Meanwhile, we continue to go through your plans in detail. Ultimately, whether or not you get a grant will be decided by our central committee. This consists of representatives from our funding bodies and a panel of experts. For logistical reasons, they only meet every three months, so it can take a while for you to hear from us. Now, assuming you are successful and around eighty per cent of applications are the BSA will be looking to fund seventy per cent of your overall requirement. That proportion is up from a maximum of sixty percent last year. The payment will be made in quarterly installments. This has proved to be the most generally useful method all round. The last job for you will be coming up with a progress review, which you need to do at the end of the first year, well , are there any questions?

Q 13-22:

Man: I ‘d been feeling for some time that a move was overdue, and I suppose it was just the fact that I thought I ‘d miss the friendliness of the place that held me back. But in the end I realised that I could spend my life there and not move up the ladder- you could see how the roles with responsibility were filled by people who weren’t themselves about to move on. I am glad overall I can see my role will continue to develop here, and I ‘ve had no second thoughts- the only drawback is that it is a bit chaotic here. So even though I’d say I was pretty effective at meeting deadlines, there are others who aren’t ,and their inability to sort out each day’s tasks can create bottlenecks that cause frustrations

Woman: I was getting tired of the sense of doing the same thing over and over again and decided it was time to ring the changes. I’m pleased I did, because I ‘ve got a greater range of responsibilities now, now it means my skills and abilities are put to better use. It is a smaller outfit, of course, and the MD does rather keep himself to himself, but, generally, I like the independence that leaves me, particularly with such high-quality support staff. On the other hand, something that should be addressed here is the issue of assessment-the system here isn’t actually very relevant to what people actually do, so sometimes you’re judged on the wrong issues.

Man:I ‘d been looking around for some time, but it wasn’t until I wasn’t to see a recruitment consultant that I began to focus my aims I suppose it’s not surprising ---I was actually quite hard to work out what the core of the job was—but it was certainly at some distance from what I’d spent so long studying, and the consultant helped me to realize my dissatisfaction came from under-using that background. So I do feel a lot more focused here. One drawback, I guess, is the failure to make the most of all the IT, so that, for example, I end up sitting here emailing away to colleagues who can’t even be bothered to reply or react.

Woman : well, I’d been convinced for quite a while that my old company wasn’t moving in the right direction . but of course it was only me that seemed to think so ^^ everyone else was perfectly happy trundling along. So I was delighted when this opportunity came up , the change to properly investigate market trends, even if it meant a greater number of trips. Some people might think it dull, but I get a lot out of it , I have to say I ‘d get even more out of it if I thought they had the big picture a bit clearer in their heads. At the moment no-one knows what to do with my findings because the Board don’t know where they ‘re going long term.