Alastair Milloy
Vice Principal Corporate Development, James Watt College
Show/Hide Biography
James Watt College is one of Scotland’s largest colleges and has campuses in Greenock, Kilwinning and Largs. Alastair has been with James Watt for over 4 years and oversees all activity and operations throughout the college.
Prior to this, Alastair was Director of Finance at Motherwell College for 5 years. During his time there, he secured the funding in its bid to the Scottish Funding Council to relocate the College to a new £70m campus at the old Ravenscraig Steelworks site.
Alastair started his career with KPMG and then moved on to hold senior finance roles within leisure, restaurant and nursing care companies before joining Motherwell College.
The next day was a completely different experience. Having spent the day alone and fasting from dawn to dusk (with none of the great veggie food supplied by Rob or any carrot cake) we spent the majority of the day in the tenttipi telling our stories. After each story anyone who wanted to could make a comment on what they had heard – “I heard a story about………”. It was great to hear what each person thought of the stories they heard.
We’re all on a journey, everyone starting from a different place and everyone going somewhere. Will we all end up in the same place?
The journey home – travelling back to life away from the wilderness. Having spent the week getting to know everyone in an amazing environment, all of a sudden we are heading home to the cities, roads, hustle and bustle and people all travelling to and fro and going on their journeys to somewhere new. What new things will we see and do and what will happen next on our journey of change?
After a few weeks of not knowing what would be happening or what we would be doing on the first away week, we are now here in a beautiful place away from cities, people, motorways…….
The solo day is tomorrow but for once I have no plans of what to do but only where to go – along the coast rather than inland. Still to decide whether to fast or not or whether to take a camera or paper or really what to do.
The thought of having no technology, even a watch is very strange. Over the past few years technology has crept up on us all mobile phones, broadband, internet, hdtv, digital cameras…….. To not have any of that in this environment means that you have to live in the moment and gradually accept that there is no need to take the phone with you if you cannot get a signal.
The solo day will take that a step further – no conversation – no watches either – so no knowledge of what time it is except for the sun in the sky.
The solo day was overcast and so not much help from the sun. I had decided to set out early and go along the coast and spend time alone watching the sea and life pass by. I brought my camera (as I had decided that it was not technology) and penknife (to carve some wood for my son) and some paper and pencils to write and draw (badly).
Spending a day alone or not talking to anyone was not that bad however on retuning it was very strange not being able to talk to anyone, to find out what others had done or to share what had happened.
That would come the next day.
Well – here is my first real blog after doing the test blog last week. Not sure what to expect - but looking forward to getting away and starting the project for real. Been looking at the packing list - need to do some shopping this weekend.
As for the weather – that’s even more of an unknown. There’s been a good forecast tonight so fingers crossed it will be at least dry and maybe even sunny ;-)
Looking forward to a great adventure and meeting everyone again.
