People often say that planning meetings get in the way of doing your “proper” job.
In my experience, though, a good meeting is an efficient way of making progress and reaching decisions. That was certainly the case this week, with a number of get-togethers to plan content and set goals for the rest of 2019.
On a magazine like the “Friend”, this type of planning is vital. It’s all too easy to take your eye off the bigger picture and get caught up in the day-to-day whirl of producing an issue.
Then you reach Christmas, for example, and find you have no special stories or features in place!
This week was also National Vegetarian Week, which had me thinking about how long it’s been since I gave up eating meat. I realised that 2019 was in fact my Silver Vegetarian Anniversary! Naturally, I had to write about that — it’s an achievement I’m pretty proud of.
The planning theme continued into the weekend, too, when I booked a holiday for a lifetime for later this year. I’m heading for China, to visit a close relative who lives and works there.
The bright lights of Shanghai will be a real contrast to Dundee!