Hello friends!

We’re sorry for our lack of weeknotes last week - the week ran away from us a little!

I’ve made sure to include updates over the last couple of weeks in this edition, to keep you all up to speed.

Best,

Celia

This week (and last week)

• Working on our donate-what-you-can membership model and supporter campaign launch - we decided to adjust our timeline for our donate-what-you-can membership model and supporter campaign launch last week. Local Welcome loves stories, and we wanted to give our founder, Ben, some space to write Local Welcome’s story since it’s launch in 2015.

  We think the supporter campaign will be so much more compelling with some more personal touches from Ben before he leaves his role at the end of the month, so holding back feels right. We’ll make sure to keep you updated on progress as we move forward.

• Preparing for Ben’s departure well - Ben has been playfully referring to this as ‘Ben-xit’!

  In short, this has been:

  • Quite emotional - see the item below, and the photo of the week!
  • A little stressful - trying to get as much brilliance from him as possible before he goes!
  • A bit dry too - Lots of admin!

  It also hasn’t all been on Ben’s plate - most of the team has been involved in preparing for supporting Ben’s ‘off-boarding’ in one way or another.

• Running our first Weekly Wednesday Leader check-in - it was an emotional affair, as those of you who attended came to say goodbye to Ben and wish him well, and those of you who couldn’t make it sent some lovely messages in the chats!

  Moving forward, the aims of this weekly slot are to:

  • Connect leaders from across our growing network to share ideas and celebrate successes
  • Make space for you to keep each other updated on progress (particularly for new groups working through the handbook)
  • Provide support and answer your questions as we roll out new toolkits in the handbook

  These calls will continue weekly on Wednesdays at 5:30pm to help us streamline the support we’re offering, and help leaders to stay connected.

  We didn’t manage to review the agenda moving forward yesterday so - as promised - here’s the first draft. Please send us your feedback - we want these to be as useful as possible!

  (Draft) Weekly Wednesday Leader Check-In

Next week

• Completing Ben’s final (Ben-xit) off-boarding tasks!
• Reviewing the Heritage Lottery project short films which Nice and Serious have been working on after doing some filming at meals recently, and providing feedback.
• Continuing work on our donate-what-you-can membership model and supporter campaign launch.
• Preparing for meals in April.

Next month (for accountability)

In our last instalment of weeknotes, we said we’d release a first version of the Reaching Diverse Audiences, Building Local Partnerships and Finding Local Grant Funding handbook toolkits this month.

We don’t think we’ll be able to deliver these before Easter, so will come back to you with another update in April.

Photo of the week