Swansong

Today was my final (yes, really!) NHS Education for Scotland piece of work. From now on it's just consultancy and workshops, but no more meetings to attend (well ok, maybe one or two) and is the end of an era for me. I'm now retired (well, mostly). Hooray!

About a year ago, Neil (my co-worker in NES) went to a meeting of the Scottish Mindfulness Network and I didn't go as it wasn't my turn, but we'd arranged to ask the question 'what do you want to see over the next year?' and Neil, Mr Nice Guy that he is, when they replied that they wanted a conference never said 'well who of you is going to organise it?'

And so it was left to him and me to get the conference off the ground. To say I wasn't amused at this state of affairs would be an understatement, but at least we had 2 people who then volunteered their services and the 4 of us have met monthly ever since to make sure that we a) had a conference and b) that it was well organised.

Today was the culmination of that organisation and I can say, with a huge sigh of relief, that it went really well. Everything went smoothly with no hiccups and no problems. From the speakers to the workshops all seemed to go without a hitch and the workshop that Neil and I put on garnered some very positive comments. Of course we have the actual physical feedback forms to look at yet, but as people came up to me after our workshop and asked me if I could put on a longer one for them, I can't think that there'll be a whole lot of negative comments.

I can now go and get ready for my hols feeling positive about all the work I've done on the Mindfulness Project over the last 6 years and then let it go.

The end of an era and a swansong to feel good about. Can't ask for more than that.