular walking for all staff members (preferably with me as supervisor).

I’m on a roll with an election campaign all of my own. I think I might go type up my manifesto right now.

My Thoughts on January

Hello all,

I have only one word to describe January and that word is ‘parcels’.

Parcels have been arriving and departing at the Robinson Howell office pretty much every day – in fact there was a point where I was worried that they were going to put me in a parcel, and I have been avoiding Lyndsey every time she gets the parcel tape out just in case she is tempted when no one else is looking.

I believe the parcels contain things to do with Spot On, Lancashire’s Rural Touring Network. Lyndsey and Sue did a lot of jumping for joy when a big van arrived with the Spot On brochures, and since then they’ve been working hard to send them out to lots of people across Lancashire.

Apparently there is also a PDF of the brochure that they’re sending out... Not exactly sure what a PDF is? Productive Dog Fund?... If it is I’d like the money to be spent on bones please!

I’m quite excited about getting to see some of the events that are advertised in the brochure, the first show is on the 14th February and it’s about building a rocket! There are some really great bands, loads of fantastic drama, a circus act, and some people are coming over from Canada to do some comedy. I’ve noticed two shows about Pigs, but I’m a bit disappointed because I haven’t seen anything specifically about dogs, maybe next season.

If you’d like to have a look too just visit the Spot On website. Speaking of the website, apparently that is being re-designed at the moment so I’m looking forward to playing with that when it’s all finished.

Rob is still busy working with Paul Hartley on the Plugged In project, they’re trying to map all the arty activity that happens in Bowland and Oswaldtwistle . Sounds a bit strange to me, but Lyndsey and Rob have been having fun drawing circles on maps in the office, and it keeps them occupied I suppose.

Rob’s been out quite a bit watching dancers in Wigan; he says it’s a project for Ludus, another excuse to get out of walking me I think. He has been asking lots of school children what they want to be when they leave school; so far a lot of them want to be vets, I’m pleased about that.

Rob came back last week and had a whole conversation about which super power he’d have if he could choose one – I have yet to see him running around the office pretending to fly or using his super human strength, but I’ll keep you informed. I think if I had to have a super dog power it would be turning invisible so I could get away with sleeping on the sofa and stealing things out of the cupboard. What would your super power be? Drop me an email or a Facebook message and let me know.

They had a team day last week at Clitheroe Castle, spent all day talking about the future and planning loads of projects on post it notes... didn't take me though... it's a dogs life!