Tuesday, September 18, 2007

Rituals



Others have commented that Greenbelt defines their calendar year, I'm not sure that I'd quite go that far, but there are certain rituals that take place at the end of the festival season that mark a new year of sorts I guess.

Not least amongst these is the setting up of new festival email folders.

Having completed this ritual and with emails already starting to populate the various spaces, perhaps now is a good time to review the email stats. So here we have the number of Greenbelt emails in the archived folders, totalled by year:

2007 = 2557
2006 = 2716
2005 = 2067
2004 = 2399
2003 = 2127
2002 = 809

Ok so I had hoped to reduce workload a little more significantly than that, but I guess it's a step in the right direction.

6 comments:

Kathryn said...

Those are the sort of figures that a) make my blood run cold
b) remind me just how amazing you are
c)ought to be posted somewhere to give an idea to those who mutter about things that they would prefer to do differently, just how many many hours of voluntary time GB soaks up for stars like you.
It's scary - but wonderful.
Thank you - and here's to a noticeable reduction in traffic this year.

hugger steward said...

You know the obvious answer, dont you? Just stop being so good at what you do... you'll be amazed how quickly people stop turning to you if they suddenly find that the exact opposite of everything they ask starts happening... You want more space for the CMS venue this year? Sure, we'll just pop it out on the north car park :-)
Utility points not working as you expected? Righto, we'll make sure that problem is removed, and you can walk over to the grandstand ;-)

(Tho there is a chunk of me that's naively jealous of you, cos it believes that having 2716 emails means you're effectively in greenbelt mode all year. I've tried to persuade it that this doesn't mean the same thing as me being in greenbelt mode all year, but it's very persistent... Do you want to send an exorcism party?)

Giles

1 i z said...

Kind words my friends, but it is very, very possible that the ridiculous number of emails is not as you suggest evidence that I'm either "amazing" or "good at what you do", but quite the converse. I have a deep suspicion that someone more disciplined/smart/creative/efficient/wise would be able to do the same work with much less emailage ;-)

As for Giles' suggestion that it keeps a body in Greenbelt mode all-year round, well I guess it kind of does, but I fear the sort of Greenbelt mode that it keeps you in isn't nearly as much fun as the one you experience in August my friend! But your enthusiasm is heartening and hence, whilst I don't want to send you an "exorcism party" as you suggest, I am toying with the thought of sending you something...well 2557 somethings if I'm honest ;-)

Caroline said...

oh giles your naivity youth and enthusiasm are so endearing.

does your enthusiasm for anything EVER ebb? do the concepts of 'burden' and 'chore' and 'arrrrrgh' ever enter your conciousness? I so hope not. It would be a shame of they did because i am more than happyu to filter liz's emails for her and send a goodly assortment in your direction...

you are lovely giles, and liz, you are entirely and utterly amazing and very very good at making yourself indispensable :)

hugs all round

Merlin said...

I have good news in that if you run a trendline analysis then it is actually heading the right way. Unfortunately I can't work out how to insert a graph into this comment so you will have to trust me.

hugger steward said...

Well, surely it's time each of the FOMs got their own GB PA, right? ;-)

And what's all this about trusting merlin - doesn't sound very wise...

G