Change: 38degrees.org.uk

So during a quiet spell in my freelance work running into Xmas last year I did some voluntary work for a few weeks at 38degrees.org.uk and helped out with the Save The Forests campaign (see my post). I didn't do much I have to say and had to unfortunately finish a little earlier than I had hoped as interviews and some sad news about a friend interrupted my time there. But I really enjoyed working in their small office in Farringdon. 

What really fascinated me (apart from the vibey atmosphere and the genuine passion for involvement that drives what they do) was how "smart" they worked. Having been a bit out of it the last few years working in an industry that... ummm.. doesn't always work as smart as it should do, to see another small group of people working on a shoe string with intelligence and a desire to work as effectively as possible was really inspiring. They worked completely in the cloud using google docs and wikis. They also limited the length of meetings, reminding people they had x more minutes etc. They wrote effective, shared (through google docs) meeting notes that were just a list of agreed action points assigned to a person and referred to at the beginning of the next meeting. In short, they did everything they could to stop things descending into waffle. It reminded me a lot of the way software meetings worked at amazon and made me really think about the bad habits I may have picked up since then in the music industry. It takes a lot of self control and doggedness to stick to the "rules" and not let meetings slip into an ego trip or meander meaningless around. Sometimes that means someone stepping forward and being very firm regardless of who is waffling (even if its their boss). The meeting chairman is not even there to massively contribute apart from directing the dialogue to effective goals. Its definitely worth the effort.

It was also amazing news to find a couple months later that the team went on to win the Save The Forests campaign and the government had to scrap the plans entirely! And this week the newspapers have been full of another possible u-turn this time in the plans for the NHS, again linked to the team at 38degrees. They were just starting to organise meetings of NHS professionals to talk about what the changes might mean for them while I was there so its fascinating to read articles such as this.

I really feel like those few weeks there engaged a real desire in me to be involved in politics and campaigning again. I'll be launching a new separate blog in the coming weeks to funnel some of my thoughts through. I'm STILL trying to find what I can do to contribute other than blogging away but hey.. perhaps this focus will help me find it.

At the same time I'll be launching a wordpress version of this site. I got so distracted creating these for bands and friends I never got around to switching from blogger. Oh the shame....