I’ve been hugely inspired by LOTS of things recently that I think are at the intersection of creativity and bureaucracy. Collective imagination, imagination activism, municipal imagination, futures, joy and creativity in the funding, philanthropy, policy, local authority world. My worlds are definitively colliding right now as someone who has pretty…

A Visionary, Silversmithing and Swimming (before work updates) I trained as a jeweller and silversmith and for the last almost 7 years I have been a Warden of the Incorporation of Goldsmiths of the City of Edinburgh. I stood down in January 2023 but have remained a Member. I was fortunate to be invited to At Home With…

On 9th February in the beautiful Dovecot Studios in Edinburgh a group of around 45 people gathered together, in-person, to spend a day talking and thinking about long-term change, the difference we are all trying to make. The purpose of the day was to begin to create an ‘outcome map’…

A few conversations recently — including the creation of a number of outcome maps at our Regenerative Futures Fund Outcome Mapping day, and a second outcome mapping day last week — have got me thinking about what we were calling ‘principles’ for the Regenerative Futures Fund. My thinking was also…

THE MESSY MIDDLE Time is FLYING! I’m now almost half way through a 12-month project to try to create a new long-term unrestricted fund for social sector organisations in Edinburgh to make big change happen around poverty and climate. In Aug 2022 Zoe from Robertson Trust predicted that during the development year I’d…

Reminder — what is the Regenerative Futures Fund? I am working with some hugely inspiring people to try to create a new long-term (10-year) trust-based unrestricted fund for social sector organisations in Edinburgh, centering genuine participatory decision-making, trying to bring new money into the system, working on transformational change towards our big shared goals of ‘ending poverty and…

I started writing this a few weeks ago on my open working course and tried to write this in 30 mins —too big a topic and not possible! I have adjusted and expanded and clicked publish… At the end of Sept 2022 I felt so lucky to have a cuppa…

I’ve been thinking about burnout and how short-term funding might contribute to this after reading this article a couple of weeks ago — about burnout and how it is breaking people in all sectors across the UK. These things can creep up on people. Someone close to me was recently…

I am leading the development of a new fund for Edinburgh. I have been working on this now for almost two months. I am seconded from my role at Chief Executive at Whale Arts into Edinburgh Voluntary Organisations (EVOC). This is called Regenerative Futures Fund. The BIG goal is to…