In my last bulletin I promised to continue so now I am ready to carry out the threat…

I was talking about a number of things and tasks, but left out some others. For example my team's responsibility for two Hungarian regions, namely the Middle Transdanubia (including Tatabánya, Székesfehérvár and Veszprém) and South Transdanubia (including Pécs, Kaposvár and Szekszárd). Co-operation with these regions is rather project focussed, though they all have their exciting thoughts about their own development. Just yesterday we took part at an event where Tatabánya and Székesfehérvár had the opportunity to talk about their plans and we found this quite stimulating!

In terms of UK regions we cover the South West (Bristol) and the North East (Newcastle). Whilst I have never seen such a lovely, sunny ("sleepy") countryside anywhere else in the UK than in the South West (it has something I would call as traditional English atmosphere, known from Jane Austen books), the North East is so harsh, windy, fast and vibrant that sometimes I wonder how these two belong to the same country. But then when I meet with colleagues or companies in any part of the UK, they make me recognise that they all have similar ways of thinking and share values and they are all so British! I do love these occasions…

Last week was a studying week for me, anyway, which shows, how seriously the Embassy (FCO) take their priority to value their main asset - us. I took part at a course, which was dealing with diversity at work and how to approach it. Properly tackling with diversity is at the heart of being inclusive and it is not at all an easy task, but FCO is committed to it.

The trainer used a method, which was new to most of us but proved to be an excellent tool. Two professional role players performed in different work situations where diversity was involved and caused some tension. We needed to observe and analyse behaviours. I had the opportunity to recognise some elements of my own behaviour in specific situations, without however being criticised (we criticised the figures the role players brought to us!) and found it funny as well as one of the best ways of learning about the impact of my own attitude to others. Also, I started to study with the Open University last week. It is quite a challenge, but I do enjoy it. I will come back in a few weeks time to tell about it again…

Nóra Singer

Trade & Investment Officer
14 May 2008