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Personal Profile
Name: James appleby – Branch Chair
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day in the life...
Name: janet carr – Branch secretary
I was asked for a typical day in the life of an over worked Branch Secretary, mother and Leeds met employee, so for you amusement here it is.
Tuesday
6.45 am weekdays, the alarm goes off (theme tune Dr Who) and I am beamed into the real world. This will not be a typical working day, I don’t have any!
Get up (no snooze) and run downstairs.
First job put the kettle on, for upwards of 2 brews as required and shout my family and any overnight residents to take first turn in the bathroom.
I make teas/coffees to take back up stairs, and put up our lunch boxes whilst others trickle downstairs; they leave (none without a hug) and I check my text inbox and emails at home before setting off for work. I do this because if there is an urgent case I can call to Harrogate, Carnegie Stand or any Civic Quarter building to meet a member before I go to my day job on Headingley Campus. I work in the best unit in the university (my view obviously), in the currently named BSU but soon hopefully to be renamed!
The Unit I supervise is the central point for the acquisition of all university library stock, using various types of purchasing agreements. We acquire electronic, print and multimedia resources and research and trial in liaison with our external suppliers, new ideas and methods of best practice for internal and external process and procedure; and obviously how we should pay for it!
I have been Branch Secretary (BS) of UNISON since February 2007, and do that half time each week, whilst my job share partner Eric Jackson, takes the reins in the BSU the other half of the time. The BS learning curve has been steep but not overwhelming. I had a fair introduction from the outgoing Secretary, who said the best way to learn was for him to point me to the knowledge and then let me find what was valuable. Very true, the workload is tremendous. When members are upset or distressed they need comfort from their branch leaders and do not generally approach other exec members first unless they know them personally.
Most days are filled with meetings of University business, trade union duty and my day job, but more recently helping members fill out their IMP’s and sitting on Appeals panels. At the moment, my own faculty is still in a review period despite the need for review being signalled many months ago. This has been very distressing for all the many members UNISON has in this area and has greatly added to the workload. My particular interests/skills in Dignity at work, prevention of harassment and bullying and other supportive mechanisms, have been called/stretched to the limit this year, I look forward to the completion of the review and would like someone to commit to a target date.
I rarely leave work before 5.15 pm having often traversed between sites on at least 2 occasions during the day, I don’t plan meetings just attend them. Sometimes I also have to change site for my Board of Governor’s Committees, which are always held in the first part of the week.
I rarely go home to an empty house, and whoever is there likes to cook or eat out. I read lots and have an interest in personal wellbeing. My family and friends are the reason to work hard and look forward. Most of them are swimmers, runners, cyclists, divers, walkers, climbers, dancers singers and all love food. Life is good but there is no guaranteed work/life balance from day to day, so my philosophy is “take what you can when you can”.
‘What we have achieved over the last year’