Alison Rowan

Curriculum Vitae of 15.10.00

Note: I have just achieved employment! So this CV is now here mainly to provide interesting (or perhaps rather dull) biographical detail.

E-mail: rowan@bi.org
I live in Edinburgh, Scotland please e-mail me if you need my address and phone number, or any further information.

Key Skills

Employment and Experience

Practice Development Assistant
Children in Scotland, Edinburgh
October 2000 -
I work in a small team organising training events and conferences. My work involves liaising with facilitators and venues, publicising events and organising bookings. I work with databases, Word, and Quark Xpress, and keep the departments web pages updated, as well as doing a range of clerical work.

Events Organiser
Children in Scotland, Edinburgh
July - October 2000
I was on a placement at Children in Scotland where I played a key role in a small team organising a large fundraising event. My work involved working with and designing databases, laying up a variety of documents with Quark Xpress, and designing web pages as well as routine office work. I also produced a report on the organisation's web pages, and was responsible for producing daily summaries of relevent news items from local and national papers and sending them to staff and members.

Co-ordinator
17th National Bisexual Conference, Edinburgh
July 1998 - October 1999
I was the main person responsible for all aspects of the organisation of this conference, including designing publicity materials, Web pages, booking forms and the programme booklet, liaising with live entertainment and DJs, organising stalls, safer sex provision, speakers and panel discussions, dealing with bookings and enquiries and managing a budget of around £16,000. This work resulted in my being awarded an International award by the American Institute of Bisexuality.

Editor
Bifrost
June 1991 - August 1995
Bifrost was a bisexual newsletter/magazine, which I co-founded. Starting as a double A4 page, it grew to a twenty-four page magazine distributed to shops throughout the country. I was responsible for desk top publishing, writing, proof reading, keeping accounts, marketing and distribution, finding advertisers and contributors, and editing contributions. Several of my articles were also translated and reprinted in newsletters and magazines around the world.

Co-ordinator
Tenth National Bisexual Conference, Norwich
September 1991 - August 1992
I was one of two people responsible for all aspects of the conference, from timetabling and organising speakers to dealing with bookings and liaising with the venue. The conference attracted 200 people and national press coverage.

Volunteer Co-ordinator
University of East Anglia Gayline, Norwich
June 1992 - December 1992
I organised a rota of volunteers to work on a help and information line and maintained and enlarged the database of information for callers. I also formulated guidelines for volunteers and organised training sessions.

Self-employed Jeweller
The Rowantree, Norwich
February 1991 - June 1993
I was one of a self-employed partnership making and selling gemstone jewellery and minerals at craft fairs around East Anglia and through parties. The business was successful, but we were forced to sell it due to my partner's serious illness.

Assistant Manager
Inanna's Festival, Magdalen St. Norwich
October 1989 - February 1991
I organised other shop assistants and took complete responsibility for the shop one day a week as well as for a month during the owner's absence. I learnt a lot about administration in this job which I then applied to my own business.

Accountancy Staff
Norwich City Council
October 1988 - March 1989
I was responsible for bringing the Council's VAT returns up to date and organising a staff car loan scheme as well as general clerical duties, which included the use of Lotus 1-2-3.

Education and Qualifications

Graduate Women Returners Training
PCT Partnership, Edinburgh
May - July 2000
I completed a course designed to help women returning to the workplace. This included modern office procedures and recruitment methods. I passed the European Computer Driving license, a qualification designed to test familiarity with networking issues, word-processing, databases, spreadsheets, and presentation software.

Inform Course
Tinsley Lockhart, Edinburgh
February 1998 - July 1998
I successfully completed a course learning further aspects of Web page design, including PhotoShop, JavaScript, animation and sound and practiced my skills designing Web pages for a variety of purposes. The course included a work placement with the Bi Archive Project, for whom I designed and built a complete set of Web pages.

Post Graduate Diploma
Napier University, Edinburgh
September 1995 - September 1996
During this course I learnt to take a project from initial specifications through design, implementation and testing. My courses included networking technology, programming theory and software management, user friendly design principles, management issues, and communication theory. I learnt to use Authorware and Director authoring software to create fully interactive multimedia packages. This involved finding or designing and digitising graphics, text, animation, sound and video elements to create an attractive whole. I also learnt Web page design using HTML, and shooting and editing video footage. Our final project was a team undertaking which resulted in a complete package on CD-ROM.

Other Interests

I write articles for community newsletters and magazines and occasionally run workshops for local groups on topics from sexual health to creative writing. I have an abiding interest in science fiction and am currently writing my own fiction and attending an amateur writer's group. I stay in touch with people around the world through e-mail and Internet newsgroups and I maintain my own Web pages which contain a large sample of my writing, fiction and non-fiction.

Last updated 22nd August 2000