New directions, new start

Photo credit - lusi

I found out on Thursday that I had been elected as a parent governor at school. It feels like an end, but really it is just the beginning of a new phase of my life. 

I hadn't really given being a governor much thought, other than I might find out more about it one day. Then, about a year ago, I had an online conversation with Garry from The Blog Up North. He asked me if I had ever considered becoming a school governor and when I said I didn't really know that much, he told me that he thought I'd make a good school governor. We chatted about the role and what a governor does and I thought it sounded interesting.

Weirdly, the very next day, the school newsletter mentioned there was a vacancy for a parent governor. It was like it was some kind of fate. When they sent out nomination forms, I filled it out, having to write six words about myself. You try; it's almost impossible if you want it to be coherent! I enlisted Garry's help with that bit and we eventually got something together.

When the ballot forms were sent home, reality bit. I looked at the other two candidates and just knew who would win. It wasn't going to be me. I just knew who people would vote for. I was right; the letter came home a day or so after the vote closed to say I hadn't been successful.

Not being successful made me realise that I did want to become a governor at some point, but I couldn't see how it was going to happen. Going through an election is hard work and being a Brit, I can't go round asking people to vote for me. I don't even know if that's allowed!

Fast forward to a few weeks back when they announced that there were two more vacancies for parent governors. I thought about it long and hard. Should I go for it again? How would it look to stand again? Was I standing against any of the existing governors? After thinking about it for a good few days, I decided I would probably never have a better chance, and dusted off my sixty words. I still managed to rehash them ten times before I was happy with it!

This time, there were again three candidates but with there being two vacancies, the chances of success were higher. One of the other candidates was an existing governor who I know reasonably well and is well known around school. Thank goodness everyone could vote for two people!

Thursday was a long wait. The vote closed at lunchtime and I expected a letter to inform me of the result that afternoon as school was closing for half term. Of course, they put the letter in Missy Woo's bag, not Monkey's like they usually do so for a while, I thought that I would have to wait until March to find out. But there it was.

So, I'm a governor now. Right now, it doesn't feel any different - apart from being thrilled that I was elected and that I made the right decision to go for it. Right now, I know very little about the work of a governor other than in general terms, and I know I have a lot to learn. I also know I can learn and that I will try to do my very best to do the job well and give back to the school. It might be sometime before I have a meeting and, being half term, there's not a lot going on anyway, so it doesn't feel that real either.

It is a new direction for me. It is the start of something new. It may not be a paid job, but it's an important one and I hope to put in as much as I get out of it. I'm quite looking forward to the challenge, because I like challenges. I hope I can rise to it.

Thanks for those of you that supported me over the week of the election and sent me congratulations and good wishes on Thursday. 


And finally, a huge thank you to Garry, for igniting the initial spark of interest within me about becoming a school governor, for being my cheerleader, for giving his time and advice freely and offering his support and belief in me. If I can be half as good a governor as you are, I'll be doing alright. I hope I can repay the faith you had in me by doing the job (and the school) justice. Thank you. 

An A to Z of the web - courtesy of my browser

Recently, the lovely English Mum started a post called Around the web in 20 clicks listing her top 20 recent reads. I got a mention in Tara's post of the same name, although she actually had 24!

I wondered if I should have a go myself. However, I don't think I could ever choose.  Then I had an idea.....

I am not big on storing things in my browser's favourites. I do favourite some things - mostly long and obscure URLs that point to a particular page that I use from time to time. The rest of the time I just type in the address bar and I often use the auto-complete feature. There are certain sites whose addresses pop up as soon as I type in a single letter because of my regular usage, so I thought I would go through and list the sites that are stored in my browser when I type a single letter into the address bar. There aren't 26 as some letters don't give me an answer but this gives you a flavour of my internet usage habits and where I like to hang out.

And so, I give you my browser's A to Z guide to the web.

A is for A|Wear, an Irish clothing retailer who sell to the UK. I was very lucky earlier this year and won £1000 store credit on their site so I am forever planning what to buy from them. I still have about £300 to go and it's been fun picking stuff, ordering it, and it turning up - all without costing me a penny!

B is for Blog Up North, a blog written by Garry aka himupnorth. We've been twitter buddies for what feels like forever and it is because of him that I started writing (I wrote him a couple of guest posts earlier in the year) which led me to start this blog. Form an orderly queue to thank or complain as appropriate.

C is for Chorley Guardian which shocked me as I really don't read it all that often these days.

D is for Disqus - which you may recognise as my commenting system. I log on to reply to comments so that I don't miss replying to anyone that's taken time to comment on a post.

E is for English Wikipedia's main page - again, I was surprised by this as I don't think I visit too often. I am more likely to access Wikipedia direct to an entry from Google.

F is for Feedburner which creates a blog RSS feed, allowing people to subscribe to my blog via readers or email.

G is for Google, which I guess is not a shock really. I am forever googling pretty much everything.

H is for He Tore A Hamstring, a blog written by Rohan. He writes a lot about sport - in particular Liverpool FC - but also about his life. He writes poignantly about his struggles with depression but also last year, he lost his fiancée Dani and many of his posts are inspired by her, documenting his journey through grief and his enduring love for her. Some of his posts have just blown me away.

I is for (I am) Typecast, a blog by Nickie. A couple of weeks ago on Twitter, Nickie was asking opinions on new blog templates etc and the conversation turned to domain names. The lovely Marylin from Pure Unadulterated Softthistle offered her a free domain. I came up with the name "iamtypecast.com" which turned out to be available and the rest is history. You can read the full story of that night here.

J is for JAG's Fitness Blog, written by Jo. I've known Jo for several years online, mostly from the Handbag  discussion boards. She started her blog to document her weight loss journey in 2009 and lost 50lbs in a little under 6 months. Her posts document what she's eating, how she's training and other details of her life. She is truly inspirational and her blog has a sizeable following.

K is for Kirsty's Gone Bananas blog. Kirsty lives in Florida, although she is half British. She has a daughter who suffers from epilepsy and at the moment, she is blogging about that throughout National Epilepsy Awareness Month. She also hosts the Friday Food Fight, along with her sister Karen who blogs at If I Could Escape and who has recently moved to the UK with her family.

L is for Lancashire Evening Post for which, the entry for C also applies. I don't read it that often but I do look at the news.

M is for my mailbox. Not a lot to see here, move along now.

N is for National Rail Enquiries - and I don't go on trains that often. Still, it's useful to find out train times - the fares bit is rubbish tho.

O is for Ocado. They're the only internet food retailer I will use now as they are so reliable and they rarely make mistakes. I booked my Christmas food shop with them last year and then spent an agonising 8 hours waiting for it to turn up as we were knee deep (ok, ankle deep) in snow and the delivery lorry bringing orders up from their warehouse blew a tyre on the motorway. They got here - but the van got stuck on our road. I don't use them all that often, but it's always a nice treat when I do.

P is for Pizza Hut. Not entirely sure why - although the kids love pizza, we don't go there very often.!

Q is for Quidco. This site allows you to earn cashback on your internet purchases. Liking a bargain, I always check for deals before I buying anything large!

R is for Random.org which is a random number service. I used it to help me draw entries for the competition I ran a couple of weeks ago.

S is for Sticky Fingers, written by Tara. It is, of course, home to The Gallery most weeks so I'm constantly visiting to load pictures or to check the prompt. However, the whole blog is great and unsurprisingly, it has some great pictures too.

T is for The Five Fs blog! Hardly surprising, is it?!

U is for, erm, nothing.

V is for Very Bored in Catalunya. It is a blog about Very Bored and her life as an English ex-pat mum of one in - strangely - Catalunya (northern Spain).

W is for Who.Unfollowed.Me, a tool to discover who has unfollowed you on twitter. I know some people use it and agonise over any unfollows. To be honest, it doesn't bother me unless it is someone I am very close to. I guess I just like to know who has unfollowed me. Sometimes, I do ask people why they have unfollowed if I feel I know them well enough to do so and it is usually a twitter problem. I generally check it 3 times a week although sometimes I forget to do it.

X, Y, and Z are for .... erm, again, nothing.

So, there you go. I think I may have revealed myself as obsessed by blogs, stats, information, saving money and food and possibly retail therapy.  I fear my browser says way too much about me.