A week in cloud types
or how to crowbar your hobby into your writing
MONDAY — Cumulonimbus
This day involved a lot, so it felt big, like a big fat cloud reaching all the way up into the atmosphere, getting ready to unleash tonnes of water.
The morning had a Third Sector Lab catch up to talk about what everyone was doing and make plans for the week ahead.
Ross McCulloch and I talked a bit more about how to move forward with the Open Working and Reuse advocacy and support for funders and grant holders and came up with this plan and a way to concisely communicate it to the funders.
We also drafted a sign up form for grant holders to participate in the open working programme.
We also prepped for the Digital Trustees Matchmaking Event we ran that evening together with UK Black Tech. Final prep emails were sent out to attendees, the speaker Katia Hountondji was confirmed. I am pleased to report the event was a success. Mark Martin at UK Black Tech was very impressed with the enthusiasm and passion from tech and charity professionals. He offered to send his network a list of contact details plus short blurb from any charity interested — a lovely way of broadening networks and recruiting outside the box!
Straight after the matchmaking event I ran away to walk the walk, by attending my first board meeting as part of the trustee recruitment process with local charity Remake Scotland.
Tuesday — Altocumulus
Little bits of everything dotted about.
We want to know what people think about our digital trustee matchmaking events, so we send out a follow up email which includes a link to a survey. Feedback so far is good, and constructive where needed.
It was also time for some reporting on numbers, so reports from Zoom were plugged into the Catalyst google sheet.
For the open working with funders we would like to reuse Joe Roberson’s weeknote sessions format. We’ll preface this with a workshop session on Open Comms and are looking for someone to run that now!
Wednesday — Cirrus
Intangible and lovely, high up.
More conceptual and far-off things.
Thinking about the next round of proposals for extending out work with Catalyst. Proposals are due in mid-June, and in the cooperative way of doing things we are all looking at how this assessment should be done, what the considerations might be and how we can be as inclusive as possible. Lots of info to digest from slide decks, recorded meetings and Miro boards!
Looking at measuring outcomes for the various initiatives with InFocus, again mostly on Miro boards (or is it Mural?). It is intresting shifting your mindset from the practical machinations of running a programme to the qualitative and quantitative questions to ask to help determine if the work is doing what it is supposed to.
Thursday — Lenticular clouds
Zooming into the sky like a flying saucer, compact and finite.
The last day of my week! Thinking about how to make cloud pictures relevant to a blog post (achieved with middling success, I feel).
Continuing the search for an open working session facilitator, sharing information about the next Digital Trustees Matchmaking event with Sonya Hayden for the next The Catalyst newsletter.
Edited the layout of four services recipes so that they can be published soon.
This evening will be the kids’ school disco, so I am on hair duty, then running off to put up a gazebo (if the wind would calm down for 5 minutes…) and chaperoning a bunch of primary school kids. Tomorrow is personal project time — illustrating a kids book about a mad Halloween adventure!
