My Story

I remember late one afternoon in 1996 Attercliffe, Sheffield, UK when my friends took me to Pizza Hut; they would not leave me in the office on my own. We had a meeting that evening and I was shaking. I’ve never felt that way before or since. My hands were visibly involuntarily moving.

It was stress and it led to my first diagnosis of high blood pressure, for which I still take medication. Looking back I wonder whether anything is worth that sort of stress. So, what brought it on?

I’d worked with the Forum, on their premises for several years and its members were my friends. Or at least they had been.

Flora who chaired the Forum had been a great ally. She would tell me about a problem and ask me for the options. I’d think about it and get back to her, work through my list of options and she would listen, choose and then her hand would be on the phone. She knew how to make a decision and act and we found, with my analytical skills, we made a great team!

Together with the other members, over 4 years, we set up several community businesses and a community Trust. The meeting that evening was to close the Forum and transfer its assets to the Trust. For Flora and most of the others was this was a step too far. They had put their hearts and souls into the Forum.

In the weeks leading to its AGM their opposition came into the open. I made some mistakes. I was not always sensitive to peoples’ feelings and had underestimated their strength of feeling. They must have felt I was taking away everything they stood for.

My friends that afternoon did what they could to calm me with pizza and then we went to the meeting. What was at stake? Everything legally belonged to the Forum but it was not a company. They had recently won significant grants to fund a new building for the businesses but they were conditional upon the transfer to the Trust.

This is the ADCE building as it is today; funded with European money and the cause of the conflict!

I had found other local people who wanted to be involved and they were delighted the Forum had been so successful. They supported the change but were there enough of them?

The Forum’s rules allowed anyone living in Attercliffe to vote at AGMs. This is why the old members lost the vote; when the doors opened about 60 people marched in! I thought we’d be lucky to get 6!

It was a professional victory and a personal defeat for me. The Forum split in two. I lost friends and support I had valued over the years. The Trust in time was recognised as well run and accountable locally. It was worth the pain or at least I think it was.

This experience set me on a new path. I had seen community economic development as about setting up projects. Now I understood there is more to it; relationships are more important than funding and structures. Good relationships without funding can achieve a great deal. Funding with poor relationships achieves nothing of lasting value.

It’s an easy mistake to make. Broken relationships can set you back years but get them right and you can perform miracles. These days we have the additional option of building relationship online as well as in real life. It’s the key to doing better than you would have imagined possible even a few years ago.

Looking back over decades in local regeneration, the lessons I learned in Attercliffe are still relevant.  I know how difficult and stressful working with limited resources can be.  I know how your dreams of a better life for your communitys can be derailed by poor relationships or handing them over to meet the demands of funding bodies.

The demands of running a business or a community organisation as well as maintaining some sort of work life balance can overwhelm your strategic thinking.  If you don't have a plan and review it constantly, it is easy for your vision to be derailed.  You know it's important and almost certainly you know how it is rarely a priority!

My web consultancy is unique because I help you sort out your organisational problems alongside your online presence.  These days you'll find you can do almost anything online; it is  far easier than it has ever been.  Activities that once required an expert are within your grasp.  The problem is not so much how we do things as choosing the right thing to do.  A few years ago operational issues online outweighed strategic thinking.  These days we can think strategically and integrate our online and real world activities.  If we want to!