Briefs

Dinner for retiring staff

The Chair of Council, Tony Farr, will host a dinner for retiring staff on Wednesday, November 12, 2003, in the Smuts Dining Hall at 19h30 for 20h00. All staff are invited to attend this dinner to support the retirees. The cost of the three-course dinner, which includes a welcome cocktail, red/white wine, will be R80 per person. Contact Ursula Ross at 650-4436 or e-mail rossu@bremner.uct.ac.za by October 31.

Landscapes on show at Irma Stern

Moneo, an exhibition of paintings by Julia Teale, will be on show at the UCT Irma Stern Museum in Cecil Road, Rosebank, from October 15 until November 1.

Moneo is a series of paintings that could be loosely described as landscapes. The title is the Latin verb moneo, meaning primarily "to bring to the notice of, to remind, or to tell of".

Teale investigates those ostensibly less seductive aspects of southern African terrain, where extreme heat and dryness result in a lack of the picturesque, the pretty and the pleasing. The paintings explore the mute intensity of rock and sand, and, in some of the works, human bones excavated during archaeological digs are introduced, playing the fragility of human existence off against the apparent timelessness of stone.

Mircea Eliade, in Patterns of Comparative Religion, remarked, "Above all, a stone is. It always remains itself, exists of itself.

"Rock shows mankind something that transcends the precariousness of his humanity: an absolute mode of being."

Teale completed a masters of art in painting at the Michaelis School of Fine Art. She lives and works in Cape Town and teaches painting and drawing at Michaelis.

The Irma Stern Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10h00-17h00. Entrance fee: R7 adults, R3 learners and pensioners. For enquiries, phone 685-5686.

Quality assurance in the IT Helpdesk

The IT Helpdesk aims to deliver a consistent quality service for each of the 4 000 calls it receives per month. To achieve this, managers formally assess a random sample of calls handled daily by each consultant against set criteria. Regular feedback is given to the consultants and training needs are identified. Callers are also asked to comment on their perception of the service.

To assess telephone call handling skills specifically, the first level support manager, Jean Knaggs, will randomly tape-record telephone calls coming in and out of the IT Helpdesk. These will be listened to in the presence of the IT support consultant and rated against the criteria for telephone skills. Personal calls will not be included.

We appreciate your co-operation and participation in our quality assessment programme.