Hoop, hoop and away (with the money)

I'm now in Blackpool at the end of my first ever staff development day just for school teachers where the principal topic of conversation has been the hoopla stall owner prosecuted last week for breaching gambling laws by making his game almost impossible to win.

Although none of us were in the least surprised that the blocks were tilted at such an angle the chances of success were calculated by academics at Lancaster University to be over 2,600 to 1, nobody could even begin to comprehend why one complainant to Trading Standards lost nearly £1,500.

According to court reports, secret filming showed punters losing around £1 a minute, which made us all wonder what kind of person would want a shoddily assembled cuddly toy enough to spend what must have been about 3 days vainly throwing money away?

So yes, the operation was crooked, but this particular idiot was always likely to get separated from his money pretty quickly one way or another. Now if only the bbc report had mentioned his name and address, I could forward an e-mail from a Nigerian chief anxious to deposit £5m in a British account, then all he'd have to do to recoup his losses would be to send his complete bank details without delay....

Blackpool Illuminations

Spent today at Blackpool and the Fylde College discussing their wonderful scholarly activity programme, Teaching Quality Enhancement Funding and the FEAlliance which exists to bring together Further Education colleagues by providing networking opportunities that will inform the FE Sector about the communities collective views.
As a result of some workshops our centre ran about a year ago Imperial House Publishing has been commissioned by the FEAlliance to publish a journal which is intended to assist FECs and their partners to share good practice, develop their research capabilities and provide an exciting and valued body of knowledge for further reflection and debate.
The FEAlliance recognises that most FE staff including Academic, Administrative and Corporate, undertake day-to-day work or study for qualifications that yield knowledge, research, assignments, studies and reports that would not only benefit their own department but also staff in other colleges. The journal has been conceived in order to provide a platform for these staff to publish their work and raise their professional standing by sharing good practice and knowledge across educational institutions.
As a result of this meeting, I've agreed to run a joint workshop at the HEA/QAA collaborative conference towards the end of this month which will explore perceptions of scholarly activity in the FE sector, and how Blackpool & the Fylde have supported and developed scholarship through their innovative TQEF project and the FE Alliance Journal, Issue 3 of which celebrates a number of papers relating to HE in FE and should be available for distribution any day now.