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• Coffee order: Americano
• Breakfast item of choice: Normal day – fruit and yoghurt, treat – pecan plait or sourdough avocado
• Fave biscuit: Dark chocolate ginger (borders)
• Fun fact: When I was 13, my friend taught me a secret language that I can still speak!

Waking up at 5am, my immovable exercise hour at 6am, probably a quality coffee in the sunshine (the past is always sunny) and then the usual day of team support, planning a workshop of some kind, signing off a report, doing some finance, troubleshooting and meeting a potential customer, likely after the fifth chasing email.

This day-in-my life feels like the optimal day during my time at Your Own Place.  This was likely somewhere around 2018 .  The recently enlarged team felt settled, I had moved into Norwich, making my work-life balance a lot simpler, there was an excellent coffee shop on the corner near the office and we had the novelty of a base.  It was pre-Covid and post the three-year-hump when lots of Community Interest Companies fail.  The team had grown, but not so much that I was constantly worried about money – every year had seen a surplus.  Something else that changed during and since Covid.

At some point in the second half of my decade, something shifted.  With Covid, the cost of living crisis and the catching up of the austerity years, the financial outlook felt bleak.  Whilst our own fortunes had not radically altered, the backdrop undeniably had.

This final post isn’t about doom and gloom.  Quite the opposite.  It’s about the journey you go on over ten years in social business.  Because at some point something changed for me too. Not for good or for ill, but just different.  Something I see when I look back at my social media output, my email approaches and how I conducted myself. 

Having created Your Own Place from a deep sense of injustice that some people, through no fault of their own are more likely to become homeless than others, the focus of my time, the podcasts I listened to, the articles I read and my broader interests, shifted not away from social justice, rather towards leadership as well.

Effectively a self-employed one-woman band for the first 18 months of Your Own Place’s life, as the organisation grew in size, ambition, quality as well as complexity, I needed to up my leadership game.  This hadn’t been in the plan. With a long way still to go and to learn, I’d like to think I’ve done okay.  I’ve made a gazillion mistakes, but in the impact language I love so much, there’s no counterfactual.  We don’t know what would have happened if I’d done something different/nothing.

That Your Own Place has proved me to be competent and more than competent not just in delivering workshops (it was this skill that led to our model), but in creating profit and loss accounts, public speaking, pitching, managing impact, making decisions, being resilient and tenacious, leading a strategy and a team and influencing and inspiring others is a chance revelation.  And this is exactly why we exist in the first place.  That it’s chance and good luck that I got those opportunities.  And it’s chance and bad luck that others don’t. 

So as I enter my last two weeks, the team is strong, we’re recruiting in Colchester and this year looks very likely to be our best yet financially, I find myself brimming with gratitude.  Brimming with gratitude for the person that Your Own Place has enabled me to become and with hope that others get their opportunities too. I am grateful for every single interaction, connection, opportunity and kindness shown to me .  Please continue to show it to Zoe, our new CEO, our team and everyone you work with or support. You never know what someone can become.

See you on the other side.

An Election coming might be a time to rethink foodbanks. Many people have found their stride working or volunteering in foodbanks over the last few years.  It’s a boom industry. In turn, (and we’re delighted to have played our part training Trussell Trust volunteers as well as visitors to foodbanks), people have got so much more than just food. Communities and individuals have developed new skills, found jobs, made connections, got and given help and created new more resilient communities.  

You’ll no doubt be aware of foodbanks’ meteoric rise to infamy for all the wrong reasons.  On our high streets, in under-used ecclesiastical buildings and community centres also used for Zumba and Pilates, the Trussell Trust alone has now distributed 3.1 million food vouchers with 3628 of those being in Norwich during 2023.  17% of families are food insecure and 4.7 million people are in food poverty. 

However, the Trussell Trust in particular wants to put themselves out of ‘business’ and at the time of potentially massive political upheaval, it is, well, a timely conversation. 

Is ending the need for foodbanks possible and is it even desirable?  

What would our communities look like without foodbanks?

What might we lose?  

I am reminded of a conversation with a friend.  She volunteered on the phone during Covid19, speaking to people who were isolated.  At this time, going to a foodbank was not an option and many people’s situations deteriorated. She told me of one older woman she spoke to, with almost no training, but who, she quickly became aware, needed mental health support.  My friend, untrained, but full of compassion and common sense, stayed in touch with her, whilst the rusty cogs of the state kicked into action.  Not without trying to pass the buck back to my friend and asking her to make the introduction, such was the woman’s situation that she didn’t want to pick up the phone to the authorities, help was finally sourced. It could have gone horribly wrong and from what my friend says about what she did, she did a lot right, including asking some great questions at the right time and recognising when the time for questions was done and the woman needed help. She was lonely.

So whilst foodbanks have become a part of the landscape, what my conversation with my friend reminded me of, and I’m old enough to remember this, is the gaps they fill in the services we’ve lost.  The neighbourhood housing offices, the SureStart centres, youth clubs and community venues – with food as the hook, foodbanks are now in this space with poverty driving demand.  What many don’t see, is that as well as Your Own Place supporting people with the most obvious and presenting need of financial inclusion support, you’ll also find someone from Shelter, the British Red Cross, Citizens Advice, AgeUK as well as the friendly face of a volunteer with at least a cup of tea (possibly a cheese straw), a crêche, a warm space, possibly a WiFi connection – all at a foodbank. 

1 in 4 people will experience a mental health problem of some kind each year in England, at least 309,000 people are homeless, Citizens Advice are seeing record numbers of people in debt and 1 in 4 older people suffer with isolation. If we lose foodbanks we lose spaces that have become a rarity in our communities – a place to come together, meet our neighbours, build communities, learn about available help from our peers, get warm, use the WiFi and more.  Add in your local authority or association housing officer and some wellbeing help, and you’ve got nearly the whole complement of a community.

So maybe their meteoric rise isn’t all bad, or at least, we shouldn’t throw the baby out with the bathwater after whatever happens on July 4th.  We should aim to eradicate the demand whilst recognising that they present us with a model to build on and invest in. For the volunteers, the people that work there, local employers and services, local authorities, housing associations, you, me and those that visit them, they are an opportunity to come together and connect. We might develop new skills, be part of creating or finding jobs, make new connections with our neighbours, proactively get as well as give help as equals and play a role in new more resilient communities.