(nearing) The end of the beginning

Time flies. This is the end of week 4 on-site. I am feeling a bit sad about that as there seems much to do and much we can achieve. Time to focus very hard on making our impact sustainable and leaving a legacy.

Tomorrow we disappear to the New Forest again. This time the group of children is drawn from Southampton's most at risk looked after children (that is the official lingo). They are in foster care or care homes, having been separated from their parents for any number of reasons, none of which is good. They are emotionally very needy and I am warned that the experience will be intense in a different way from last weekend. I will let you know how that felt on Sunday evening.

We have had some fun this week doing what we do well and driving the strategy forward hard...

We used every lever at our disposal to get a meeting with Hampshire County Council. The normal response is "speak to my PA, I am sure I can see you in a couple of weeks", but we are adopting a slightly non-public sector style of suggesting we meet today, in 10 minutes, tomorrow etc. It works too! The Hampshire meeting was to learn about what they were doing with looked after children and how we could help them; essentially it is a big pool of children whom dreamwall could benefit but has not reached out to. We met a chap who spoke the same language as Brett and that, coupled with a bit of PwC style organisation and focus, meant we played a blinder. It is not a difficult sell dreamwall when your offer is high quality and you say that for every £1 they spend they get £2 of services as we also raise funding. I used the phrase BOGOF (aka "buy one get one free") which led to a few puzzled looks.

Jonathan has been single handedly trying to find dreamwall a property in Southampton. Not so tricky you say, but the goal is to get it for free! Less easy, but we are progressing. He has also arranged a developer to do it up for free.

Finally, I am on a networking mission. As well as integrating Brett and dreamwall into the widest possible community of interested parties, I am joining up the wider PwC with many of the people I have met on my travels. This is proving surprisingly easy and also good fun. Geoff Briggs is the man in charge of PwC Southampton and we met yesterday. He already has a great programme of community engagement, but has put his hand up to help further, either directly or through his network - thanks Geoff.