It was an early start this morning leaving for Bristol about 7.30am, I was feeling pretty nervous and I didn't really know why. I wasn't going for an interview or anything it was quite strange really, but I think it is because I felt today was an important day in the grand scheme of whether I am feasibly able to relocate or not.
A lot of people have warned me about the building and how old it is but they have also underlined that they have to do everything possible to make it accessible. This makes me slightly uncomfortable obviously, if it is minimal adaptations it won't be a problem but if the building starts having to be structurally changed, that is when I start feeling very uneasy.
It reminds me of when I was moving from primary school to senior school. My local senior school didn't have any lifts, but were willing to change the timetable so that all my classes were on the ground floor. This was really nice of them but when it starts impacting on other people, in that instance other classmates, having lessons in not the normal rooms, then it doesn't become fair on them. As in this case if the programme is limited on what rooms we can move into because of access issues, that is when I feel uncomfortable.
Anyway we arrived in Bristol around 9.15am and the first person I saw was an ex colleague Katrina, which settled my nerves a bit but then I had to take a couple of phone calls as the hire car wasn't at the airport in Germany for the Adam's farm shoot, so I phoned Hannah who kindly took that issue over for me.
Once that was dealt with I phoned Kalpna's secretary who came to meet us in the car park. She then took us to the canteen to wait, so we grabbed a tea and waited for the meeting. I was then collected and mum and dad went for a walk round the city.
It was a really good meeting with Kalpna and Andy Corp who is responsible for Post Production. So he would be responsible from what I understand, for bringing in contractors to undertake the adaptions that are going to be required. It was also good to catch up with Kalpna about opportunities in Bristol and also a relaxed chat about the City.
Once everyone arrived we had an introduction to Bristol and a bit of a sales pitch about moving and the benefits of the NHU and the two production bases coming together. We then headed over to Films@59, which is an external post production company as unlike Birmingham a lot of the post production is done from outside companies. It was really good to see this and the programmes they work with in different genres.
Mum and Dad then met us for lunch, which was a working lunch with Bristol Management and allowed us to chat with them about our situations and raise concerns/questions that we had. Between us their were fixed term contractors, permanent staff, single people, people with family's. This I think, mum and dad found to be really beneficial, to know that everyone's situation is complex and It wasn't just us going through this.
In the afternoon we went round the internal post production facilities, which is quite basic in comparison to the Mailbox but was interesting to go round and they have a brilliant future media department which looks at different cameras going forward and different ways to use existing cameras. The example they had was several little go pro cameras strapped together and had used it in a really futuristic way.
So 3.30pm arrived and it was time for the guys to catch the coach and for us to head home as well. It had been a really good day, mum and dad had come with me so they could do the site tour with us this afternoon and be a second and third pair of eyes on things that would need adapting. On the way home I was feeling really upbeat, I was expecting to be confronted today by a lot of steps and for it to be literally impossible to get round but it wasn't like that at all. There were a lot of double doors that would need making automatic, as they were very heavy, but very few steps and there was always an alternate route which was ramped.
Today I thought the site was going to make the decision for me and take it out of my hands but it didn't, but I was feeling strangely pleased by this, ermmm!!!
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