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+--- Thread: Bristol Centre (/showthread.php?tid=114)
Bristol Centre - Peter - 16-09-2008
I see there are six of you coming to Bristol for your exams, are you all OK with the location and the arrangements.
You have me, Ian R and Dave McK looking after you - hope that does not put you off!
Any problems, let me know.
Peter
RE: Bristol Centre - JPM - 19-12-2009
I found trains from Swindon to Bristol we're a bit tight to get me there for 9am, it was easier to go to London. I went to the new Amey Bristol office for an IRSE CPD event recently. I would never have found it on my own, so I'm glad I went to Imperial College for the exam.
Could Swindon or Reading be considered as venues? There are plenty of meeting rooms in the Network Rail offices that could be used.
RE: Bristol Centre - Peter - 21-12-2009
(19-12-2009, 01:38 PM)JPM Wrote: I found trains from Swindon to Bristol we're a bit tight to get me there for 9am, it was easier to go to London. I went to the new Amey Bristol office for an IRSE CPD event recently. I would never have found it on my own, so I'm glad I went to Imperial College for the exam.
Could Swindon or Reading be considered as venues? There are plenty of meeting rooms in the Network Rail offices that could be used.
There are a couple of interesting points that you raise, and it is always good to get feedback on the actual centres. I appreciate that the exam day is a stessful one for the candidates and the hassle of finding somewhere with which you are unfamilar can add to that. Noting the obscurity of the building used for the Bristol centre, I do try to make sure that we give clear information on the sheet that the exam office sends out. When you know what something is supposed to get across, it is difficult to work out whether it is doing that for someone who does not have the local knowledge that the author does. As a piece of advice to candidates, the details that you get from the exam office should have the contact details of the centre organiser. I imagine I speak for the other centres when I say that you are more than welcome to give them a call to discuss location / arrangements / queries. We host the exam not because we have to but because we want to help people to move on in their career, so a phone call or a request for more information is no hassle to us. Personally, I make sure that the information includes my mobile number so that on the day, if someone is wandering around lost, they can call me to come and find them.
As for the other issue of where the actual centres are, that is dependent on someone in an area identifying the need and then persuading their bosses (if they are not senior enough) to use the office on a weekend. It may sound simple, but there are sometimes restrictions placed on the use of the building by the owners. For instance, I understand that part of the reason for the relocation of NR's Western control was because the terms of the lease of the building they were in did not permit the use of the offices at weekends. Also, our old building in Bristol was not normally used at the weekends, so the heating was set to a fallback temparature and the compmany had to pay the building managers to have it on as a special at the weekend. An empty building does not therefore mean a readily useable building. Also bear in mind, access to a copier is helpful to some candidates, so a meeting room on another floor (as in the typical NR building model now) is not that practical.
Hosts also have to get a band of people together which largely, but not entirely relies the goodwill of people volunteering. It is not all for nothing. I don't think I'm letting out any state secrets here, those volunteering on the day do usually receive a small honourarium (a bit of money) as a token of recognition of time given for the good of the institution. As a minimum, the regualtions require a fellow who has passed the exam to be the senior invigilator and, for practicalities, that person is going to require some help.
All of that sounds like a list of excuses, which it should not be - it is a list of considerations any one of which may well mean that a given intent to host a centre falls over before it gets off the ground.
All of that said, the original purpose of this thread was to ask people whether they thought the centres were in the right places. I organise one in Bristol because I live west of there, I know the office well where it is held and it is a large centre that many people can reasonably get to. There is no point if no candidates want one in Bristol and I can probably look at sorting something out for Swindon next year instead. Or, if there is demand, pursuading someone to do it as well as Bristol.
Please therefore, everyone who has an interest in sitting an exam next year, give this forum an idea of your preferred ideal main town for a centre and I will undertake to raise the results of this feedback with the exam office to see whether the candidates preferences can lead requests for centres, rather than speculative volunteering from would-be hosts. I can't promise anything, but we can ask.
Peter
RE: Bristol Centre - PJW - 27-12-2009
(21-12-2009, 11:20 AM)Peter Wrote:(19-12-2009, 01:38 PM)JPM Wrote: Could Swindon or Reading be considered as venues? T
I don't think I'm letting out any state secrets here, those volunteering on the day do usually receive a small honourarium (a bit of money) as a token of recognition of time given for the good of the institution. As a minimum, the regualtions require a fellow who has passed the exam to be the senior invigilator and, for practicalities, that person is going to require some help.
Peter
Peter may not have been letting out state secrets but I for one didn't know either needing a FIRSE who has passed the exam as senior invigilator, nor the honourarium so interesting to learn.
Given that there was just one exam centre in India in 2009, then the fact that there are two potentially available to those in Reading / Swindon might be thought of as a luxury!
I suppose it is all a matter of "the greatest good for the greatest number" and one can see the advantage of Bristol as a railway crossroads even if the disadvantage is that the office is quite a walk from the station. Perhaps the salient issue is the start time; I recognise that it would affect other centres but one can see that a 10am start might make quite a difference to peopl'e ability to reach, although obviously the consequence would be the finish time and as Peter intimated unless there is control of the heating etc then keeping to standard office hours is clearly a consideration as well. No easy answers but clearly a concentration of candidates at a particular site is certainly influential.