Tag: AI

295: team efforts

On Monday we finally announced that the new Centre will be opening in May 2026 – thank you to all the people who shared the various articles with me via Facebook, Instagram and so on. Maybe in case I hadn’t noticed what we’d been working on for the past several years? It’s good to know that people are as excited as we are about the project.

What *I* am most excited about, however, is the fact that I finally have a learning team again – well, I will on Tuesday when the Schools and Families Producer joins us. For the last 18 months or so it’s just been me and half a Community Partnerships Producer (albeit a most excellent one).

We started recruiting for these roles in July, shortlisted in August and interviewed in September. We had an amazing response, with 90 or so applications for the Schools and Families role and 40 for the Community Partnerships jobshare.

Out of interest and because AI is a big topic of conversation at the moment, I ran our job descriptions through ChatGPT just to see what it would come up with. As it turned out, during shortlisting I saw what it came up with – word for word – multiple times in the sifting process. Some of the applicants had made the effort to personalise their applications but most hadn’t. Fortunately we had some outstanding applicants for both roles and the problem was narrowing them down to a manageable number of interviewees. Honestly – please don’t rely solely on AI. We can tell. We want to know about you and your experiences, not what ChatGPT has filtered out of your CV and my JD. I also asked ChatGPT to create a set of interview questions and avoided asking them…

I decided to do the first round of interviews via Teams, as they were only 45 minutes long. As it turned out the dates coincided with a week of tube strikes across the London Underground, so being online made it easier. I didn’t ask the applicants to do a presentation in the first round, but rather used the interview as an opportunity to find out more about them. We shared most of the questions in advance for both interviews, which has become good practice for recruitment in the last few years. Job interviews are quite stressful enough, and after all it’s extremely unlikely that in the actual role you’ll ever be asked to think on your feet in the same way again. We also start interviews online by saying that we know life happens around you – cats, kids, doorbells, tech issues and so on – and that we’re very relaxed. We’re a pragmatic organisation in general – possibly due to having a female leadership team who understands the emotional load rather than, say, a male-oriented leadership team whose wives (or nannies) understand the emotional load and how it impacts the day-to-day. It does make a huge difference.

Second interviews were in person and we asked the candidates to do a short presentation. One asked how long they were expected to spend prepping for it as it felt like free labour. I’ve spent days on these things before, as they are for a job I really want though we set a suggested time of a couple of hours. However, I do know of people who have created these presentations, not been given the job, and then found their ideas reproduced by the organisation’s shop, for example. Unethical or what? I like to use the presentations as an opportunity to gauge attention to detail, creative thinking and presentation skills as there’s an element of delivery and public interaction in these roles.

With the communities role the second interview was also so that the other half of the jobshare could meet them – they’d be working closely together after all. All the candidates were great but the successful one – in both interviews – gave me exactly the same warmth and generosity vibes as the other half does. They had their first day together this week and it made me very happy. The synchronised goodbye at the end of the day was highly entertaining, and I can’t wait to see what they come up with for communities as the programme develops.

The Schools and Families person starts this week – she was outstanding in both interviews, despite having Covid in the second one – and I think the programme will be in safe hands. Then I can concentrate on the creative programme and the strategic side of the job instead of being 3.5 people at once. Hurray! It’s so good to be part of building a team that’s going to bring the Centre to life at last.

Other things making me happy this week

  • Helping out at the local fireworks event run by the primary school and Scouts – working behind the bar again, with help from Thing 2. We ran out of hot chocolate…
  • Welshcakes – always a hit. Fairly sure there won’t be any left for the team.
  • My first winter swim (having failed to get in last week) at 9.1 degrees. Once I was in it was amazing. Just Jill and I, but lovely to see Nikki and Jenny for the first time in AGES.
  • Coffee with Amanda on Thursday, putting the world to rights
  • The return of the Christmas sandwich and festive hot chocolates
  • Lidl’s Toulouse sausages in a toad-in-the-hole.

That’s it from me – today holds Christmas crochet and laundry. Of course.

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

The Long Way Home/The Nature of the Beast/A Great Reckoning/Glass Houses – Louise Penny

Prayer of the Night Shepherd/The Smile of a Ghost – Phil Rickman (Audible)

255: a straight answer to a simple question

January is over at last, and as I am a contrary little being I have been looking into gym memberships – well, swimming for me and a junior membership for Thing 3 who has been nagging me for ages. Good GRIEF but these places make it hard to find simple information – like how much a particular membership costs, for example, or the types of membership there are.

For Golden Lane, the closest pool to where I work, I can find a page where I can pause, freeze or give notice of cancellation of my membership but no information on how I can become a member. At Better Leisure – Ironmonger Row Baths – I can find the membership page (yay!) but then need to start filling in forms and promising the soul of my firstborn (sorry, Thing 1) before I can find out how much it is although they do offer a swim membership which covers the outdoor facility at West Reservoir as well. At the one Thing 3 wants to join, you can’t join as a junior online which is fair enough but surely they could at least tell you how much it is?

Honestly, it’s like all the leisure centre websites have been built by teenagers or possibly by my Beloved as they are all incapable of answering a simple question with a straightforward answer. It surely can’t come as a surprise to service providers that people might want to get this quite important information without having to enter any personal details, or delve down through multiple webpages? I don’t want to talk to people on the phone, or wait for them to get round to answering enquiries, especially as the former action, from previous gym experiences, is going to be the hard sell on me rather than just answering my questions. Actual example:

Me: So, how much is it per month?

Gym person: how much do you think it should be?

Me: OK, £20 per month (having lost patience with the shiny-tracksuited sales ‘associate’)

Gym person: Oh, you can get that out of your head.

Me: well, perhaps you should have just answered the question rather than wasting my time then? [channelling my inner Dad]

The whole point of the internet and websites – apart from cat videos, of course – is that information is at your fingertips. The only plus I can derive from this is that at least these sites aren’t pervaded by chatbots, who are clearly designed by an evil imp in some infernal circle of hell and whose very name is a laughable lie as they do not, in fact, chat….they answer a limited number of pre-set questions with more questions and can’t actually provide any information, or even let you speak to someone with a human brain who might be able to provide assistance. I can only assume that AI ‘assistants’ are also in their teenage phase….

Things making me happy this week

  • A ten-mile training walk on Saturday morning, through Magdalen and High Lavers to Moreton and back. I spotted a kestrel, a red kite, a sparrowhawk, a little egret, a heron and – for some reason – a large goose sitting in the middle of the road. The rain held off and I didn’t get shot by the enthusiastic hunting family out past Magdalen Laver. Road-only walk apart from a short stretch past Moreton, as the fields are basically a swamp again. Big thanks to the landlord of the White Hart for letting me use their toilet…
  • Visiting the Art Club at South Library with illustrator Grace Holliday, where we explored play and architecture and met some lovely people who are very excited about the Centre
  • Finishing an extremely fluffy blanket for GT2, who stayed over with us on Friday night so his mama could have a night out. Endless Sesame Street turned out to be better than the Wales v France game
  • Finishing this Spiderweb Infinity Scarf in one of the hand-dyed yarns from the Waltham Abbey Wool Show – not shown as it needs blocking!
  • Thing 2’s excellent cinnamon rolls
  • A really positive parents evening for Thing 1 followed by a drink with Miriam (while Thing 1 eyerolled at us from behind the bar)
  • The Last of Us – especially episode 3, one of the most beautifully written pieces of television I have seen for ages

The thing annoying me this week is the press insisting on peppering all Marianne Faithfull’s obituaries with ‘Mick Jagger’s ex-girlfriend’ references – never mind the amazing albums she’s made in the 55 years since they split up, the work she’s done with Nick Cave and PJ Harvey and others, and the whole life she’s lived since then….grr! Go and listen to this from the gorgeous Easy Come Easy Go album of covers. Go!

And today I am off for a swim with Jill and I have no idea what else the week is bringing….

Kirsty x

What I’ve been reading:

Feet of Clay/Jingo – Terry Pratchett (Audible)

Million Dollar Demon – Kim Harrison

Fear of Flying – Erica Jong

Tricky Twenty-Two/Turbo Twenty-Three – Janet Evanovich

Bad Day at the Vulture Club – Vaseem Khan