Tag: 2014

Goals 2014: 3 Questions To Help Manage Community First Panel Legacies

Leave a comment
Community First Money

What Community First Funding Meant To One Ward In Year 1 And 2

Are you familiar with the concept of a Community First panel? 

If the answer is, ‘No’, here’s a brief explanation from my perspective, as a former panel chair.

‘Community First’ is the government’s neighbourhood improvement programme, running in England between 2012 and 2015.  The programme’s goal is to make funding available via a residents’ panel to not-for-profit organisations.  Those organisations will improve the quality of life in disadvantaged wards.

I think this approach could actually form the blue print for a future government wanting to devolve additional voluntary funding down to local communities via resident led panels.  That will depend on the panels functioning effectively, like the best project teams do.  The panels will still require thoughtful leadership and the input of skilled and confident volunteers.  Their legacy will involve changing the face of their neighbourhood.  A little work is necessary now to help make that legacy possible.

What are the panels doing at the moment?

As I write this post, residents‘ panels are deciding which local projects should receive a share of the final year of funding starting from April 2014.  The clock is ticking though, as panels need to submit their decisions to the government’s key delivery partner (the Community Development Foundation or CDF) by the end of March.

Local panels are a key part of the community based process, while other bodies have an overview of the bigger picture:  CDF is one of those bodies; Ipsos Mori the market research company is too, having evaluated the programme’s outcomes last year; the Young Foundation  is also an external partner supporting panels’ learning processes.

Which questions can the panel answer to help produce better future results?

Any project can benefit from holding a lessons learned exercise.  This exercise can provide valuable information to be used the next time similar work is commissioned.  I think the Young Foundation should encourage the panels to hold such an exercise and provide the answers to three questions this year.  This action forms a key part of the process of securing Community First’s panel legacy:

  • Which of the panel’s skills produced the bulk of the panel’s results?
  • What skills did the panel lack?
  • How could the panel produce even better results for their community if funding was available after 2015?

Answers to those questions should build up a picture of how panels produced good quality timely results, in a tough financial climate, and with limited volunteer resources.  Knowledge or skills gaps can then be filled by coaching or by mentoring.  Mapping that legacy now will also be invaluable if better results are expected from similar panels, by a future government.

Where can I find more information?

You can see some tweets about the programme from CDF, panels, and funded projects on Twitter if you use he #commfirst hashtag.

Click on the Podcasts tab above to listen to some questions you can answer to help you lead a panel (or a voluntary project) more easily.

Feel free to check out the Archive section for more thoughts on work and life goals.  There are further ideas relating to your work and life goals on Facebook and Google+ too

Goals 2014: How Will You Inspire Change After International Women’s Day?

Leave a comment
Logo For International Women's Day

Logo For International Women’s Day – More information from http://www.internationalwomensday.com

Do you know that next Saturday, 8 March, is International Women’s Day (IWD)?  You can get a range of IWD information here  and learn how this themed day has been influencing the lives of women and men since 1911.

It’s amazing to think – at the time I write these words – that there are several hundred IWD events scheduled to take place in the UK.  There are 1000s more in the United States, Canada, Australia and countries right round the world.

These events will all be highlighting this year’s theme of Inspiring Change.  Which of the events near you will you be following, or drawing to the attention of a woman you care about?

Stay tuned.  I’ll be blogging this week about ideas which you may want to consider when you work on your goals after IWD.

Goal 2014: 3 Questions to help increase your well-being in the Year of the Male

1 Comment
Plug In To Access Support

Plug In To Access Support

Have you heard the one about the man who asks his best mate for emotional support during a difficult period, and receives consistent, empathic care from his friend?  Chances are you haven’t.  Women may follow Sheryl Sandberg’s example at Facebook and ‘Lean In’ supporting each other, men don’t traditionally plug into their networks like that.

In fact British men may be spending nearly £1800 on making themselves look good outwardly according to 2012 research , but they aren’t making similar efforts to connect with their inner feelings and improve their emotional well-being.

Luckily there are new options men can adopt to tackle their well-being goals.  Those options are being explored by CALM , the mental health charity.

The charity is focusing on suicide prevention this year.  Here’s a sobering number CALM comments on , taken from a recent Office for National Statistics bulletin: suicide is the leading cause of death for British men under 50.  Such men are 3 times more likely to kill themselves than women.  That rate is comparable to the United States, where men are nearly 4 times more likely to take their own lives than women, according to the World Health Organisation .

Under the Year of the Male banner – that’s @yearofthemale on Twitter, or online at www.yearofthemale.com – the UK organisation is looking to challenge the range of influences which contribute to men’s less positive life experiences.  Perhaps we can all recognise that modern life has the potential to lead to high levels of stress, anxiety, and depression.

If you are a man and the experiences above ring bells, ask yourself how do your age, class, disability or employment status, ethnicity, family situation, religion, sexual orientation and upbringing affect your well-being?  What are you prepared to do change your well-being status this year?  Here are three more questions for you to reflect on.

  • What can you include in your health and well-being goal to make it more achievable?
  • In what ways will your goal help you live life with a greater degree of authenticity?
  • How will your goal add value to your dealings with the important people in your life?

Good luck with your actions.  Remember to check out the Archive section for more inspiration.  There are further ideas On Facebook and Google+ too

Goals 2014: Six Actions To Help You Manage Your Stress Levels This Week

Leave a comment

Life is full of coincidences.  Fresh from posting about the impact of workplace stress, caused by poor management, I read a really useful article* by Lucy Dimbylow – @lucywriter on Twitter.

Lucy is responding to the question posed by the half a million UK workers whose stress and anxiety levels are too high: What actions can I can take to manage my levels of work stress?

The key actions I took away from Lucy’s article are:

  • Taking regular Exercise reduces stress
  • Following a healthy Diet aids positive mental health
  • Taking the Rest periods you are entitled to is beneficial
  • Making time to have Fun with family is important
  • Adopting a positive approach to Mindfulness helps you manage the aspects of pressure you can change
  • Seeking Support from those in a position to affect workloads, and job objectives, also helps

Having read that list here’s a final question for you:

  • What key action will you take, this week, to more effectively manage your workplace stress?

*The article appears in the spring edition of Benenden Healthcare Society’s subscription-only magazine ‘benhealth’.  Information on the society’s work can be found online at www.benenden.co.uk

Goals 2014: Three Key Posting Tips

Leave a comment

Happy 10th birthday Facebook!  It is a long way from an audience of Harvard students in February 2004 to a global audience of 1.23 billion in 2014.

All those users face a dilemma: how do I achieve my goal of representing myself well online?  I’ve blogged (in the related tweet above) about the challenges of managing a credible personal brand on social media before, most recently after 2013’s Business Show.

How will you manage your brand this year?

When it comes to your 2014 posts, how will you manage your personal brand?  From what I can see it helps to keep posts:

  • Professional – bearing in mind regularly posts about getting wasted the night before might not impress a future employer
  • Succinct – staying on point, in fewer than 500 words, helps your reader focus on your message
  • Visual – readers appreciate eye-catching elements

How do your posts reflect your values?

It also helps to be mindful of your key values when posting.  What story are you telling about yourself?

If you are looking to make an impact on a wider community from a position of knowledge your advice and commentary could attract a strong following.  Posting on a regular schedule would make you an important presence in others’ lives.

How are you managing your data?

How mindful are you about data protection when you are online?  A bit of thought probably helps, as more and more of us contribute to the pool of Big Data being waded through by large organisations.

The goal of the European Data Protection Day (on 28 January) – branded as Data Privacy Day in the US – is simple: to inform the public about how their online data is collected and processed; helping to protect their privacy and control their digital footprint.

So, taking all of this into account, would today be a good day to start managing your digital self more thoughtfully?

Click to Visit me on Facebook

Goals 2014: Goal Setting In Three Steps

Leave a comment
Workshop Paperwork

Goal Setting Starts Here

 

Congratulations on surviving January.  The first of February is a great time to concentrate on goal setting, action planning and clarifying values.  Here are three key questions to aid in that process:

  • What significant outcome do you want to have achieved by Easter?
  • How you will get there?
  • How does that effort fit with your core values?

Spending even thirty minutes today writing down your response to these questions is worthwhile.  Narrow your focus by expressing your goal in terms that are:

  • positive
  • present-tense
  • realistic

Writing down your first, significant, step to make progress toward your goal helps to underscore that you are confident that you can pursue and attain the outcome you that you want.  So does making an absolute commitment to taking prompt action.  An end date in your diary, with action milestones preceding it are powerful triggers to progress.

This process isn’t the preserve of the business world.  It applies in the public sector or the world of volunteering too.

It was great therefore to meet the volunteer team at The Asian Centre, Waltham Forest – @tacwf on Twitter – and support their work on #GoalSetting yesterday.  An evening in their company showed that goal setting helps volunteer mentors on a community programme, just like it does paid professionals working on costly projects.  Clients benefit too, whether they are young mentees, or high net worth customers.

If you would like to find out more about mentoring you can contact the Asian Centre via their website www.theasiancentrewf.org.uk for more information on their successful #YouthMentoring programme.

So, when will you make time to set your next significant goal?  How can effective coaching help you deliver on your commitment to self-development?

Click to Visit me on Facebook 

Goals 2014: What Does Success Look Like?

Leave a comment

Here is a Tweet relating to Jordan Belfort, he’s the subject of the biopic ‘The Wolf Of Wall Street’.  I haven’t seen the film, although it sounds an interesting look at 1990s concepts of success.   I’ll have to write another post once I have seen the movie.

Meanwhile I am sharing the Tweet as it contains a link to the Huffington Post.  Have a look at the link and see what you think of Mr Belfort’s ten thoughts about achieving goals.  Feel free to share this post with family, colleagues and friends.

How many of your 2014 goals relate to: Your workplace?  Your well-being?  Managing your wealth?  Let me know if you have goals that are more attainable with coaching support.

Goals 2014: Your Key To The Three Main Benefits Of Being Coached

Leave a comment

Here, in case you missed it, is another chance to hear more about the three key benefits of being coached.

Feel free to share the information with family, colleagues and friends.  Get in touch when you are ready to arrange your own coaching programme and to start living your best life.

A Reminder: Your Goals Matter

Leave a comment

Just three hours left of 2013.  Keep an eye our for two further posts before midnight.

Meanwhile, in case you missed it, this is another chance to see my recent Tweet poll about 2014 Goals.

Get in touch, if you want to start 2014 with my professional coaching support on your side. I look forward to learning about your goals.