Weeknote 09, 25th February 2019
What I’m doing
I spent a lot of time on the tube and on the phone this week. I worked all over the place, including at all three of our sites on Monday alone. It was lovely to see so much purpose and passion at each of our branches. We had a site directors’ meeting, and a local operations meeting. I spent time on the phone talking about storytelling, impact investment, and lease negotiation. I had some great meetings: with Ben Pollard of Local Welcome, one of the lead midwives at Kings College Hospital, a couple of potential new trustees, the Director of a corporate foundation and a brilliant global HR director who kindly donated an hour of her time to coach me. I facilitated a session on our 2019 strategy with Cat Drew at our monthly Point People meeting. I spoke at two events, one with my local MP, and one at a huge and very cool fundraiser for our Wandsworth branch. And we finalised the content for our Mother’s Day campaign, launching this coming week. It’s been relentlessly busy: long days and 4 of 5 nights were spent at work (though thankfully one of these evenings involved a couple of glasses of wine and some excellent live music too!)
What I’m learning
There hasn’t been much room to breathe this week. I guess my learning, as far as it went, was about the impact my energy and mood has on the rest of the team, and the need to balance being honest when I’m feeling vulnerable with not spooking people out unnecessarily about financial challenges. And I know an awful lot more about property leases and licences and sharing agreements than I did seven days ago, after two super helpful calls with lawyers…
What I’m celebrating
I’m celebrating the incredible people who do so much to support our work without us asking or expecting anything. For example, on Friday night, an amazing Balham parent, Jo, organised a night of free music and dancing in aid of our work. She secured the venue, 4 bands and a DJ for free, and raised an incredible £3000 for us through a lot of hard work and charm. Everywhere I go there are people like Jo who have done so much to help us keep our doors open, without us even asking for their help. It blows me away.
What I’m feeling
I’m still in deep fog around the questions of scaling and sustainability but I feel more comfortable there than perhaps I did a couple of weeks ago. First because I’m starting to line up the help we need to find our way out (when in fog, hold hands, as an old designer friend of mine always says), and second because I know that the uncertainty of fog is a necessary stage in developing new ideas. Wherever we land will be better because of the heavy lifting of this phase. Though it’s very stressful to be here with the spectre of no funding hanging over me.
Who I’m working with
It’s been a week of lots of meetings rather than any deep work. But all of these conversations have helped in terms of gathering the right people I think we need around our focus on future sustainability. From impact investors to fundraisers to service designers and tech people, we’re getting there…
Photo of the week
