In the first of a new series of blog posts, EBU Chief Executive/Chief TD Gordon Rainsford describes his typical work day:
A day in the life of Gordon Rainsford
When I am working in the office, which has been much less frequent during the various periods of lockdown over the last two years, I get up at 7am, update the ladder for our daylong robot games while I have my breakfast, and cycle to Marylebone station from where I get the train to Aylesbury. Occasionally I have to drive into the office, but it’s much less pleasant and no faster. On the train my time can be used, even if only to look at emails, keep up with the news or to play robot bridge!
The office is very spacious and never feels crowded even when all the EBU and EBED staff are there. I start by answering emails which I also do throughout the day. I try to reply promptly although I don’t always manage that if the answer is not clear-cut or involves a difficult decision. I also try to keep up with matters of EBU relevance online, on discussion groups like Bridgewinners and on our own EBU Forums.
Apart from my correspondence as Chief Executive Officer and Chief Tournament Director, I’m also the person to whom enquiries about the NGS go. I inherited this role from my predecessor, Barry Capal, and I find it helps me keep in touch with a wider group of members than I would otherwise, although I do need to pass on some of the more complex questions to members of our IT staff. After that it’s time for the first of several cups of espresso coffee, made on the machine I brought into the office when I discovered I was almost the only coffee snob there!
The rest of my schedule varies greatly from day to day. During lockdown there have been far more meetings than previously, usually held on Zoom or Teams. It’s a much more productive use of time than meeting face-to-face, as well as saving money, though I think we would all still prefer to have some live meetings when we can. The EBU Board, all unpaid volunteers, met weekly for much of the first year of lockdown, and they still put in a huge amount of work, often in small sub-groups with specific tasks. I don’t go to all of those sub-group meetings though I am very involved in the competitions one and I belong to the staff IT group.
Aside from meetings, my days vary enormously depending on what needs to be doing. We have an excellent, hard-working staff who are good at organising themselves, but I try to keep abreast of what they are up to and to help and advise where I can, assisted by the office manager Karen Durrell, who really has her finger on the pulse of the office. Another area where I have a lot of input is in competitions, since my former role was as Competitions Manager and I was not directly replaced in that.
One reason for going into the office is to sign off expense claims: when I couldn’t go in for a long time during the early lockdowns, I found a mountain of receipts and claim forms on my desk to wade through when I did finally manage to get there! The other aspect of finance that I’m involved in is in preparing the budget at the start of each calendar year – which seems to come around with increasing frequency!
My trip home is the reverse of my journey in: train from Aylesbury to Marylebone with cycle rides at either end. By the time I get home and have dinner, there isn’t time to do much except watch a bit of television. My final task of the day is at 10.30pm when I upload the results from our seven daily BBO games. I started doing this when the games themselves began, at the start of lockdown, since many of the staff were on lockdown and everyone was performing extra tasks to keep the EBU going. It’s become a less onerous job as time has gone on and the processes have become smoother, but I still haven’t yet found a way of passing it on to someone else to do!