Tl;dr: I talked myself out of a huge piece of work!
For Monday 28th September – Sunday 4th October 2026.
At work:
- Catchment project: on tickover now that my main recommendations report is in, attending team meetings and facilitating partnership meetings.
- Strategy co-design project: developed engagement materials for holding conversations in communities with adults and young people.
- Engagement coordination project: meetings, planning, meetings, planning.
- Guest lecture: final prep and spent the day with second year students at Black Mountains College, talking about complexity and systems change, it was so good!
- Training session on cultural competence: prepped and delivered an online session for a group of local authority staff, on behalf of Tai Pawb.
- Deep listening project: kick off meeting with the client (I am project lead), doing a bunch of planning and putting project management-y things in place (like safeguarding and data protection processes).
Deliverables this week:
- Guest lecture, training session.
- Also a board meeting in my role as vice-chair at Data Orchard.
Development this week:
- Facilitating of employee engagement days: had a scoping meeting with the client to gather information to prepare a quote. Talked myself (and the client!) out of this huge facilitation gig which would have been 2 days with 100 people per day and lots of prep and so on… because in the last 10 mins of our call I came to the conclusion that it’s not the best way to achieve what they’re trying to achieve. Proud of myself – and also boo to not quoting for a good couple thousand pounds’ worth of work. 😀
- An enquiry for supporting a team to develop their facilitation skills, I love their approach. (I could deliver facilitation for them but it’s more fun to build sustainable skills in the team!) We’ll talk next week.
At home:
- No HIIT on Monday as the gym was closed for the setup of new equipment, and I did not go on Friday because I got up early and did work straight away to preserve my focus. I did do a hybrid fitness session on Thursday, but I didn’t like it as much as HIIT (not enough breaks and not enough weights, and also even earlier in the morning). No pilates on Wednesday as I was delivering a training session early. No swim this weekend, I had a spontaneous day out on the (motor)bike instead. Not much exercise this week and I was noticeably creaky by the weekend!
- I did not spend a few hours in the pop-up darkroom as planned, because Sunday dawned bright and sunny and warm, and my biker friend and I decided to shelve our indoor plans and go out for a meander – as it might be one of the last few perfect bike days of the year. We followed our noses and stopped for coffee and snacks in several places and had a beautiful day out. No regrets. Bike bike bike!
Hwb – defnyddio fy Nghymraeg (hub – using my Welsh):
Weekly Welsh homework to find something to talk about in class (in Welsh ofc).
- I’ll talk about taking the bike out on Sunday!
