Hello friends!

Today marks the end of Ben’s last week at Local Welcome. Therefore, we thought we’d follow a different format for the weeknotes to mark this!

Best,

Celia

This week

• We reviewed the Heritage Lottery project short films which Nice and Serious have been working on after filming at meals recently, and provided feedback
• We submitted monitoring for grants we were awarded
• We supported Ben in off-boarding
• We’ve been preparing for meals in April

Next week

Next week will be a shorter one for our team, in the wake of the bank holiday weekend. The key things we’ll be focusing on are:

• Catching up on admin after some busy weeks!
• Continuing to prepare for meals in the month ahead
• Starting to pick up next rounds of bigger work - e.g. iterating the handbook, releasing the new membership model and supporter campaign

Ben’s leaving…what’s next for Local Welcome?

As you’ll know from recent weeknotes, after 9 years of service, our Founder and CEO, Ben Pollard, is moving on from Local Welcome today.

Our team, our trustees, and the wider Local Welcome community thank him for his vision, dedication and leadership throughout this time.

Moving forward, Local Welcome will be run by two of its longest-serving team members, Andrew Chaplin and Celia Mellow. Andrew will be taking responsibility for finance and policy, and Celia focusing on operations and product strategy. This decision has the full backing of our trustees.