Moving on

After thirteen years, I've left the social enterprise I co-founded in 2010. It's the right thing to do, but not an easy thing to do.

You haven’t heard from me for best part of a couple of months. That’s largely because I haven’t had much space in my head for much else other than sorting things out for me leaving the organisation I helped to set up 13 years ago.

We went into detail on the background to the situation on the SBB website, so I won’t go over all that detail again here.

But in short, for the last couple of years it’s been increasingly difficult to bring in enough income to sustain the work that we do - and it’s been particularly challenging to find money to do the kind of stuff that I’m good at, and where I add value.

So for a while we’ve been exploring how to ensure that we don’t put at risk the successful projects which do currently have funding. That process led to me making the decision to leave at the end of May.

It’s not easy to leave an organisation you helped to set up. It’s also a bit of a challenge to suddenly find yourself unemployed for pretty much the first time in your life aged 50.

But I’m very much aware that in all of this there is a big opportunity too. A chance to take a bit of a step back, and to reflect on what I want to do in the next stage of my life.

With a bit of luck I might have another 20 years of working life, hopefully more volunteering for things that I care about. Even though there are times right now when it all feels a bit daunting, and there are still things to work through, I’m conscious of how much of a privilege that is too. I look forward to sharing with you where things take me over the next months and years.

In the meantime, I’m making the most of my free time to go for a few long walks. If I’ve learnt anything over the years, it’s that a walk in nature, alone or with others, always helps to move things on.