Weeknotes S02:E05

DavidBuck
3 min readFeb 7, 2020

It’s late but I’m on a train home… and I’m very warm, hang on I must take of my coat. That’s better. It’s Thursday evening and I’m on route home from the UKGovcamp organisers retro and karaoke. There ain't no retro like a GovCamp Retro.

I’m now wondering what structure to give my weeknote, as I tried with a different one last week due to train delays but didn't this week as doing that significantly cuts into reading time.

Nourishing connections

I had a number of lovely chats this week. The first was a session on Tuesday which Karen organised with a cohort of people from HMRC and other lovely people. We were talking about systems, fish, water, leadership, values, courses, scuba suits — lots of book recommendations, lots of very great points… and at the end I felt totally nourished, it was a generative conversation.

A picture of a fish I drew in a scuba suit whilst scribbling thoughts during the session.

On the way back to the office I also had a lovely chat with Morgan, and we talked about our water and a few other things. That was also a lovely conversation.

In the afternoon I had a wonderful chat with Bee about the beautiful and lovely project, more book recommendations and all sorts of wonderful things in between… I’m sensing day notes might be more helpful if I wanted to record the specifics of everything — but I don't think I do.

Thursday I have a very nice chat over a pot of tea with Emily about whats she’s been up to, the work with The Childrens Society which looks supper interesting and all sort of things in-between. It was the sort of conversation that’s made me both consider the weight we carry as well as help me carry that weight.

Conversations like these mean that I can do what I do, and after a month of quite high focus on the beautiful and lovely project I needed that.

Keeping things tidy

I have just remember I have left the first box of bits form the beautiful and lovely project in the office, I’ll need to come back to that. The child play mat and home rules board came over, the play mat is now in the corner as it wasn’t universally appreciated.

I took pictures of all of the postits up on the walls for the beautiful and lovely project and will close down the room on Monday and hand back the key.

I’ve not quite keep my emails tidy enough, I missed one from someone I want to meet and so am now meeting them in March… shucks. I think next week I’m going to head for inbox zero which with google seems easier to achieve.

Also I have noticed a couple of times this week and last that our team G-Drive seems to be getting a little messy. I may offer to sort it out.

My edge

I really felt it this week. I was asked to design and facilitate the inaugural session of a new board the ‘Cross Government Planning Risk and Performance Board’ and I have no idea why but I was quite nervous about it. The only thing I can put my finger on to tell me why is that I was pulled in because ‘I’m an expert’ and I was going to be flying solo without Hannah Sheehan. Still the session got cancelled and a new date is being found.

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DavidBuck

Working from Defra in the Future Farming and Countryside Programme, OneTeamGov and UKGovCamp. Government romantic and lover of tea