Stars in our eyes

As autumn creeps in, and Halloween masks appear in shop windows, our conference seems scarily close. Assistant Director Jeremy Phillipson and I have spent this morning with the crew from Xube who are making films to show at The Sage on 16 November. They have been meeting up with the teams shortlisted in the Relu Awards and filming the projects, the teams and their stakeholders. Delegates will be able to view the results as part of the conference programme, and vote for the overall winners. It's our version of the "X Factor" so we are taking it very seriously. From what I have seen, the footage looks great and I think it will be hard to choose between the entries. But we have also commissioned a 10 minute film which will include brief vignettes of the finalists, and an overview of Relu's achievements. This will feature comments from some high profile stakeholders to the Relu programme, and from the team at the Director's Office. Jeremy agonised a bit about whether this was an occasion which demanded the wearing of a tie, and I thought that there might be a make-up lady to run on at intervals with a powder puff, but, apart from some fiddling about to reduce the reflection from our spectacles, nobody seemed very bothered about how we looked. Which is probably just as well. I'm not sure Jeremy and I can compete with Simon Cowell and Cheryl Cole.