Why weeknotes?
I’ve worked for myself since 2015. There are so many flexibilities that come with freelance work and opportunities to be part of different groupings and partnerships. The flipside is that it often feels there’s no-one to support you, to hold you to account. I have seen other people that I know use weeknotes as a way to document their work, their learnings and also personal reflections. There are so few people that will see this website, but this is a space for me to regularly document my ideas, remind myself of what has been achieved and also keep a record of things that I have seen and heard.
22 November 2024
Things I have been working on
- Analysis of policies from a municipality. Slow work that needs time and space. Impossible to do when I have meetings. I managed to clear a few days but things still popped up and I might need to work over the weekend to get it done. Some things cannot be rushed and need time to work out exactly how the work is adding to others.
- Talking about some potential support for active travel and retrofit work.
- Attending a hybrid event remotely where they hadn’t 100% thought through the tech. Trying to share constructive feedback through frustration.
- Summarising outcomes for community environmental activities. Making long lists. Coming back to more focus.
- A full financial review of the year. Ouch. Budgeting, realising there’s not enough now all the costs have gone up. Getting practical about what can and should be cut.
- Catching up with a range of old colleagues and friends to chat about where we are all up to, where we can see potential for collaboration, and where we need to avoid sinking our energy into things that don’t yield much use.
- Planning work for early 2025.
Things I have been reading/ listening to
- Why would feminists trust the police?
- Elite Capture
- Mona Eltahawy. Always powerful.
- James Meadway. “You can’t eat GDP”
- [Deleting substack subscriptions for things I’m not reading]
25 October 2024
Things I have been working on
- Two final workshops in a series. I definitely felt the tiredness by the end, especially the second to last one where we had 50 minutes to do something we’d already been squeezing into two hours. But, I think we achieved what we set out to. Open and expansive conversations, generating some text for a plan.
- Digesting what we discussed and writing up into a summary.
- Writing a blog for the first time in years. Not sure how good it is… will see.
Things I have been reading/ listening to
- Lots of podcasts - Pod Save the UK, Macrodose, Trevor Noah, Over the Top and Under the Radar, Blindboy
- Reading blindboy’s latest book of short stories
- The big thing people miss when they talk about values
17 October 2024
Things I have been working on
- Not so much weeknotes but month notes. I have had a lot of work (and then a week of friends visiting which put any additional tasks well down the list)
- Writing proposals for new work. One that is mildly interesting. The other could be fantastic, and I am doing it with a few old colleagues who I love and respect. Pulling it together has been challenging in all the right ways.
- Lots and lots of workshops - three where I was a facilitator, one a participant. Lots of deep conversations about how we are working, what we are learning, how we move past managerialism into doing the best with all of our skills. It’s been a pleasure (but I am knackered after each performance!)
- Thinking about outcomes for collective environmental work.
- Thinking about all the different fields of knowledge needed to inform the work of a community music venue, and what we already know about how music, collective action and place shapes lives.
- Doing my business tax return, paying tax. Not quite having the time to do a full financial review of all outgoings. Postponing for another week.
Things I have been reading/ listening to
- We Can Do Hard Things with adrienne maree brown about her new book, Loving Corrections
- Who Cares by Emily Kenway- we were trustees together at the Voice of Domestic Workers. This book is beautifully written and balances personal and policy/ strategic thinking.
Older posts
July, August & September 2024April, May & June 2024January, February & March 2024October, November & December 2023July, August & September 2023April, May & June 2023January, February & March 2023September, October, November & December 2022April, May & June 2022February & March 2022