Welcome to my first blog – actually, it is my second blog. The first never got posted. I was asked to create a blog and describe a recent trip to South Africa. I was presenting a couple of papers at the ICN conference. In any event, I started my blog and soon realized that it was a lot more difficult than one imagines - so it never got posted.

What do you write about (is that the correct terminology?)?

There was plenty of material from the conference.

It was the largest conference I have ever been too, some 6000 delegates + our CNO… …sitting there every morning at breakfast…

…sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.

The first paper I presented was to a small select group of about 60 delegates. Well that was at the start of the paper – almost immediately another 30 delegates joined us – and yes of course I was pleased. 20 minutes later there were some 300 people in the room, nobody could move, the room was gridlocked.

Nobody was actually there for me and I realised that on this occasion I was rather insignificant and surplus to requirements. Those of you who know me will easily understand how uncomfortable this realisation would have made me feel.

So you can imagine my total relief to watch the Andrew Marr show this morning, (who was that woman and why does he need to take a month to find the sun?) and hear that Harriet Harmon, standing in for Gordon, passionately advocating the need for both men and women to be involved in managing any organisation.

I think she was reported in the Times to have said something like men alone were incapable of running any organisation. Our School Executive is made up of 13 wonderful individuals. There are 12 females and one male (me) – Phew a sense of equilibrium has returned.