Hi there!
On return from a fabulous week in Italy, I found myself straight back into what is increasingly a second job - managing a growing Esports hub.
This was the first time the new hub was host to the Easter Esports Camp. It went well, brought some much needed income to begin to offset its cost, and allowed me to test some of the coaching lessons I plan to introduce to the Esports club when it restarts in June. The success brought with it a nagging question that I need to resolve - how do I scale this success?
The scaling question got more urgent when I was invited to speak on a panel at Ibstock Place School’s annual Game On conference - evidence that what I’m building here is being noticed beyond our own walls.
The final week of school before exam leave was different this year. My son accompanied me on the commute for possibly the last time. I’ve loved the last two years of our journeys. It has been a privilege to get extra moments to share and learn from him as he moved through the final years of secondary school. Once the exams are finished he will move onto the next stage - driving lessons, college in the autumn, building a life increasingly his own. I remember a decade ago friends warned me that the years will absolutely tear past. I’m sad to say they were 100% correct.
I also took the opportunity to revisit my previous school to wish their S6 leavers all the best for their next steps. It was wonderful to reconnect with students who remembered when I taught them in S2 and it was an honour to sign a few shirts while we chatted.
While I was in Italy, I was acutely aware of how much my smartphone was struggling. The camera was never that good but during the holiday it would sometimes take 20 seconds between taking a photo and it appearing on the screen. At times the photos would also simply vanish into the ether without an error message. Then there were random reboots, inconsistency when trying to pay using NFC and occasional overheating. So I decided to treat myself to an upgrade and bought a refurbished Pixel 8 Pro from Backmarket.
It arrived quickly and I was happily navigating the transfer process when Google Authenticator decided to insert some jeopardy into a quiet evening. I had successfully duplicated all the 2FA connections from old phone to new. The old phone then offered to remove the connections as they had been transferred successfully. I trusted it and watched in horror as the empty list then synched with the new phone, removing all the items.
It was actually not as bad as I had first thought. Yes, I needed to get in touch with quite a few support channels and provide varying amounts of proof that I indeed was the person who owned the account. I’ve now got a new cardboard folder of printed recovery codes and a streamlined collection of 2FA items safely in Authy. I will never use Google Authenticator again.
This fortnight was a blur of activity and acceleration: infrastructure becoming income; clunky solutions replaced by clean alternatives; secondary education becoming whatever comes next.
After the calm of the previous fortnight, I found everything shifting, all at once.
And I’m not sure I’m ready for how fast it’s all moving.
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