The mobile rang, and a man introduced himself as a headteacher in a Cheshire school. He wanted to know if there were more materials due to be sent out from the National College for School Leadership (NCSL), apart from what he had seen so far. I put on my best NCSL facilitator smile and asked him to contact the helpdesk for the latest information.

I didn't spend time explaining that I left the NCSL project two years ago, as I'm sure he didn't need to know the story of my career at that moment - he could check out my homepage in NCSL's talktolearn area. I joined the Talking Heads facilitation team in 2001, straight from representing Ultralab at the Millennium Dome. Talking Heads had just completed a successful pilot for 1200 headteachers and was scaling up; the project was a precursor to NCSL, which had not even appointed its first staff or laid the foundations for the colllege building. I facilitated the engagement of individual headteachers in the online communities, then as the project scaled up the focus was on facilitation of communities - but headteachers were always assigned a personal contact, and they had my mobile number. Since the handover at the end of 2003 to NCSL's own team of facilitators, I've had the occasional call and it always brings a smile. I'm glad that "my" headteachers still feel that I might be a useful person to call about NCSL matters.

I'm not the only Ultralab facilitator who has continued to get calls from the headteachers we facilitated, and I think its interesting that when there is a problem some people would rather call a facilitator than the helpdesk, however friendly and helpful the helpdesk might be. The reason for having a helpdesk is to simplify help, and to enable specialists to work with the online communities (here I have a flash of Activity Theory and its division of labour) - it would be unlikely that any one person could be expert in all aspects of an online environment. Behind the calm exterior of individual (personal) facilitation in Ultralab's online communities is a hectic interaction between the members of the team, drawing on different skills and strengths.

Perhaps if the headteacher had felt a more personal connection with the NCSL helpdesk (or dare I say it with his present facilitator), the call might not have come my way. Similarly, there is a need to continue the work we have already started, to build more connections between researchers and the helpdesk/technical/other teams in the fully online Honours degree course where I now spend most of my time.