Pause for Thought

It’s been an relatively quiet week at Participate World Towers, as I think both Chris Lomax MBE and I are feeling the effects of an incredibly exciting, productive, and inspirational 2025 to date. Plus we’ve also taken the opportunity to spend a bit more time with friends & family, and catch up on a little admin.

So for this week’s blog I thought I’d reflect a little on the journey so far.

At the beginning of this year, we set out three key focus areas for our new business:

1. Supporting governments and other organisations in the development and implementation of scalable community sport initiatives.

2. Creating an incubator programme for community sport organisations who want to achieve impact at scale, both across the UK and globally.

3. Positioning community sport as valuable tool for international diplomacy, achieving increased support from governments, and bringing diplomats and practitioners together to make the world a better place.

I imagine we’ll publish some kind of more detailed 2025 update in due course, but it’s great to be sitting here approaching the end of our 11th month, having achieved fantastic progress across all three of those priorities.

And with a few weeks left until Christmas, I can speak for both of us when I say that up to this point the journey has far exceeded our pretty high expectations. We've had a fantastic time, met so many incredible people, and wouldn't change a thing.

It’s important also however to acknowledge that it’s not all roses and that without a profitable financial model you don’t have a business, and without a business you can’t achieve the things you want to achieve.

And although we’ve definitely kept the lights on, overall we’ve not reached the point where we can fully support ourselves financially or even better add to our team. That’s absolutely normal and expected this early on, but both of those are, of course, on our road map for next year.

So, whilst I’d thoroughly recommend that anyone reading this, and who is perhaps considering setting up their own business, looks to 2026 as the year they take that plunge, back themselves, and head off into the great unknown. I’d also say that you really do have to be patient, passionate, and absolutely all-in for the long term adventure.