A lifesaver for those of feeling trapped in meetings

Since I only have a little experience with managing volunteers from back in the days when I ran a door-to-door environmental campaign, I’ve been looking for advice from Getting It Done: How to Lead When You’re Not in Charge and learning a lot (hopefully) about how to make groups work more happily and more effectively.

Here are two key points I thought I’d share:

Tip #1: Make your volunteer role meaty and challenging

Personally, I’ve always thought I should ask a volunteer for as little as possible. I hate feeling like I owe someone something, and asking them to do things for free feels a lot like asking for a favour.

But then I think about how I love when someone asks for my help with something I enjoy doing as long as I feel they appreciate my effort and let me do things the way that works well for me.

So here’s what they suggest a volunteer role should be:

• active
• has something interesting to do
• commands respect from self and others
• demonstrates their abilities

Commands respect, huh. I mean, asking the bare minimum of someone isn’t going to give them a role they feel commands respect, so I’m starting to come round to the idea of offering more of a challenging opportunity, at least for some volunteers.

Tip #2: Empower your volunteers

Getting It Done also recommends that you empower your volunteers by helping them feel they:

• are making a difference
• have a measure of control over what they do
• have some control over where group is going
• are improving their skills

It’s a tall order. It requires that we invest a lot of time and effort in developing and supporting volunteers in exchange for their giving a lot.

Putting the tips into practice

I understand best when I try to put a new lesson in practice, so let me try here.

Example: I’m thinking about how we want to set up a library of books for Friends of the Touchwood Project, and I’ve had someone volunteer to help.

Rather than just give her some small task to do, such as catalogue the books, and then try to do everything else myself, why don’t I create a Chief Librarian role, one where she has the primary responsibility for the books and setup. With input from Directors, she can figure out how we’re going to organise the books (use software like Delicious Library or Shelfari or something else perhaps), if we should charge something, which books we should look into buying.

In creating this role, I’m also thinking about this person’s skills which, as she’s a phD, will most likely include strong research, a love of books and at least moderate organisational skills.

So this librarian role will hopefully appeal. It should be big enough and interesting enough to deliver on the expectations above.

Creating a Volunteer Welcome Pack

Part of supporting our volunteer will be making sure she knows what we’re doing, where we’re at, and is developing her skills and unique role in the team, so we’re putting together a kind of Welcome Pack that includes StrengthsFinder and a Personal Development Plan.

For StrengthsFinder, (see my post about SF previously if you want to learn more about this talents-based survey and personal development tool) I think we’ll see if we can buy the book for each volunteer and then perhaps set up a discussion group with a few volunteers and some of us Directors together. We’ve learned that you get a lot more from StrengthsFinder if you discuss it regularly afterwards.

We’ll also have an overview of Touchwood so she understands where we’re heading and look for opportunities to have her feedback on where we’re going next.

Online survey to assess how we’re doing

Finally, we need to regularly check in to see how we’re doing and where we can improve. I’ve created a very brief survey courtesy of Survey Monkey for volunteers to rate their volunteer experience. I’m sure over time we’ll grow and change this, but it’s a start.

I’m asking volunteers to say how much they agree or disagree with statements like “I feel like I’m making a difference” and “I have influence over where the group is going.” These statements are taken almost verbatim from the Getting It Done book.

You can have a look here if you think you might want to do something similar, though unless you’re a volunteer, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t take the survey since that will skew the results!

Here is the link: http://tinyurl.com/touchwoodvolunteersurvey

Making working with Touchwood fun, rewarding and part of developing yourself and what you bring to the world motivates and inspires Jenni, Malcolm and myself. I can’t wait to see how we get on!

What is a CIC?

Community interest companies (“CICs”) are a new form of limited company set up by the UK government which may be able to help you get more funding, advice and trust from your community and potential partners. They require your organisation to be verified by a government agent, the impressively titled ‘the Regulator’, pass a ‘community test’, and have all of your assets ‘locked’, or owned by the community.

More on this in a moment, but first, why should you consider bothering to become a CIC?

Social enterprises falling between the cracks

One of the biggest challenges we’ve faced in starting up and developing Touchwood is credibility.

Since we’re a business with a social mission whose profits are invested in that mission, we’re neither a traditional business nor a charity. That means we tend to fall between the cracks for advice and funding: most people we meet with on the government and charity side are nervous about our business aims and background and don’t see why we should get grant funding, and those on the business side can’t believe we’d do all the work and hand over most of the profits to the community and don’t want to invest in something they can’t get a huge financial return on.

But social enterprise is about taking the best of a charity or non-profit (its mission and dedicated staff) and the best of business (its dynamism and financial self-sufficiency) and using them for the greater good.

However, most people familiar with social enterprise come from the charity or government side, and so tend to think of social enterprises as either the Red Cross charity shop or members of a community wanting a wind turbine or local shop.

The space for two businesspeople like Malcolm and I to come in and do a social enterprise is much less established. So we’ve had more than our share of initial awkward meetings with local authorities and voluntary organisation support groups, thanks to this lack of understanding about what social enterprise is and can be.

When I moaned about all of this to our social enterprise consultant Clive, he told me to become a CIC pronto, which would help alleviate some of the skepticism we encounter.

Is a CIC right for you?

From the CIC Regulator website:

The CIC is for organisations which:

• Trade with a social purpose (social enterprises) or carry on other activities which benefit the community
• Want to make it clear that they are established for the benefit of the community rather than their members
• Wish to enjoy the benefits of limited company status
• Do not wish to be charities

The first CIC was registered in August 2005. By August 2006, over 400 CICs had been registered.

Among the activities carried on by community interest companies are:

• Working with disadvantaged groups to increase their employability
• Recycling and other projects of benefit to the environment
• Providing enabling facilities to disadvantaged communities
• Regulation of professional and other services
• Running schools for children excluded from mainstream education
• Providing care facilities for children and the elderly
• Community arts and educational projects

The legislation on CICs was presented as part of the Government’s strategy to promote social enterprise.

What makes a CIC different from a regular Company Limited by Guarantee or Shares

What makes CICs different is that it is:

1. Independently verified by a government Regulator through a “community test”
2. All the assets owned by the organisation or business are “locked”, meaning they can only be owned by the community or organisation, not individuals.

Where to get help and advice

The two people who really know CICs inside and out and not just the theory are social enterprise consultant Clive Sheppard and the CIC Regulator.

Clive is a man on a mission to get as many people, businesses and organisations as possible starting social enterprises which take the best parts of the non-profit and business worlds. What’s great about him is that he knows how to work with creative types and people who find it boring/daunting to deal with paperwork and process and he’s passionate about social enterprise and how it will make the world a better place.

Clive sympathized with our difficulties and was the person who urged us to get people from both sides on board by becoming a Community Interest Company. He works with the Scottish Social Enterprise Academy running free (!) courses in Understanding Social Enterprise and with HISEZ (Highlands and Islands Social Enterprise Zone) as well as consulting freelance.

The best way to get his services are to approach HISEZ, if you’re in the Highlands of Scotland, and ask for an initial consultation. If you’re outside of the Highlands, contact him directly at c.sheppard962 [at] btinternet.com.

The CIC Regulator website will give you all the info (though it’s pretty long-winded and in pdf form) you need. It’s only about £30 – £50 to become a CIC so not a huge financial investment.

More on CICs to come

I’m still researching, so will share what I learn as I go. I’d love to hear from anyone who’s actually become a CIC and how it’s made a difference. I’ll be looking into the Shares model as well, since we may decide to open up Touchwood to community share ownership — very exciting!

It all came about courtesy of several humbling blows. We didn’t get the loan from RBS, then Social Investment Scotland turned us down. Then we couldn’t find any grant funding that would actually pay us to keep working.

It felt like we were just hitting brick wall after wall. And then I hit a wall.

Right before Christmas, as I was busily trying to get homemade Christmas presents finished and shipped to my friends and family in the US, I was blindsided by a massive headache. It was so sudden, so unrelenting, that NHS called out an ambulance as I sat huddled in the bathtub, squeezing my head to try to stop the pain.

I’m not a tough person when it comes to pain. I’m embarrassed to think about all the people I’ve since spoken to who regularly have or used to have migraines, who suffer with chronic, debilitating pain as a matter of course. But that kind of pain scared the hell out of me, and told me I was seriously out of whack.

The doctors didn’t know what it was, but I knew it was tension, stress. So I decided I was taking the 12 days of Christmas off. No work, no thinking or talking about Touchwood. Just enjoying life and Christmas and being with Malcolm and our cats.

It was wonderful, the best Christmas ever. Malcolm made those 12 days magical, keeping a fire burning throughout by lighting the lantern with a flame from the fire, then rekindling the fire in the morning from the lantern. We put up a tree, and spent every day around the fire, knitting (me), reading, playing games, eating and talking.

Finally after about 3 weeks of this, I was ready to think about Touchwood. Malcolm asked me, what do I really want, most of all? We’d tried the conservative, small-scale approach and it wasn’t working. So let’s cast the net wide…

My immediate vision was of a sweep of curved glass banked by thick timber, looking out over the heather and peat and sea. Hobbit holes dotted in the hillside, 100% off the grid but with a modern, light-filled feel.

I imagined using colour to create moods, to make people coming feel relaxed, then energised, then convivial, depending on the space and time of day. I dreamed of small groups of guests chatting around the central fire, making friends with people they just met that day over the long block of the dining table.

My dream is the kind of project that costs millions, not £12,000. But thinking small didn’t seem to work, so we’re thinking big.

We’re adding a number of community projects to our plans. Initially we were going to wait till we’d established the eco-tourism side of the business, but now we’re looking at doing whichever projects the community most wants.

One of our key goals is to help Orkney be self-sufficient, so all the projects relate to that. Our island should be able to rely on itself entirely for its food and energy and yet we’re far from that now.

I’d love to help start up a community garden, perhaps selling fresh fruit and veg at farmers’ markets. I’d love to see every home with its own turbine, or perhaps small community wind/wave turbines powering all of our homes.

I’d love to help create footpath networks all across Orkney so we can drive less and walk more — and most importantly, stop in and see people, get to know our neighbours (at least those of us who live outside of the towns). I’d like to stop seeing women pushing strollers along the highway where there is no shoulder.

I’d love to see buildings that are beautifully designed, that are eco-friendly, and fit into the surroundings by taking the best of ancient and modern references.

These are some of my dreams, ones I think many people on Orkney share, but I won’t know until I ask them. And it could be there are organisations already doing some of these projects, in which case I want to know how I can help.

I want to build a team of people who know their strengths and who feel I care about their development. I remember all too well what it is to feel you have a lot to give but your job just doesn’t want it. I know how powerful a good manager is, someone who is looking after you, encouraging you to gain more skills, try out new experiences, offer your opinions and efforts to a project that’s for the good of others.

Anyway, that’s what I’d like to see happen. So the new plan is to spend 2009 getting funding, writing a business plan that’s bold, exciting and works, and recruiting a staff of dedicated people who will in turn mobilise the efforts of community members who share a vision of Orkney like this.

Then I want to do this in several places around the world. How’s that for big?

I have no idea if Touchwood will work, if we’ll attract the kind of people who believe in it and who want to take action, be involved. No clue if we’ll get the grant or loan money we need, or entice the customers and guests to a remote island that most of the world, if they even know of it, think is something like Siberia.

But I try to live in the present, accept I can’t do everything, and that I very well may fail. I’m stopping fighting, and going with the flow. We’ll see what happens, but at this moment, it feels right.

What’s a vision and why should we have one?

As Social Business Consulting explains in their post about Vision and Mission:

Writing your vision is your opportunity to think BIG! In fact you can do more than think, you can dream. What will the world (or at least the bit of the world that you’ll have an impact on) look like once you – and others like you – have worked your magic?

So if you’re a recycling business, your vision might be “a zero-waste economy”. Or if you run a crime-reduction initiative, it might be “No crime – and no fear of crime – in our area.” Or, to think a bit bigger, if you were running the United Nations, your vision might be “a more peaceful, prosperous and just world.”

Think big – when things get difficult it will help to be reminded why you do what you do (and what joins you to other people who share similar visions). A well-defined vision can also inspire other people to join you and help you to work towards your vision.

I tend to worry people will think I’m away with the faeries if I talk too much like this. But at the end of the day, worrying about what Everybody Thinks is always a waste of time. Malcolm’s much better about letting his passion shine!

Touchwood Project’s Vision

So here’s our newly reinstated vision, something Malcolm and I wrote months ago when we first started up:

We imagine a world where people wake up smiling, eager to start every single day. We have developed our unique talents and are using them to make our lives better and our communities places we happily call “home”.

We have plenty of friends and family we spend time with, work so perfect we can’t believe we get paid for it. We know we have enough financially and are healthy. We live in a way that gives, not takes, something good to the planet and its people.

It may be cheesy, but it’s MY cheese, and it’s what keeps me going, writing the next grant application, doing the financial projection again.

Since we started Five Senses three years ago, not long after we moved from Perth to the Orkney Islands here in Scotland, we’ve dreamed big. We knew we wanted a centre where we could teach skills and run activities that ran the gamut from traditional crafts like soapmaking or basketweaving to survival things like wild foods and firemaking. But the point was never to go back in time and replicate a lost way of life.

The point was and is always about leading an ever-happier life, the kind where you wake up in the morning and can’t wait to get out of bed. The kind where you know you have “enough”: enough money, friends, love, and time. The kind where you just can’t believe how lucky you are.

Sounds like a pipe dream, doesn’t it.

But it’s our pipe dream, and one that we want to share. Neither of us can claim we’ve got enough just yet, but we’re getting there.

We’ve spent the last five years experimenting, reading countless books, teaching ourselves how to cook, knit, make fire with a bowdrill, find edible plants, and more.

We ditched our jobs (me as a web manager at Sprint, a telecom corporation in Washington, DC, Malcolm as a hostel consultant on Skye, where we met), got married after two weeks of knowing each other, and left our homes to strike out on a new life together.

I left behind a life in Washington, DC that included a job I disliked, a raft of minor but increasing ailments, eating out or pizza or mac and cheese (I never cooked), a big salary, and a persistent feeling that there must be more to life than this. I also left behind family and friends that I miss every day, but I came to be with the love of my life Malcolm and feel at home in many ways in Scotland.

In any event, I’ve gone from that very urban and relatively fast-track life to where I’m at right now, which is sitting in my kitchen with my Mac on a pitted oak farmhouse table, the howl of a winter gale beating against the windowpane while the old Aga stove gently radiates heat and the cats snooze nearby.

Snug in my kitchen while a freezing gale blows outside

I’ve got a homemade soup on the simmer and a pot of genmaicha tea next to me while I type.

Meanwhile, Malcolm’s upstairs weatherproofing the windows, which in his case means rooting around the garage, gleefully seizing on some spare polystyrene and wool, and tacking them up to the windows to block out the draughts.

This is a moment where I feel truly I have enough. I’m writing about our dream project with the papers of incorporation next to me making it official. I’ve got most of a business plan finished and we’ve even gotten seed funding to run a few pilot projects later this winter to test out our grand ideas.

Life is good.