We can see a plan coming together

This has been a weird week to be out of the office and away from the financial metropolis. Within a week we have misplaced the long established names of Lehmans, Merrill Lynch, Halifax and Bank of Scotland. To lose one famous institution is unlucky, two careless, but losing this many is the beginning of a meltdown. Am awaiting call from HM Treasury to be asked how to fix it...

Down in Portsmouth we have been working with Dreamwall to put some flesh on the strategy. We have spent some time understanding what the team really wants to achieve as well as what motivates them and have overlaid this on a wide range of options for taking Dremwall forward. This is now coming together; I will spell it out in a bit more detail next week when we have it down on paper. I have rather rashly got involved in some financial modelling of various options. Needless to say, I do not think any of my team back in the office need to worry about me doing them out of a job.

Next weekend I am out on one of the Dreamwall residentials. This involves spending a couple of nights under canvas in the New Forest with 12 kids from Portsmouth's programme to reduce youth offending. The aim of these events is to develop a sense of teamwork, of setting boundaries and developing a sense of self-worth. The amusing element is that I will be doing things like walking up a river in chest high water at 10pm at night. This is undoubtedly fun for the kids (who do not feel the cold) but will be "interesting" for one is more used to a cossetted lifestyle. Is this what they call "getting down with the kids"?

I met some more of those rare altruistic people this week. My favourite was a landscaping and grounds maintenance business run by the Shaw Trust. They run a commercial organisation, the fantastic quirk being that they employ mostly mentally or physically disabled people. They do this with full employment terms with wages/packages above industry norms. Their staff are regarded as more committed than most, highly trained and very reliable. The profits from the business support a plant nursery in the grounds of a hospital which acts as their hub and a therapeutic facility for the hospital. This is real social enterprise. I stood with them wondering why this could not be done elsewhere and, surprisingly, wondering how easy it would be for me to set one up.

It was a shorter week this week as, through a quirk of timing, I am having a sublime to ridiculous moment. This will come clear on the next post...