I’ve just wound up a year-long mentoring project. Last summer I started volunteering with The Cranfield Trust who provide consultancy and mentoring support to charities, free of charge. It’s an incredible service – and I wish I’d known about it when I started my first charity management role. I signed up as a…
Tag: Freelance
Why Endings Matter
This week has got me thinking about the importance of endings. I’ve recently experienced a number of endings and it’s interesting to reflect on why they matter and what constitutes ending something well. In the space of the last month, I’ve finished a contract, ended a year-long mentoring relationship, had my last coaching…
Day in The Life
One of my favourite things about being freelance is the variety it provides. Wednesday felt like a particularly good example of that variety, as well as the brain-stretch you need to keep jumping between different work, so here’s another insight into a day in the life of a charity consultant: 6am ish: Wake…
International Mischief Making: Facilitation Training
“Serious results don’t require serious behaviour” is the motto of Mischief Makers – the international facilitation and training company. I’ve just completed an 8-week block of training with them on leading groups, with a particular focus on hybrid settings – where you have some delegates in person and some joining online. It’s been…
Generalists Unite
There’s a beauty and a complexity to being a generalist. How do you build and strengthen your professional identity when your range is broad? Awkward Introductions I feel one of the things I want to work on this year is being more comfortable owning the label of a generalist. When I started out,…
A Year of Business
I’m officially a year into self-employment – while I didn’t do a huge celebration, I did take my husband out for an amazing taster menu dinner and raised a glass then. So, where am I a year on – what’s the same and what’s changed? Name Changes Early doors I started using the…
A Year of Blogs
This week marks a year of blogs – 52 entries in total. Somehow through the madness of going self-employed I’ve managed to write one every week. Or more truthfully, there is a blog for every week of the year – sometimes these were written once a week and sometimes they were written a…
What You Need is a Marathon
“What you need is a marathon” – said no-one, ever. But this week marked my second one, and even I struggle to explain why I put myself through it. My first one was a kind of therapy, booked in the delirium of sleeplessness in the middle of the night, holding my first baby…
Lessons in Communities of Practice
This week I finished up a contract doing network development for a community of practice. It started off as 3 months and thanks to funding being confirmed, it was extended to six months. They’re an association I used to be part of in a previous role, so how was it being on the…
Embracing Uncertainty
The last few weeks have seen the end of two contracts and I’m finally entering a lighter period of work. It’s a great time to really think through how to make the best use of this time. Acceptance I think a big thing here is about acceptance. Having spoken to a number of…