More things on care - how we more easily explain how money is extracted from the sector. How we can better commission care. How we can think about the human side (someone from Juno mentioned the need to create loving environments… when was the last time you heard “love” and “commissioning” in the same space!?)
Mapping interventions in higher education linked to sustainability.
Thinking about skills infrastructure.
Clearing the decks from the very busy delivery period Jan-March. Including finalising notes and materials from a very many sessions I delivered.
Taking a full break out of the city for Easter - clean air, rest, good food.
Wrapping up the work on leadership. Reflecting deeply about someone saying ‘care for people and the organisation is at the heart of this work’ and thinking about how I apply that to all of my practice.
Having less of a foggy brain. Rest and setting a more manageable pace helped. Still failing to do anything without an expressed deadline.
Setting out a creative approach to telling impact stories across a programme of work.
Reading papers about how care organisations extract money - a combination of business structures, debt, offshoring - and thinking about the implications for the quality of care, and the finances of the public sector.
Applying the training I did. My meeting facilitation is completely different. A worthwhile investment!
Not making enough time to do reflections. Committing to coming back each week.
Things I have been reading/ listening to
Many podcasts. Macrodose for economics, this excellent episode of Computer Says Maybe on Gen AI and work/ labour, Over The Top and Under the Radar and Pod Save the UK to understand the state of the world without having to read everything. Farmarama had a great few episodes on soil and art.
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
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.
