At work:
- Health and social care event: Despite some of my emails to participants and potential speakers getting caught in NHS spam filters and disappearing into the ether (I had made a plan B and a plan C because I hadn’t heard back!), it all came together nicely on the day. The person who we hoped would speak, did so with zero notice and did a magnificent job – and it was super helpful content for everyone to hear. SO glad that worked out. The group (from across statutory and third sector) moved through the day towards partnership working and continuing to collaborate. A nice outcome and what we were hoping for. I’ve also written up the notes from the event, now just waiting for a few bits from other people before sending them out next week.
- Health and social care engagement materials: Still got the last resource to format, but this week we did a mapping session with the team to think through the whole process from start to finish, and work out their workflows and where things could be different. Now I have to figure out what to do with this data, though the process of mapping and collating was useful in itself – but it would be good to have something practical to show for it.
- Website engagement project: The Women’s Health Website for Wales launched on Monday! It looks so good. The team has a list of future imrpovements to build in, so it’s not the end of the road, but it is such a huge milestone that everyone’s been working towards. My part in it (on the engagement) is nearly over. It’s been lovely working with such a committed and thoughtful team; and it’s been amazing to see the website shaping up over the last few months, in direct response to the engagement insights, to arrive at what it is for the launch. Worlds apart from where we started, although the bones were there then! I sent out an individual email to everyone in the engagement cohort and received some lovely comments by return. I also had a conversation with two young women we’d been aiming to talk to for a while, but who had been busy with revisions and exams etc. I was able to capture their immediate reactions to the live website, and unlike the other women we’d spoken to it was the first time they encountered it, so this was very useful – and their feedback was equally positive. So much hard work has gone into this, much appreciation to the team at Welsh Gov, NHS Wales, and Digital Health and Care Wales (DHCW).
- Catchment partnership project: Prepared an outline for facilitating a meeting next week, with the key statutory stakeholders in the project. The aim is to grow a partnership from there and include other organisations, and engage with communities in the area.
- Board strategic session: Pulled together a session plan, and made a note of outstanding questions to run through with the team at our check-in early next week. The key one is, what time are the trains and do we want to finish at 3pm or 3:30? That half hour could make all the difference. 😀
Deliverables this week:
- Cultural competence training: the second of 3 online sessions I am running this month for a Welsh local authority. Went well again, lovely feedback.
Development this week:
- “Managing change” leadership workshop: Mapped an outline session for a 4 hour workshop with community activists and social business leaders around the theme of managing change. This is to be considered along with (or in comparison with) another potential supplier, so we’ll see. Fingers crossed because this would be a cool session to run.
- Supporting a team’s transformation work: Recorded an expression of interest video with a freelance facilitator colleague and friend. We scripted it quite well and still went over time LOADS as we had so much to share – she did a sterling job editing it down to really close to the limit. Like I said last week it’s so competitive that we’re unlikely to get it, but it was fun to do and the process of thinking through was super useful. We’ll see, fingers crossed anyway.
- Supporting a network’s evaluation approach: This project has been ongoing for a while with the occasional advisory session and big gaps in between. Had a catchup with the client team as they’ve had an extension on the project, so we’ve made plans for the remaining months.
- Unconscious bias in recruitment training: A bit last minute as per my usual, I’ve been pulling together training content for next week. I’d been given the slides from a previous trainer but I wanted to update the structure and add some resources and other bits, so it’s ended up being a much bigger job than just adopting and updating someone’s slides – but it should be worth it.
At home:
- Non-exec role: Increased support for the executive and staff team this month, a few additional but very crucial meetings that it’s important that we get right. As vice-chair I’m working closely with the chair and the executive team to hold everyone during this period of change.
- A good week with 3 pilates sessions.
- Back on my bullshit this week-end (swimming in the sea). Water at 10 degC, stayed in 10 minutes, in glorious sunshine.
- Missed Welsh class again, and it’s looking like I’m going to miss next week also – 3 weeks in a row! It’s not good. But things are just ramping up towards financial year end and it’s so intense. The classes don’t cover a lot of grammar right now and focus mainly on conversation practice, which is impossible to catch up on from the recordings. Gah!
- On Monday I had zero meetings (this happens never), but on Tuesday I had 8 meetings, so swings and roundabouts. Diary management 101??!
- I bumped the front of my car lightly (manoeuvering too fast in the dark on the car park at home, luckily the damage is very slight and you have to know to look for it to spot it). But also had the back of my car bumped at a traffic light, so off to my friendly garage first thing Monday to get an estimate and some advice. I forgot everything I ever learnt about handling a collision, because it never happens so ofc you forget, and in the moment everything is a bit intense. I’ve got the other driver’s name and phone number but I didn’t think to get their registration. Ah well, let’s see if my faith in people’s basic decency will be rewarded. If the damage is minimal and affordable for me to fix, I’ll just do it; I know it will be a lot less than the damage to the other car, which had a smashed radiator. A tiny part of me is like, I mentioned my car last week for the first time, and this week… ALL THIS?! How. How!
- On Friday I went to support the swim girls who were running their PTA fundraiser quiz at the primary school, and it was brilliantly organised, also we laughed so much and my team won the quiz, so what a high to end the week on. 😀
The sea at Penarth today