First this week, I need to say 'hello'. Hello to the many reporters at the Yorkshire Evening Post who I understand have been 'enjoying' this regular feature of mine.

It has been brought to my attention that someone has been doing a 'cut and paste job' and forwarding my ramblings to the newsroom in Wellington Street. I also understand that my comments/thoughts/musings have caused a bit of a kerfuffle. It goes without saying that it's never my intention to cause a kerfuffle. For a good start it's a difficult word to spell.

For the record; the media does frustrate me but that doesn't mean I hate all reporters.

Let's be honest, some journalists are certainly guilty of dodgy reporting, missed out facts and questionable motives but that's par for the course. It comes with the territory. In fact, just 21 months ago, they were me. I was the journalist chastising the life out of Buckinghamshire County and Aylesbury Vale District councils while I was the news editor of the local radio station; using the word 'incinerator' when I knew that the council was trying to promote it as an 'energy from waste plant'. That's why I know where they are coming from.

But now, I'm the poacher turned gamekeeper and I'm uber-defensive of this great organisation that we all work for.

I meet new people all the time in this job (which is the best bit) and as every day goes by I realise that there are thousands of people doing fantastic work for the people of this city and they've got loads of good stories to tell. But does all that hard work ever get reported in full anywhere? Of course not. Not when there's a strip of grass that we forgot to cut.

Yes, the local media needs to hold us to account when we get things wrong and the decisions the council makes need to be scrutinised.

But, ladies and gentlemen of the YEP, I do worry that overall some reporting is unnecessarily negative. The drubbing we get from you is very tiresome. But, it doesn't mean that I wouldn't buy a drink for you if I saw you in the pub.

So then, perhaps there's just a little irony in the following.

I've had an email from the YEP's deputy editor, Nicola Megson, asking if I could promote the paper's new Reader Panel:

Hello Andy and colleagues. I do hope you are well

I wanted to let you know that the YEP is setting up a Reader Panel.

We want to find out as much as we can about what people like - and don't like - about the YEP as a paper and as a website. In the longer term, as we find out more about people's interests, we hope to communicate even more efficiently with them regarding specific stories and subjects.

I think you'll agree that any opportunity to increase the dialogue we have with our readers has to be a good thing.

The key is getting as many people as possible to join - and I'm hoping that you will sign up and also help push the message to as many people as possible. The bigger the numbers, the more effective the panel.

You'll find the details of how to sign up in the pages of the YEP today and on the website, www.yorkshireeveningpost.co.uk

Your help in spreading the message to your own associates, friends, colleagues and contacts would be much appreciated.

Best wishes

Nicola Megson
Deputy Editor
Yorkshire Evening Post

Done. Just to show there are no long-term hard feelings.

Before being 'forced' at the last minute to start with the issue of my leaked log, I was planning to write ... well ... about, umm, planning actually.

I was thinking at the weekend about how part of my team's job is to spend lots of time planning for something with the full intention that you'd rather no-one ever saw the fruits of all of your hard work.

It sounds like a paradox, but it it's not meant to be. Let me explain and give you an example.

There are several people across the council, myself and one of my press officer colleagues who've spent the last few weeks (in fact at least one of them has spent months) preparing and planning for a significant piece of news that had to be released this week. There have been loads of meetings to discuss how this should be handled because of the likely media interest and partner agencies have been co-ordinating and collating their responses. It has been a lot of hard work to get everything ready.

And what outcome am I hoping for after all this work? Easy. I hope it's wasted. I don't want anyone to notice. I'd rather not have to use any of the media statements I've written and re-written numerous times.

Strange I know, but that's what I think. We do lots of preparation in case an issue comes to light in the press and more often than not it never surfaces. I guess that’s one of the more peculiar aspects of the job.

It's a bit like when I was a St John Ambulance volunteer medic. I used to spend hours on end in fields in the rain watching horse or motorbike trials while hoping NOTHING would happen. Mainly because if it did and I had to spring into action it was because someone had been hurt and that's clearly not good.

Finally, a quick warning.

If you see Councillor Richard Brett up a ladder trying to unscrew the main sign from the side of Scott Hall leisure centre, then don't panic.

Cllr Brett has put his weight behind our efforts to sort out the numerous branding and identity issues we have across the council. Although I wasn't there to hear this in person, I understand he's very generously offered to use his own ladder and have a go at the sign himself with his Black and Decker power drill.

This after he saw our photographs showing the worst examples of awful signage on council buildings. Scott Hall leisure centre was the number-one horror, but it seems its days are numbered. Thank goodness.