Chris Darkfire

Hi All

Apologies for the somewhat off topic post, but it my LJ and I’ll do what I want!

As most of you know I’m now managing Gloucester Guildhall and I have a vacancy due to a member of staff moving on.

I’m looking for a ‘Programming & Marketing Manager’ with a rough split of 60/40 in favour of programming. So if you know of anyone who might fit the role please feel free to forward the links below to them.

It is a great venue and a huge opportunity for someone with a strong programming/booking/ents background to come in and put on some great shows and promote and market them. Daytime trade is mainly conference and meetings but this role is predominately for evening and weekend entertainment and cultural based booking and has very little to do with the conference trade other than some marketing. There is a strong front and back of house team to ensure that events run smoothly as well as admin and marketing support for the role.

Full details:

http://tinyurl.com/qkpbnf

or just go to http://www.jobsgopublic.com and put Gloucester City Council in the search

Regards

Chris

For it's been awhile, it's been awhile,
it's been awhile and Oh!
...since I posted here

Still reading and keeping up with people and the rich tapestry of your lives!

All good here - still commuting from Plymouth to Gloucester but the job is good and most importantly the mortgage is getting paid!

So I have spare ticket for Justin Sullivan in Bristol on Thursday as Toni can't make it - I'll be driving (probably) from Gloucester for the show, if you are interested let me know.

Annoying night as at Gloucester Guildhall that night we have The Qemists who I'd love to see - guess I'm going to have to settle for the soundcheck before leaving for Bristol!

If you are interested a few other confirmed dates at Gloucester Guildhall...

The Qemists – 14th May
Wychwood Music Showcase – 15th May
Peppermint Hunting Lodge / Joe and the Sl*ts – 16th May
65 Days of Static – 17th May
Ring of Fire (Johnny Cash Tribute) – 22nd May
Complete Stone Roses – 23rd May
Mostly Autumn – 31st May
Iain Archer & Emily Maguire – 5th June
Athlete – 11th June
Stairway to Zeppelin – 7th June
Wedding Present – 18th June
Blockheads – 25th June
Argy Bargy – 27th June
Skant – 11th July
The Beat – 17th July
Dreadzone – 22nd October
Ade Edmondson & the Bad Shepherds – 24th October
Midge Ure – 11th December

http://tinyurl.com/dau9c8

Very progressive local authority been hugely impressed so far in my time there - very unlike your 'traditional' council.

Any Excel buffs out there?

If have a column of text, for example:

A
B
B
C
C
A
B


is there any way of totalling the number of each letter?

So I get A=2, B=3 and C=2 without a long formula?

from [info]djvext
Memetics...
Nearest book, page 56, 5th sentence.

"She'd watched as Paul gripped her backside as they squeezed themselves into one of the listening booths"

Number One meme

Edison Lighthouse - "Love Grows (Where My Rosemary Goes)"

Surely not a strange question in this day and age but seem to be as rare as rocking horse shit?

All I want is a cheap - preferably sub £300 - laptop that doesn't come with bloody Vista on it IE something that boots and runs applications the same day that I want to use them and doesn't require most of the HDD to do so!

All I want it for is general day to day use:
Office/Open Office
Thunderbird
Firefox
Skype
Decent messenger that connects to Windows Live Messenger with video (as Skype isn't always the answer!)
Built in Wireless
Preferably built in webcam but not that important.

I know I could just get anything and either change to a dual boot or load Linux on myself but really don't want the hassle of of finding drivers and spending hours tweaking. Probably settle for XP at a push but object to buying yet another OS I don't need.

Only one I can find is
Dell Inspiron 1525 for £299 delivered which comes with Ubuntu

Acer Aspire One or Eee PCs are nice - Toni has the Acer - but a bit too small for me - Keyboard is fine but nowhere to comfortably rest hands when using mouse.

Mainly a rant but suggestions welcome!

Well been a busy month has September.

Got back from hols on the Monday and found somewhere to live in Gloucester on a manic Thursday (think I looked at 14 places!).

Moved in Sunday evening started work the next day.

So far the job has been pretty good, loads to do and sort out but at least I won't be bored!

Quite liking Gloucester so far - seems quite friendly and has everything here even though quite small. Living in Tredworth - pretty multi-cultural area which is cool.

Not great being so far from home and Toni but does mean the time we do spend together is quality time.

She had her birthday last week and I organised a surprise party in a rented cellar bar - which went well - halfway through the night I got on the mike and after getting everyone to sing happy birthday asked her to marry me - thankfully she said yes :)

As usual been a bit crap on the updating of this - still manage to read it and comment most days but not so good at updating my own little life.

So what's been going on:

In brief I've had a bit of a poor year with regards to work following redundancy last summer - struggled to get a decent job in Plymouth but some contracts and good old Manpower have kept the mortgage paid and food on the table :)

But I have a decent job starting Monday only downside is that it is in Gloucester - not that I have anything against Gloucester but due to Toni having just got a promotion in her job she can't really move and with the state of the housing market really don't want to sell the big house in Plymouth. So I'll be semi-relocating to G. and travelling back when I have the time/money to Plymouth. Going to be hard living away but I need to get my career back back on track and start building some sort of work related future!

Not got any accommodation yet on Gloucester so anyone from around there who knows of anything please let me know - priority is cheap (but at least half-decent!) - ideally near city centre but I have car and bicycle so looking within 10miles of centre as well. Ideally I'd like a flat/studio probably unfurnished to keep the costs down but probably going to have to settle for a room in a house somewhere. Chasing up various adverts today and letting agents and hopefully something will appear pretty soon! Seems to be a fair bit around but don't want to spend too much as it is a crash pad rather than proper home and rather keep spare money for coming back to Plymouth and beers!

Toni just started back at school with her new head of house hat on as well as still being head of department and teacher - so she is doing fabulously well if rather overworked!

Just come back from a wonderful holiday in Italy - see my Facebook for photos - great scenery, weather, food and atmosphere - couldn't have asked for much more - was worth doing the two jobs I did for a good few months to pay for it!!!!

Beautiful Days was great but certainly not beautiful - complete mudfest - I'm still washing mud off the car and finding worms crawling out of grills etc! Some great acts and nice to catch up with lots of friends!

Anyway back on the accommodation trail to find a roof my head and a bed for what will be a weary me next week :)

Ok so having had a nice break with redundancy money paying me I'm now on the job search proper looking for my next role!

Rant:

I keep seeing jobs that are through employment agencies where they give you one vague paragraph and ask for a CV - if you ask for further details then they won't give them until they see a CV. So you sent it to them and the reply is 'great CV but not exactly what our client wants!" All well and good but how the beep am I supposed to write a tailored CV that may well match what the employer wants if they won't give me any details. I'm convinced that employers are missing out on some stunning people (and me :) because these beeping agents have this power and seem to delight in making it as difficult as possible for job seekers.

Maybe it is just me but when I've advertise a vacancy in the past I want everyone to see exactly what the role is so a) I don't get people wasting their or my time b) Interesting people who maybe making direction changes may well apply with transferable skills

Rant over!

So how do you make an impact with an agency?
How do go about getting a job if you are in middle/senior management level?

:)

Chris

Current Mood: blah

 Ok bit of a strange request - I'm looking for a new job at the moment and I've seen something listed at an agency - now I'm not a big fan of applying through agencies - they tend to look for a couple of key words on a CV and if they are not there then they dismiss your CV, and they give out so little info that it is difficult to tailor a CV to try and identify those key words (this probably isn't such a problem if you have very specific skills but mine are rather varied.

Anyway I'm trying to trace the company so I can go direct to them, they are described as:

"independently owned expanding company. They operate organic high street cafe style retail catering shops based predominantly in the South West, and are expanding through out the UK."

If anyone has any suggestions as to who the company may be, please let me know!

Cheers

C

http://www.myspace.com/polysicsordie

http://www.polysics.com/

Never listened to them until I got a nudge - I am lost for words!

Genius or insanity!

http://www.last.fm/user/chrisdarkfire/

Anyone else using it (other than Mr Gothwin) that I know?!?

Not sure of it is a great and interesting tool or just a waste of time :)

Unless anything radically changes I will be leaving my job as Venue/Events manager at Plymouth Students' Union in about a month's time. A chance of voluntary redundancy came up and as I wanted to leave anyway I grabbed it!

No idea where I'm off next but will still be in Plymouth as T. is being made head of her department in September so she is sorted! Probably looking at more general business/commercial management jobs rather than events/ents as I could do with something with slightly more normal hours that doesn't involve text messages and phone calls when I'd rather be in the pub! I also miss the fact that music/gigs/ytheatre/etc used to be stuff I did for fun and now it is all work and I want the fun back!

So if anyone knows of anything feel free to let me know :)

This

http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/licensing

is starting to pop up everywhere - these are my comments as to why I think it is wrong!

Just got back from Prague and very nice it was too if a little cold and snowy at times - well worth a visit.

Don't do the tourist photo thing very much so these are some odd shots that amused or caught my attention.

Current Music: Kubb - Sun

To you all

and a very simple but frustrating game for you...

http://www.dailyhaha.com/_flash/jeu_chiant.swf

There is a company called PIE that does Beautiful Days festival stall and probably others.

I could have sworn that they had a shop in Bristol and website but I can't find it on any way of searching - am I going mad or does/did it exist in Brizzle?