The good burghers of Airdrie must have wondered why there were so many smartly dressed men in posh cars in the vicinity of the local football club’s Excelsior Stadium on a Tuesday morning.
After all, the CIS Cup match between “the Waysiders” and Dundee United was not until the evening and the next Orange walk is not due until next year.
The answer - of course - was that the inaugural conference of the Centre for Educational Leadership (CEL) was taking place in the conference suite.
Jim Fleming, director of the Scottish Centre for Studies in School Administration, welcomed his audience and delivered the usual housekeeping arrangements.
These included a warning that the room was likely to get very warm, and to have their fans ready. The temptation was too much for the droll Lanarkshire wit of heidie Tam Bradshaw of St Thomas Aquinas Secondary in Glasgow. “That’ll be the first time that one of them’s been in here,” he quipped.
The defeat of the Waysiders by Dundee United in the evening rendered a certain poignancy, not to say superfluity, to the notice on the door of the suite: “Please do not take Cups (sic) into the main hall.”
(Footy note: if someone successfully completes a CPD course run by the Centre For Educational Leadership do they get a CELTICK?)
