Weeknote 11, 11th March 2019

The mountain of donations that arrive at our stock rooms every week at Little Village is testament to the crazy, insatiable consumer world in which we live. Thanks Cathy Runciman for this image from the school strikers this week. I found it very moving to see the turnout and it made me feel ashamed to be officially more of an adult than a young person. Next time I am taking my kids out of school to be part of this.

What I’ve been doing

A group of us (including our new fundraiser and ops manager — hurrah!) spent Monday with Caitlin and David from Baringa Partners, discussing strategy and operationalising our dreams. I had various meetings with my awesome team, planning and prioritising work, and trying to reassure people that we don’t need to realise all our plans at once. I had a lovely meeting with potential private supporters about space and how we can find it (please let this work out…). I spent a reassuring and useful three hours with our new finance manager reforecasting the budget. I met a brilliant documentary photographer who is interested in collaborating with us, and I also met a personal hero of mine, Sophie Humphreys, founder, and until recently Chair, of Pause. I went along to an alumni gathering of the Paul Hamlyn Ideas and Pioneers fund (they kindly paid my childcare costs in 2016, enabling me to have a couple of child-free days each week to develop Little Village). And finally I wrote a bid to Pro-Bono Economics, and I’m very much hoping they will support us in developing a cost benefit analysis of our work.

What I’m learning

I feel like this has been a week that’s rich in learning, and a pleasure for that reason. I’ve been reading a fascinating book in every spare moment called Modello, which introduces a therapeutic way of working that really resonates with me, both personally and in relation to Little Village. I’ve been reading up on peer-based family programmes, what we might learn from the use of peer work in mental health settings, realist evaluations, and how we build resilience from places like the Early Intervention Foundation. I’m excited about where we want to take things at Little Village, and the next step will be to develop our thinking with the parents and families we want to work with.

What I’m celebrating

I’m celebrating a breakthrough in thinking about Little Village’s direction! It feels an enormous relief to be emerging from the fog, despite the fact I still need to translate these ideas into bids so compelling that people actually want to fund them. But that’s the next challenge and one I feel more able to manage. I’m also *trying* to celebrate how crap I am at “feeling the rhythm” in my piano playing. It’s really hard being bad at something. And it takes me right back to being a 6 year old who was told she was ‘rather wooden’ in a ballet exam (sob). But this is a good experience to be having, right? (and if anyone has any good exercises to develop my ability to hear rhythm, send them my way….)

What I’m feeling

My main feeling right now is one of relief. I feel like the ideas are flowing again. And I feel real hope that we’ve got some talented new people on the team who bring lots of great experience, energy and skills, and are going to help us make things fly.

Who I’m working with

I’ve had lots of time on the phone and in person with the core team this week, and as ever I’m reminded of the serious talent of this group of women. The loss of the big employers who couldn’t flex enough to fit with parenthood is our gain. My meeting of the week was with Sophie Humphreys: I’m unashamed in my admiration of her ability to take a powerful vision and turn it into something transformative and scaleable. A total professional crush.

Photo of the week

Here we are on page 2 of the FT on Tuesday (read the full article here). One of the bids I need to write in the next 2 months is about how we can develop more comms capacity that starts with the voices and stories of the parents we meet.