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.
7 March 2025
Things I have been working on
- Thinking about leadership, and how that connects to applying principles of emergence in organisations.
- Reading tons of things, promptly forgetting them all. My brain is foggy!
- Exploring how retrofit (housing energy efficiency actions) can be a tool to bring people together for collective action, collective benefit. Thinking about how the private rented sector has the houses in the worst condition, but how do you support upgrades without enriching owners/ increasing rents for those with the least.
- Not finding time to finish a bid, as it doesn’t have a deadline.
- Training - in online facilitation and AI Impacts 101. Both were excellent in content and helping me reset some knowledge and skills.
Things I have been reading/ listening to
- An event at the LSE on the idea of an extreme wealth line (from my colleagues at NEF)
- I went to the Hard Graft: Work, health and rights exhibition at Wellcome, partly to see an exhibit from my friends at the Voice of Domestic Workers
- This is how we fall out of love with the world.
- Disobedient Bodies
31 January 2025
Things I have been working on
- January started busy, had a few middling weeks and has ended in a sprint. Definitely looking forward to the weekend!
- Active travel - outcomes of neighbourhood interventions, links to long-term impacts
- How to do community engagement - planning a series of case studies.
- Case study templates for delivery organisations. And how to use them for learning and reflection.
- An away day with a fellow freelancer to plan how we can work together and create great work this year. Reflecting on our favourite projects, common values and hopes and where we can be most valuable to the movement. Lunch with another - where we might build some deep research this year.
- Adapting proposals myself and a freelancer wrote before Christmas as the brief changed. Hoping we get the more refined work as it’s something we both want to explore.
Things I have been reading/ listening to
19 December 2024
Things I have been working on
- Lots. Too many projects. But they are 99% strategic, interesting and with great people. This month was full of trying to complete things before the break whilst being cognitively burnt out. It all got done but it seemed we all limped to the end.
- Thinking about how to write a better social value policy for a public sector organisation. Balancing aspiration and practicality.
- Reflections on power when making community investments.
- Plans for in person workshops in January. Really looking forward to working in close proximity to people I think are brilliant.
- Summarising end of year reflections from the team I work in 2.5 days a week. So nice to look back together.
Things I have been reading/ listening to
- Very little - my brain was overloaded with information from work.
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).
- I have moved partially in-house for one of my biggest partners so 2.5 days a week will be based there. So my “freelance” work is reducing but still overlapping with the projects I am delivering there.
- 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