Exeter - Thursday 19th June

So, we finally made it to the end of the round without any significant casualties along the way, and a brand new venue in Sandy Park, Exeter, replacing the Taunton venue which we'd begun to outgrow over the years. We've had a few seminars at football grounds, but I think this is the first one at venue shared with the egg-chasing variety, which if nothing else seemed to keep Jodie very happy indeed during breaks, as there seemed to be a lot of rubgy players running around training in only their shorts...

Since it was the final seminar for the round, there was something of a "last day of term" feel within the team. Although we weren't allowed to bring in games and work on the grass instead of inside, a couple of us did make the effort to dress up, with me in a dinner suit and Mike "New Boy" Oakes outdoing everyone in a morning suit. Mercifully, we were spared the additional option of Tebs in a birthday suit...



We also managed to get audio recordings of some of our sessions during the day - something attempted at Cambridge, but let down by failures in equipment. Within the next few days you should see these "Exeter Tapes" appearing online on the support website (www.rm.com/support). It's an early experiment, and is unlikely to have any clever synchronisation of slides or anything like that, but we're keen to hear what you think about it. We get lots of feedback that you would like a way to catch up with sessions you were unable to attend (either due to not making the day, or clashes of sessions) and this is our first stab at something that enables you to get a bit more out of the other sessions than just reading the notes and slides. I'd be very keen to hear from you once they're up and you've had a chance to listen - post comments back to the blog, and I'll get to see them...