School in crisis - day 2

Tuesday was being held at the Woodlands, a smart hotel on the outskirts of Morley. First, however, I needed to drop David off at his before & after school club (today of which was going to be a during school club as well!)

I went via the school, where we found a small posse of staff outside breaking the bad news to arriving parents. It transpired that when the Head and Deputy arrived late the previous evening (after the meal) the building lights were randomly turning themselves on and off and there were unpleasant sizzling & humming noises coming from the main intake which was in a small building near the boiler house. They called the electricity board who confirmed on inspection that it was a serious fault and they would have to disconnect the school building. Now the school had no power, the phones were off, the batteries for the emergency lights were flat and the only thing that still worked was the fire alarm which fortunately had a 72 hour battery backup. Electricians were expected and hopefully power would be restored later in the day.

At the hotel, we had four candidates to interview. I hadn't been party to the late interview prep the previous week (as I was between Governorships) but it had been decided that the five panel members would each ask two open questions, the candidate would give a brief presentation of the way forward (based on seeing a PANDA analysis the previous day, a document that gives key metrics for school makeup and performance in various ways) and they would be given the opportunity to ask any further questions of provide further info.

As the morning passed, the weather came and went- torrential rain followed by sunny periods. A pink open-topped Volkswagen also arrived with a number of pretty girls in it posing for photos, related to the pretty in pink breast cancer awareness campaign. I had seen the Herby before- the Hotel apparently used it for wedding cars, as did the two Rolls Royces in a car-port outside. Someone also recognised one of the girls- she was the non-fat girl in "Fat friends" who had also been on Corry a while back.

We deliberated the candidates over lunch and gradually came to a concensus- the best man for the job was a woman. We eventually broke up at about 3pm and would be taking our recommendation to the Governors that evenining. When i say we- that excluded myself, as Karen had an event on so I was babysitting. The school confirmed that the power was now back on and that the school would be open again on the Wednesday.

The job being a good 'un, I had a pleasant evening post- David's bedtime unwinding and watching some telly. I was vaguely tempted to ring up a fellow Governor to confirm that our recommendation had been accepted but decided that it could wait...