10 Weeks
Today marks the completion of our tenth full working-week at Participate World, a landmark that arrived before we knew it and yet at the same time followed an incredible number of experiences, meetings and moments.
Earlier this week we met with Liam Scully (Chair of the EFL Trust and CEO of Lincoln City Football Club) and Alex Bavin (Director of Operations at Lincoln City Foundation) to discuss ways in which we might support the great work already being done by Club Community Organisations attached to professional EFL clubs across the UK. Football Foundations already do great things for their communities, and our dream would be that we can contribute to their success whilst also helping export their great work around the world.
We also met with representatives from the Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) and are honoured to have been invited to attend the Government’s Sport Diplomacy Working Group. We’ll be travelling down south, and back to the Foreign Office for that meeting next week, and championing grassroots sport initiatives and their potential to contribute to global good.
Looking back over the last couple of weeks, we can really feel a momentum building. For a while, our daily efforts centered around setting up conversations, persuading people to chat to us, and wrangling our way into meetings. It felt like if we’d not reached out to anyone we’d have remained at inbox zero, our calendars clear, and our phones on silent (even if they weren’t on silent).
The last couple of weeks however, there’s been a clear change, it’s become noticeably challenging to say yes to everything, and more important for us to prioritise stuff that actually moves our proverbial boat forward.
Nice problems to have, and reassuring that we’re building something meaningful.
Talking of momentum, it’s been great to see Chris’ fitness improving as our Monday lunchtime runs have continued and he’s even started going out on his own a couple more times per week. His commitment to the process of getting out running has been inspiring to me and, mirroring our work together, after ten weeks he’s starting to see real improvements.
Finally, and talking of running, on Monday evening next week we’ll be privileged to spend time with Hermen Dange, Founder of Made Running, as we join their Monday Night Run Club. Herman’s story is hugely inspiring, we were first introduced by Chrissie Wellington, and we can’t wait to hear all about it and join in ourselves with the Made Running movement.
It’s been an incredible journey so far, yet we’ve only just begun.