... but it wasn't!  I had a fortnight off, though didn't stay off the computer as I'd planned, as I had some preparation to do for the Missione 2008 Congress in Rimini next month - ordering literature and planning travel.  With my husband still keeping an eye on his business, we mainly pottered about, which was good and spent time with my Mum in Hampshire/Dorset.  Her garden is looking as lovely as ever (why can't mine be like that?)  and we had a lovely day sitting in the sun at Mudeford Quay overlooking the sea, the boats and the families inexplicably keen on trying to catch small crabs.

A fortnight of domestic tranquillity followed, though, when our sons went to visit their cousins in Northern Ireland.  This gave us the opportunity of some very concentrated work (I'm still involved in planning the 3 celebration events for a charity's 40th Anniversary this year in London, Belfast and Glasgow) and longer hours, followed by the occasional reward of a trip to Jolly's Restaurant for their  tandoori chicken on a sizzler board - fantastic! 

Now I have a few days to get myself, my paperwork and my suitcase all sorted out for Italy...

What I'm reading
Meeting Magic - A practical guide for business managers who want to make their meetings productive
by Katherine Woods and Ingrid Uden
An interesting read, this.  I'm reviewing it for the next edition of the  Institute of Qualified Professional Secretaries' magazine, Office Professional.

Some projects have come to fruition this month so here is an update:

Slum Survivor worked very well.  The MPs set up their tented 'slum' in the gardens of Westminster Abbey and attracted a lot of interest; there was a good article in The Times Online.

Cross Pollinate was an amazing success.  I went along to this and had the pleasure of seeing six charities make presentations as to what they could each do with £5,000.  By the end, £100,000 had been pledged or given.  Details of the next event are on the Cross Pollinate website.

HOPE 08 was something I blogged about last August,  as the nationwide planning was getting going.  My own church had a HOPE 08 fortnight this month and, wearing my special blue church T-shirt, I helped with a children's play event and joined in the painting of a playground fence.  If I can get hold of a photo, I'll add it!

So it was a good month, with work continuing as usual.  Like London buses, some social events arrived all together so I spent happy Saturdays with garden and birthday parties, and an old friend's ordination in Birmingham. 

I'm now on holiday so I'm going to stop!  See you next month.

It's a lovely evening and I need to water my hanging baskets, feed the family and see how Andy Murray is doing at Wimbledon (in roughly that order) so I won't spend too long on this blog posting. 

June has been an interesting month, the highlights of which were a more relaxed, longer meeting of the Italian Ministries Trustees in Sudbury, Suffolk (the downside meant a lot of Minutes!) and another reunion of (different) ex-colleagues - this time a Garden Party courtesy of the very hospitable Theresa and Martin - in New Malden.

For the last few months I've been working with Make It Happen and the Alvor Trust on their enterprising joint-initiative Cross Pollinate - a sort of Dragon's Den for Christian charities!  It's been lovely to be in touch with so many charities as well as generous people who have a heart for supporting such organisations financially.  

What I'm reading:
The Fourfold Leadership of Jesus by Andrew Watson

I have a feeling I'll be reading this for a while yet.  It's well worth taking slowly for a thorough digestion as it's full of good things.. and I'm not just saying that because Andrew is our minister!

Ouch!   My feet have hardly touched the ground this month but last night, following a meeting in Oxford Street, I took the opportunity to visit some department stores I hadn't seen for a few years and ended up in Debenhams, finding some gel shoe pads just before the shop closed.  

May has been a month of seeing old friends.   I didn't make it to the Crème PA show this year but did manage a day at the Christian Resources Exhibition in Esher where it was good to see familiar faces and to make some new contacts.   I also co-ordinated a reunion in Victoria of some former colleagues from the 80s and 90s (some even earlier than that!) and 25 of us met this week and had a great time catching up.  Very sadly, another reunion occasion was the funeral in Radlett of a young man, Chris, who had died tragically at university and whose mother and family I have known since my school-days.   Tomorrow a friend and I will be travelling into the Surrey countryside to meet up with another former colleague who is about to relocate with her family to South India for three years while her husband teaches at Hebron School.   We know a lot about the school because my Northern Irish husband was born and grew up in India and he was also at Hebron (Lushington Hall, as it was then known).

On three Saturdays I took part in a Learning to Listen course at my church, run by Acorn Christian Foundation, and yes, during this month I did quite a lot of work too!   Among other things, there were several appointments to make with Members of Parliament for Make It Happen about the Slum Survivor launch for schools.  Slum Survivor is a simulation experience designed to provide participants, and observers, with insights into some of the daily life issues faced by slum dwellers around the world which includes building a dwelling, fetching water from 4 miles away and cooking lentil dhal.   The event will involve various MPs taking part in a similar experience for 24 hours during July in the grounds of Westminster Abbey.  

What I've been reading this month:  
Who You Are When No-one's Looking by Bill Hybels [challenging]
Total Forgiveness by R T Kendall [extremely challenging]
How Clean is Your House? by Kim Woodburn & Aggie MacKenzie [no comment]

A year on from starting my VA practice, and I have just worked a record number of hours this month despite trying to cut back a bit in an effort to maintain a better work/life balance!  Still, with its two Bank Holidays, May ought to be a bit quieter...

Lots of interesting things going on.  For example, one client is organising three celebration events in the UK for this autumn, another one is masterminding a summer charity event launch in the gardens of Westminster Abbey, a third is involved in a large and successful marketing campaign. 

Despite all the rain, we have had a few warmer sunny days and on one of them I spent time in London, consulting with a client on his celebration events and, in particular, on a desert trek in the Sinai (Egypt) in September.  I'm involved in liaising with the organisers as well as producing newsletters for the participants to keep them updated and informed.  After this meeting I met up with Kate Bacon for a quick oriental meal before we headed off to the IQPS Central London Network where she was giving a talk on becoming a VA.  She really wanted me to be her flipchart scribe so I agreed, even though I'd already said I'd do the notes for the Group's next newsletter.  A bit of multi-tasking with markers and biros, paper sheets and notebook, longhand, shorthand and scribble, and I managed it.  The meeting had a real buzz and the time just flew by as lots of questions were asked and answered.  A really enjoyable day.

Today is the 89th birthday of another of my clients, so a very special Happy Birthday, Norman!

March is usually a good month for celebrations, with my birthday, wedding anniversary and Mothering Sunday all on the calendar, but this year of course we had an exceptionally early Easter (which felt like Christmas when it snowed).  I took a week off and turned my attention to some domestic things and a lovely day out in Evesham visiting an old friend from college days who was over with her family from their temporary home in Massachusetts.

A charity which keeps me well occupied as Trustee, Secretary, Treasurer and part-time Administrator is Italian Ministries UK which represents Italian Ministries in Italy - an amazing network which started as a means of fellowship for like-minded evangelical missionaries in that country and has, over a decade, expanded into a multi-faceted missional entity comprising mission support to churches, a network for young people, pastoral care for Italian and ex-patriate workers, support for holistic ministries in Africa and a mission sending agency for Italians.  It is such a privilege to be involved in helping to support this work in the UK. 

If you are interested in knowing more, click on the Italian Ministries' website and read about it all in English, Italian or German.  Why not send me an email?  You could perhaps come and join us in Rimini for a couple of days in early September for Missione 2008 (Missione 2006 was the very first evangelical mission congress in Italy's history).

Having commented on my lack of commuting in January, I've found myself making several journeys into London this month in the spring-like weather we have generally been experiencing.  One of these trips was to the FaithAction Conference in Westminster this week.  One of my clients, Make it Happen, had been managing the event as a senior adviser to FaithAction and I had been involved in liaising with many of the speakers, specifically those representing various Government Departments and the Metropolitan Police.  It was a very interesting insight into government funding and the work of faith-based organisations and communities around the country, and a nice opportunity to visit the wonderful old Methodist Central Hall - it's years since I was last there.

Tomorrow an event of a very different kind calls me to Olympia.  I'll be helping on a stand at the One Life Live exhibition, representing Virtual Assistants.  Our stand is being shared by Kate Bacon of Pier to Peer Coaching (see my Welcome Page) and Kathryn Williams of Completely Organised who runs very a successful VA Conference in Cardiff each autumn.  The show caters for those who are thinking about a complete change of lifestyle so we aim to contact and encourage those who might want to consider using their administrative skills to start their own businesses from home.

Someone emailed me today and very kindly commented that she had been reading my blog and was interested to see how much I had been doing in the past 11 months.  I've been quite surprised myself, to be honest!

PS:  The One Life Live show was amazing.  There was so much continual interest in our stand that it was more than four hours before Kate managed to escape to the tea bar to bring us back a cuppa!

I am not sure that this blog entry will be much longer than the last one but at least I will have got it in before the end of the month - just!  I can't believe how busy January has been.  From managing enquiries about a desert trek to supporting the organisation of a charity walk in London and planning three anniversary events for another charity in between, not to mention a promotional mailing for loft conversions, co-ordinating lots of meetings and producing Minutes and Agenda for others, it's been a very full and fulfilling month. 

The weather can't seem to make up its mind whether to be warm or frosty, sunny or wet.  Today it is blustery, cold, wet and very, very grey.  I'm so thankful my commuting days are over!

It's time to look back on this eventful year with thanksgiving for all that has been done, all that has been overcome and all the promise of next year.

I wish all my readers a very merry (and restful?) Christmas and a joyful New Year. 

See you again in 2008.

Just time to add to my blog for this month, which has been an excellent one.  I gained another new client - a charity working to raise awareness of the plight of persecuted Christians - so I am now delighted to be assisting their Supporter Relations Manager with event planning. 

Lot 63?  Well, this was the lot number of the promise I made to my church for their Auction of Promises earlier this month.  St Stephen's, East Twickenham is raising funds for a serious building project which even I (as one never too keen in the past on this sort of thing) can see is absolutely necessary; queuing for the loo last Sunday reinforced this view, though I did get to chat to two very nice people! 

So, back to the Auction, which was a huge success... well, not having a holiday home to offer or spectacular skill in baking, nor any talent at all for being a butler, painting watercolours of people's houses or providing Russian lessons, I decided to offer a day's administrative and secretarial assistance as my promise and went into the catalogue as Lot 63.  I was 'won' by a delightful lady called Harriet and as a result I have been helping her and her husband with categorising and cataloguing their extensive collection of books.  It's been a fascinating journey into the world of her grandfather and his career in the Royal Navy at the beginning of the last century, about which she has edited a book herself.   

Now perhaps this will be the impetus my husband needs to review the space required for some of his ancient literary treasures...!

Just a few hours to go before October ends.  I hope I can get this blog written properly, in between the doorbell rings of the 'Trick or Treaters'! 

I've gained two new clients.

One of them is someone whose vision for partnering with charities in a meaningful way mirrors my own to a remarkable degree.  Added to this, the type of work I want to do as a Virtual PA is exactly the kind of support he requires to free him up to concentrate on the more strategic side of things.  I had undertaken a one-off project for him earlier this year.

The other new client is the person whose VA business training and mentoring got me started in the first place.  Kate, deciding it was high time she had a holiday, delegated her work to me and flew off to the Far East.  It was a challenge for us both - for me, because I needed to be able to get to grips quickly with the way she worked; for her, because she had to entrust her VA and coaching business support to someone else.  She briefed me just as she would want to have been briefed herself, and then let me get on with it.  It was textbook delegation!  I'm delighted to say that we both really enjoyed the experience.  She very nicely said, "For the first time in four years of running my own business I completely forgot about work...You fully "understood" the nature of my work and represented me perfectly...I can't wait to hand over to you next time I'm out of the office!"

Kate's experience led me to think a little more about the viewpoint of a VA's prospective client.  Let's be honest: it can be scary to entrust your precious work and business relationships to someone else.  That's why you need to make sure that you have confidence in the skills, expertise, professionalism and personality of your assistant and then fully brief her.  Never forget that a VA is herself a business owner and, at the very least, it is in her best interests to keep you (and your clients/colleagues) happy!

This month the Secretary of a Christian Charitable Trust has been one of my main clients.   I've been helping him with his legal paperwork as he and the Trustees went about selling the Trust's property and now need to consider a wider grant-making role.   Actually, the whole issue of being good stewards of what we have has been on my mind and this extract from a recent edition of The Word for Today seems to cover it rather well.    

'...[BE] STINGY [AND] LOSE EVERYTHING.   THE GENEROUS PROSPER...'   PROVERBS 11:24-25 NLT    
One reason the Dead Sea is a big tourist attraction is because it's got such high mineral concentrations that even non swimmers can stay afloat in its waters.   The only problem is the smell; because it has no outlets, any fresh water that comes in quickly becomes contaminated.   Solomon said: '[Be] stingy [and] lose everything.   The generous prosper...'.   God never intended us to be reservoirs that just take in; He called us to be rivers that flow out to bless others.   Something interesting happens when you stop focusing on yourself and get concerned with other people's needs.     Paul says: '...[A] person who gives cheerfully...will...have...plenty left...to share...' (2 Corinthians 9:7-8 NLT).   If you want to grow you've got to sow!   When the Macedonian church was '...tested by great troubles, and...very poor...they gave much...more than they could afford...' (2 Corinthians 8:2-3 NCV).   These folks understood that when you invest in the lives of others, God promises to meet your needs too.    

So if you need a job today, volunteer at a soup kitchen while you're looking for work.   If you're praying for an increase in your business, pour yourself into someone else's business and ask God to prosper them.   The Bible says when you 'Give generously...your gifts will return to you later', plus '...in the days ahead you yourself may need...help' (Ecclesiastes 11:1-2 TLB).   Even if you don't have a specific need right now, sow a seed of kindness anyway.   Only God knows what the future holds, and one day when you need it the most it'll come back to bless you with a harvest.  

The daily devotional The Word for Today is available free of charge  from UCB.  Those living in the UK or the Republic of Ireland can write to UCB's Operations Centre at Westport Road, Stoke-on-Trent ST6 4JF.

I took two weeks off this month and had a list of household and DIY tasks to be tackled in between some lunches out on the Thames riverside; however  they mostly didn't get done!   My husband - who also runs his own business - found himself in meetings he had to attend and visiting people who couldn't see him any other time... so that means the garage still needs its clearout.   Oh well!   I can't blame him as I had my teeth into a project that I was enjoying too much to leave totally alone until my holiday ended.     I was working with Make It Happen on behalf of HOPE2008,  a grassroots initiative which is encouraging churches to 'raise their game' in community mission and service.   The very attractive HOPE2008 resource book offers a host of ideas for creative involvement in the local community and the whole thing has the blessing of eminent church leaders, politicians of all persuasions, senior police officers and the Department for Communities and Local Government too.   So look out for HOPE2008 projects in your local area - or perhaps even start one yourself?

Suddenly with a huge shock I realise that (a) I haven't added to my blog yet this month and tomorrow is August, (b) it's six months since I decided to establish a VA practice, (c) 2007 is more than half over and I don't know where it's gone, and (d) people are already thinking about Christmas!

It's been a busy month for me so it was nice to have the chance to pop up to Buckingham Palace Road last night on a warm summer evening for one of the regular meetings of the IQPS  Central London Network.  They're a nice group of people and I always enjoy catching up with them when I can.  The speaker last night was Mark Camley, the Chief Executive of the Royal Parks.  He's a delightful Scot with an extremely detailed knowledge (as you would expect) of each of the eight Royal Parks in London.  I confess I don't make as much use of my two local Royal Parks (Bushy and Richmond) as I should but maybe if we get a bit more of a summer than we've had recently, I might just make the effort, especially as Richmond Park has a great number of ancient oak trees, from 300 to an amazing 600 years old. 

Have you ever wondered what life is like when a child is disabled?  We have facilities in this country that we almost take for granted but in Africa children who are immobile are likely to spend their days lying on the floor, isolated, uneducated and with nothing to do.  Perhaps their mothers are exhausted; in some cases their fathers don't wish to acknowledge them.  Some children are born with a disability but others may contract an infection like cerebral malaria in their early years which can leave them unable to walk or even talk. 

There is a project in the Copperbelt region of Zambia called Wukwashi Wa Nzambi, meaning God's Help in the local Lunda language, which was founded by an English couple – an occupational therapist and a carpenter – two years ago.  Providing a network of support groups in homes, and training volunteers from local churches in rehabilitation techniques, Wukwashi has completely changed the lives of the many children who have received love, therapy, mobility aids and assistance to obtain vital medical help and/or corrective surgery.
 
I am privileged to be involved in such work by providing freelance administrative support to The Bethany Children's Trust which helps to fund not only the Wukwashi Project but other initiatives in Africa caring for children in crisis or at risk.  BCT has produced a Joke Book (jokes contributed by children in the UK) and every penny it raises goes towards the Wukwashi Project.  I have five copies to give away so please email me with your postal address if you would like to receive one! 

It often happens and it has again this year - the two major annual exhibitions I need to visit are happening in the same week!  So on Tuesday 15th I'll be at Olympia for the CRÈME Executive Secretary and PA Show and will be helping on the IQPS stand in the early afternoon.  Thursday 17th is my day to head to Sandown Park, Esher - not just for the lovely view over the racecourse but to meet up with friends and former colleagues at the Christian Resources Exhibition.  Will I see you at one of these shows?  Ring me on 07799 068539 if you are there and want to try to meet up!

Today is Good Friday.  It is also the beginning of the new tax year and the day on which I am starting out as a self-employed Virtual Personal Assistant.  I'm learning such a lot of new things to add to my many years' experience as a Secretary/PA.  These months since I left my last office job have been a time of waiting and wondering, thinking and praying, training and learning.  My family and friends have been a great support so huge thanks to them and to Kate Bacon and the VA Business Start-Up Group I've got to know through PierToPeer Coaching in Brighton.  In the last year I've learned that the words of David in Psalm 138 are an amazing promise to remember and hold on to.  "The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me…"