Why do you build me up…

Welcome to week 2. My study at the weekend was disjointed to say the least. Have you ever tried to study in the rain at a swimming carnival? I do not recommend it. Fortunately there’s always early mornings and late nights. So less sleep, more reading, more PeerWise and more KCQ’s to come.

Along with everyone else on Friday I did get my company. To be totally honest initially I wasn’t that happy. Of all the companies in the world, I get a UK construction firm, GallifordTry.

Now I’ve got over the weekend and had a chance to have a closer look I’m beginning to think this is an interesting company to deal with. I’ve downloaded all the annual reports but at over 190 pages each I’ve not been bold enough to take a look yet. While I build up the nerve to do that, what I have done is look at the company website and done a bit of a Google search.

So to give you the foundations of this company, GallifordTry.

GallifordTry is a UK construction company formed in 2000 from the merger of Try Group and Galliford Plc. Both of these companies have a long established heritage with Try being formed in 1908 and Galliford in 1916.

Try Group was initially a general contracting firm until moving into house building in the early ’70’s where Try Homes were formed. A relatively small concern in house building, at their peak they were building 200 homes per year.

Galliford, originally a civil engineering firm, became a PLC in 1965. Through acquisition they branched into home building in 1973 (a good year, coincidentally the year of my birth) and through further acquisition of two more firms was building over 500 homes per year by 1998.

In between all this house building, both companies were involved in quite major activities. In the early ’70’s Try Group were responsible for building the Wimbledon Broadcast Studio at the All England Lawn Tennis Club. In 1989 Galliford Plc acquired the pilling company Rock and Alluvium.

In 2019 under the GallifordTry banner there are the associated “brands”. GallifordTry, Linden Homes, GallifordTry Partnerships, Morrison Construction, Oak Dry Lining, Rock and Alluvium and Drew Smith Limited. All combing to be one of the UK’s leading housebuilding, regeneration and construction groups, with revenues of £2.7 billion. So they’re not a shy buttercup in the construction world.

While I was looking around Google I hit up the UK’s Financial Times for some info. What I first learnt was with the FT website is if you don’t copy what you were looking at straight away and leave the page, you can’t view it again. Also the FT gets a bit snippy when you copy text straight from their website.

More importantly I learnt that in 2017 GallifordTry was hit with exceptional costs of £98m from delays in a fixed price contract projects in Scotland on the Forth Bridge and 100k of Aberdeen roads. This caused a significant hit to profit and the share price.

380px-Scotland-2016-Aerial-Edinburgh-Forth_Bridge

The Heritage Listed Forth Bridge

In February 2018 GallifordTry had an interesting year. Following the collapse of a major partner in the Scottish projects, they were required to raise £150m and salvage a 20% drop in share price. The group had a reversal of fortune and reported a final year 2018 pretax profit of £143.7m. Which is a staggering turn around considering the issues encountered and from a final year profit of £58.7m the previous year.

All I’ve seen so far is the press reports. I’m now looking forward to digging into the financial reports and seeing how this was reported over the period in the form of the marketing and how it was presented in financial analysis.

Bonus points for anyone who reads this and identifies the song and the band hidden in this blog.

Third one’s a charm

Thank you to those who took the time to read my first draft of ASS#1. I took the feedback on board and did some editing and some revision. I’m now up to version 3, which I’m calling as the final one.

If you’d like to see it before it’s submitted please follow the link. Feedback is always welcomed.

Paul Feasey ASS#1 Step 1 V3

falstaff

By the way, I quiet like Shakespeare, though I don’t consider myself a scholar of the bard. This quote is from The Merry Wives of Windsor

The company you keep

The last thing I did before leaving work yesterday was check Moodle.

As promised there was the link to find your company. The list is very extensive, a lot of heavy hitters in there. I scanned down the list to see who I’d be focusing on.

GallifordTry! A UK construction company. That sounded somewhat familiar. Now why do I recall that name? A very quick search showed me that they own Linden Homes. A construction company that builds housing estates. Another quick search showed me Linden Home had built an estate in Brackley in the UK. Which just happens to be where we lived for 18 months when we had a short sabbatical back in the UK. So that was why it was familiar.

It’s a coincidence of course. Though it does feel somewhat ironic when we’ve left the UK and lived in Australia for almost 15 years, of all the companies available, I have a UK company that builds homes a short distance away from where I happened to live.

Fortunately having had a look had the company website and a glance at their annual reports (over 100 pages of marketing info) GillfordTry does look like an interesting company that has come a long way. I look forward to learning more about them as the weeks progress.

BrackleyTownHall(AndrewSmith)Mar2006

It’s Been One Week…..

Well almost! It’s almost been one week since the official start of my new very mature student learning experience. What’s it been like so far for everyone?

I suspect for some members of our course, especially those staying on campus and/or studying full time, the previous week has been hanging out, getting free stuff, meeting people, a few parties and wondering what’s going to happen when the course really gets going.

For me and my fellow distance learners with families, careers, and a host of conflicting demands I imagine it’s been business as usual with the added bonus of self reflection in “what the hell have I done?” and “what the hell am I going to do about it?”

What I’ve been doing is some serious planning about how I’m going to fit my two units (ACCT11059 and LAWS11030) around work and life in general. Success in these units seems to be, if not guaranteed, very likely if you can fit in 12.5 hours of study time per week for every unit. Where do you find the hours?

I’ve had to make a few sacrifices, I’ve cut my running schedule way down to maintenance program of 20 -25k per week and locked that time in. As for entertainment, that’s going to be a rare coin in future. No more Netflix binges for me.

My day now looks like this. It starts not with a run, but with hitting the books, PeerWise etc. Lunchtime is at my desk (I hate eating at my desk!) on Moodle, reading and thinking about KCQ’s. Evening is normal domestic stuff and then back to the books.

Lather, rinse and repeat. This routine I feel is essential, as without discipline and sacrifice nothing worthwhile is achieved. I also know what I did the last time. Hint, it wasn’t what I just described.

Tertiary study is hard. It’s hard if you’re straight out of school and it’s hard if you’re coming back into it again or for the first time from the workplace. Thing is, it’s supposed to be hard. If it was easy everyone would do it. But they don’t and we are.

We’re all here for many different reasons, but we all want the same outcome, we all want the degree qualification along with the learning and personal growth experiences that come with it

As the course progresses we will all have great moments of clarity and positive results. We will also experience some not so great moments. Those times when we can’t quite grasp the subject or an assignment doesn’t quite work out the way we want. At these times we’ll wonder why are we doing this? This is perfectly normal.

All being well (through planning, hard work etc.) the great moments will be far more plentiful than the not great moments and we will learn, overcome and succeed in our goals.

Unfortunately sometimes those not great moments can be a significant challenge, especially when taken into context of our busy lives.

We have over 300 students on our unit so one very important thing to remember is that wherever you are and whatever stage you are at on the course or in the unit you are definitely not alone.

So my advice is this; if you need support, whatever the circumstances, don’t be shy in reaching out. Chances are someone has the same question, the same worry and once that’s been shared you’ll be one step closer to sorting it out. As Martin makes it quite clear, the lone ranger approach is not cool.

The last words; communicate, interact, share and together we will be successful. Enjoy the studying everyone.

support and guidance

Keen as mustard

My family are all off in Hervey Bay at swimming training so it’s just me and the dog. Nice and quiet which allows me to get some stuff done. I’ve been busy apparently.

In 6 days, (as well as normal domestic stuff, been to work, interviewed for new canteen staff at the school, P&C preparation, BRC training course and been for a couple of runs), I’ve done the following:

Updated my Moodle profile
Created a blog – and wrote some stuff
Created a Gantt chart for this unit
Been on PeerWise
- Wrote some questions
- Ran out of questions to answer
Read the intro
Read chapter 1
Wrote a lot of notes.
Read everyone else’s blogs

And I’ve made a start on LAWS11030 as well.

I’ve also had a crack at ASS#1 Step 1. Because, why not?

Quite frankly I really have no idea if I’ve answered the question and intent correctly and this is likely not the finished version. However as it’s a personal reflection on the intro and chapter 1, I don’t believe there is a wrong answer to this one.

I would appreciate the views of the group. If I get the link correct you can read it here

Paul Feasey ASS#1 Step 1

Let me know what you think. As we’ve not officially started I’ve got a week to tear it up and do it again.

I love it when a plan comes together!

It’s Sunday night so my wife is watching the train crash TV on Channel 9. Occasionally during the ad breaks she asks me what I’m doing.

What I am doing is my first and hopefully effective student Gantt Chart. You may recall me mentioning that when I was originally a student, planning was not my strong point.

Way back in the mists of time, 1994 to be exact, I did my degree thesis on “The textural properties of extruded cod and corn grits”.

Basically I mixed dried cod fish and corn together and made Twisties. Then spent two months squashing, slicing and pulling them apart to see how strong they are.

Why is this relevant you ask? Well I’m so glad you did.

In 1994 our university received its first licence of Microsoft Project. It was such a great innovation that the faculty in it’s wisdom decided that, we, the final year students should create our project plan on this fine piece of software. It was worth 5% of the final mark.

Needless to say, as this was way before handy video guides and tutorials on YouTube, it didn’t go well and 5% of my final mark was lost before I began.

Fortunately I have lots more, hard earned, practical experience on MS Project and project planning in general.

So this evening using the link to Team Gantt, which you can find here . Which was handily provided by Chris in his blog and armed with the schedule and the assessment task details, I set about putting the plan together.

There’s a lot to do in 12 weeks and if you’re like me and doing 2 (or more! you mad thing you!) units there’s an awful lot to cover. Which will not be done just by dipping in and out of Moodle.

My first draft plan of ACC11059, looks almost comfortable. We’ll see what happens when I overlay LAWS11030, could get interesting. I may need some more hours in the day but we’ll see.

Someone once said “a failure to plan is a plan to fail”, and I really don’t intend to fail.

So in the words of the immortal John”Hannibal”Smith

hannibal smith

Good luck with the planning.

What’s it like being a student?

I remember now! Lots and lots of reading, note taking and rereading to check understanding. And too much drinking.

Today has been a bit of an odd one. Last Saturday my eldest daughter drove herself to Rockhampton (I was taking the other three to a swim meet in Nosa) and my wife was sick, to spend a week training as an Assistant Resident Associate on campus. Very proud of her as she starts her Bachelor of Oral Health Therapy shortly.

Today we went up from Bundy, with a few things she’d forgotten, to make sure she was settled in, take the car back, say cheerio and wish her good luck. When she got her place at CQU I hadn’t intended on studying myself. Funny how things work out! Now we have two students at different parts of CQU doing very different courses in very different ways.

What was excellent today is that we were fortunate to be addressed by the new Vice Chancellor of CQU Nick Klomp. In this short address I was very impressed with both the university and the VC and very pleased my daughter and I have decided to be with CQU. I don’t recall ever meeting the VC of my uni 28 years ago, so it was very refreshing. I have to say was extremely impressed with the campus, the facilities and the staff I met today.

While I was driving up I was able to reflect on my previous learning style. To be honest it wasn’t good. I had a great time at uni, got my degree (and a wife) but on balance not enough planning went in to my studies.

Now with a very busy full time job (breweries don’t design themselves you know), three competitive swimmers who train in Hervey Bay, a need to stay fit and healthy, and doing two units this term, time is of a premium. These days I’m probably the worst Brewer in the world as I now drink very little, so I’m not going to replicate my misspent student youth. Which is definitely a bonus.

A plan is going to be essential. Chris has shared a link to a Gannt Chart programme that I will definitely be taking full advantage of. Without a plan, failure is a likely outcome.

It also looks like it will be appropriate to grab whatever extra time I can to reread chapters, check notes, write questions and keep striving for badges on Peer Wise.

Fortunately the subject matter in this unit and in the Business Law unit I’m doing is very interesting so I don’t see this as a chore. My worry is I enjoy it too much and forget to go for a run. Hence a plan and the need for balance.

In terms of progress so far this week I’ve knocked over the introduction, up to section 1.3 of Chapter 1 of the study guide, answered a few on Peer Wise and put a couple up as well. Of all of that I think creating questions has been the trickiest so far, but that’ll get better with practice.

I realise it’s very early days and we’ve not properly started yet, so far I’m enjoying what I’m seeing, looking forward to more, knowing a plan is required and getting excited about creating that plan and taking it through to a successful outcome.

Happy Studies.