Weeknote 2024.18
Saturday
Off to West London to visit the V&A photography centre and a stroll over to Battersea Power Station, then home via Stratford to pick-up a backdrop for photography on Thursday. The V&A photography centre felt overshadowed by the many other excellent collections there, especially my favourite, the decorative ironwork.
Sunday
A glorious day walking up to Connaught Water in Epping Forest and back through what I assume was once an ornamental garden, with massive rhododendrons and the biggest ever copper beech, with a friendly group of Ramblers.
Monday
I spent the morning learning a lot more about Enfield, our demographics, our services, and how the two interact. And the afternoon exploring different approaches to delivering some of the services that support our most vulnerable residents. At least four early morning starts this week, so I gave photography club a miss, unfortunate but necessary.
Tuesday
A real treat, exploring 40 different digital opportunities with colleagues from across the Council, considering what might work for us.
And a few informal discussions. In two out of three cases we are making good progress and building trust. The third needs more attention, which it’s getting.
Wednesday
After a couple of days focussed on exploring big issues, challenges and opportunities, back to a day of varied work and context shifting.
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Good to confirm a trial started a couple of months ago has been very successful, so completed the process to make the arrangement permanent. It’s not always easy to see if something is making a difference in a large, complicated, changing, and contested environment, especially in a relatively short time, but on this occasion the evidence was clear.
And started the process to make another small adjustment to the service, realigning our resources to where the need is greatest.
And of course, the election was called. While it’s a national election its local authorities that run the whole process, including lots of work for my teams. Time to adjust our priorities for the next six weeks.
Thursday
Another day of big-picture thinking. An added benefit for me, still being relatively new, is to see colleagues from across the Council at work, learning what they do, how they do it, and the relationships that sustain the organisation.
Then a quick catch-up with former colleagues as I walked past my previous office on the way to my photography course. We have several areas of mutual interest, and sharing information will hopefully lead us all to better outcomes.
On the photography course, I am learning, but am unsure if its leading to better pictures yet. For all my earlier photography courses I could go home and practice. It’s a bit trickier with studio photography as I don’t have a studio. Thinking about alternate learning strategies.
Friday
A couple of short meetings, the usual emails, and three reports to finalise. I’ve been drafting all three for the last few weeks, so its largely a matter of incorporating the latest updates, checking they are in the correct format, and convey the right messages.
Track of the week
Runaway Train by Soul Asylum https://open.spotify.com/track/3TW48DvQ7ChwY1Yy1tkMaP?si=12bfbb8d19124af6
