I’m going to move my blog to a free blog host provider and stop paying for hosting myself. In fact, I’ve already exported all my posts onto my wordpress.com blog. This is a real shame, because my hosts – SiteHQ – have been great, but I’m finding myself blogging less and less and I could do without the cost. There’s also considerably less maintenance with the free hosting option – I just pick a Theme, arrange the widgets how I want them and off I go. I’m certainly more tempted to add in all sorts of extra stuff with a self-hosted blog, and I’m not going to have the time to faff about with it over the next couple of years.

I do intend to pick up the blogging a bit, though. I intend to write about my Open University experiences – I have two more modules starting next year – along with anything else that takes my fancy.

The other blog is up already. I shall back this one up, delete it and point my domain to the new blog. Eventually. My timescales are flexible. I don’t get many visitors, but if you’ve read any of my stuff and would like to keep in touch then you should be able to use the old URL in due course.

See you over at Too Posh To Mosh :)

I haven’t particularly engaged too deeply with the course materials and haven’t done any of the activities for the block at all. Disappointing. M257 took up far too much of this block’s reading time and my brain’s processing power. I lost all interest in the block and had to painfully construct the resultant assignment from fragments of half-remembered course notes. I, somehow, got 73%. I’m not sure how I did, but I’m glad that I covered enough of the subject material to get a decent mark.

Even better, my superb tutor marked it within 24 hours of me submitting it and provided me with some extremely useful feedback. I now need to plough on with block 5, which is all about reflection and becoming an aware systems practitioner. There’s some material about Chinese Astrology, which I really hope isn’t going suggest that there’s any element of truth in it at all.

Better get a move on with that then…

I’m finding it a bit tough at the moment. I’m having to overlap modules due to the OU making the decision to withdraw my named degree at the end of 2014, and this is leading to intense crowding of assignments. I’m managing to get through my work, but I’ve had to ask for several extensions this year and I’m having to cut back on other things in order to make time for family.

I have just finished M257 but I hardly concentrated on it at all. I was hoping to get to grips with Java in a proper sense but T306 is my priority module this year and something had to give. I will be lucky to get a grade two pass, but my time is limited and it got just enough time for me to pass it. The exam was difficult but I’m fairly sure that I did enough to get over 55% and a grade 3 pass, but I would have loved to have done better.

I have a full time job and a family that I like to spend time with. Doing this is hard. I don’t go to band as often as I’d like, my evenings are often spent studying and I don’t spend as much time with my wife as I should. It’s tough, but enjoyable. I do enjoy the study and I’m doing this  degree to give me the kick up the arse I need to get on with my career. I should have done this years ago, but here I am in my 40s making life difficult for myself.

I have something to aim for, something to achieve. I want to do well and I’m finding it difficult, but I’m not going to give up now. I will pass and I will learn something useful along the way. The Systems Thinking material is life-changing stuff and the technical modules may give me sufficient programming chops to hop into a slightly different career path. We shall see. I do know that despite the stress and the sacrifices that I am finding this whole thing rewarding and worthwhile. It is worth it.

I know I don’t say this to Jo enough, but the support she gives me during my studies is very, very much appreciated. I’m sorry it cuts into our time but it’ll all be worth it in the long run. Love you very much!

Our band performed at Nottingham Arboretum yesterday and I decided to take some “arty” shots with my iPhone of some aspects of brass banding.

I used Camera+ to do the editing. It’s a mixture of the HDR and Miniature effects and I was really happy how some of them came out.

One thing that has affected our band is the current economic situation. We used to have a sponsor but business became more difficult and he couldn’t (or wouldn’t) provide further funding. The band can survive on a surprisingly small amount of cash but we lost quite a large amount of income when that happened and we’ve been losing money ever since.

Similarly, the economic situation affects concert goers. If they can’t afford to go out quite so often there is less opportunity for us to put on (or be invited to) concerts. We may also be paid less for the same job. The local council has less money to spread around and so park jobs are more scarce.

Another problem facing many brass bands is the prospect of losing players to other bands, or players generally losing interest in playing at all. Quite a few bands have folded due to this. If the quality of music being played isn’t very good then you can’t attract the better players, or the players you do have may be tempted to go elsewhere.

Brass bands are also becoming more and more old fashioned. Concert goers tend to be older people and it’s difficult to persuade the younger generation that brass band music is something worth listening to, or playing.

These are just a few of the problems that affect our band (and others). Funding is hard to come by but is possible through having a dedicated committee trying to find different sources. We have lost and gained players in the past – and will continue to do so – but we do seem to be able to maintain a generally high level quality of music. Having a good MD helps, and we do.

Attracting a wider range of audience involves having an eclectic mix of music to play. We do try and play a selection of more modern and traditional music, including quite a few jazzier pieces that might attract younger people.

I’m going to choose my band for this as I think this is likely to be the source of my project for T306.

Principally, I’m friends with the people at band. They’re not my closest friends, but I’ve known the majority of people there for quite some time now. I’m friendlier with some more than others of course, but there isn’t anyone there that I don’t like or have personality clashes with.

(b)   make notes of the power structure within the organization;

There is a committee that runs the band and a musical director (MD) that conducts us. The MD does not have any power to run the band – he’s an employee – but does have the final say over what we play and our musical direction.

The “leader” of the committee is the Chairman but decisions are made by the whole committee, and any decisions that have large repercussions (such as the appointment of a new MD) are generally opened up to the whole band. The committee is appointed every year at an AGM and it’s all very democratic. The organisational structure isn’t flat – more like a flattened hierarchy, with the committee members elevated just a little bit. Other people’s perspectives are generally taken into account.

(c)   describe its purpose from your perspective.

From my perspective? To provide a platform for playing and enjoying music, and to create an enjoyable social atmosphere. We are self-supporting and so need to raise money from subscriptions (we all play to pay) and from concerts, so another purpose might be to raise money in order to provide this musical platform.

I just want to play music and I enjoy going to contests. I also enjoy the social aspect, but perhaps some of the others may have different ideas about what the band is all about.

Well, I have a full-time job and so I’m a member of my work organisation. I could probably break that into two organisations or more; the wider company organisation (over 80,000 people worldwide) and my local project organisation, plus there’s also the UK-centric part of the company that seems to “compete” with our European counterparts.

I’m also a member of a brass band – Carlton Brass. I’ve been with the band for over ten years and have spent some time on the committee, although I’m currently taking a break from that due to my OU studies. There are around 50 or so members of the organisation (two bands).

I might be able to include other social organisations, like my collection of Facebook, Twitter or Google+ friends, but I’m not entirely sure that this is relevant to my studies (but you never know). These do seem to be an autonomous collective of individuals with a purpose (staying in touch, amusement etc), so these may come into future discussions.

I’m surprised (and pleased!) about this because I didn’t feel that I was being particularly systemic with my answers. I used the soft systems method for my analysis, but this provides a systematic approach – complete with stages and flowcharts – and I didn’t really come up with any emergent properties. What I did do was constantly look back at previous stages and state in my answers that I was attempting to look from different perspectives. I applied the method well and at least gave an impression of a systemic approach.

My tutor gave me some great feedback too. I tend to try and look at the whole system/problem rather than try and dig into it a bit, and while the “helicopter view” of a situation is helpful I do need to try alternative systems definitions to extract hidden issues. My root definition was was all-encompassing when I should have tried something a little smaller in scope. However, I am trying to think holistically so I was trying to include everything. Perhaps I need to try moving a few more subsystems into the environment for my definitions.

Still, I’m very, very pleased with this result. I benefited from having some time off work and I spent two solid days working on the TMA. I crammed in the whole block in a short period, didn’t really do any of the activities and still did well. Perhaps it was all still fresh in my mind.

Block 3 looks shorter in length but more difficult in application. Viable System Model (VSM) by the esteemed Stafford Beer. Another systematic approach by the looks of it, but this time derived from cybernetics. There is software that won’t run on my Mac. In fact, it won’t run on most Windows machines without a lot of effort – it was written for Windows 3.1! Thanks for the up-to-date software Mr Open University…

I was over two weeks late submitting TMA01 and only managed to get this one in due to having some time off work. We were going away but decided to save money and shelter from the appalling weather forecast. Instead of enjoying an icecream or fish and chips in Whitby harbour we ended up putting Ruby into nursery while I worked on my T306 assignment. Not the kind of week off I was thinking about.

Anyway, it is done now, even if I only completed one activity and worked through the TMA after a cursory read through the module notes. Not ideal, however I was fairly happy that I covered enough of the material to get a reasonable mark, and even if I didn’t do that well I did get some good, useful feedback from TMA01 so I’m sure that my tutor will do the same for this one.

TMA03 could be problematic too. I have two assignments to hand in next month; one for M257 (Putting Java to work) and my T306 assignment a week later. Doing two modules at once sucks, especially as I’m also working full time. There are people doing three modules at once and I have no idea how they do it!

Anyway, back to my M257 work. I’m running late on this one (surprise surprise). Real life will resume in 2015.