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Rebecca

@rebkawhite

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Drawing on own experience I now support small & medium-sized charities & social enterprises near & far to be enterprising, resilient & sustainable

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What a perfect October Halloween 🎃 day for a Public Living Room in my local Jenny Lind Park.

Some very polite little boys joined us again this month. I think the chocolate and spooky cupcakes helped 🧁

As usual in the local park on a Saturday morning, there were lots of passing dog walkers and bemused onlookers. It was great to see the basketball courts so well used as well as the loos back open.

Everything that should be going on in a local park (and more!) was.

One guest same over, curious about what we were doing and stayed the whole two hours, settling in nicely making a cuppa for others.

And that’s what’s unique about the Public Living Room. There’s no hierarchy and no-one telling anyone else what to do.

Make the space and people step in. #publiclivingroom by @rebkawhite

I think tree of the day was definitely found in West Earlham today.

And ‘pie’ of the day (Lithuanian Cottage Cheese Pie) utterly delicious and unlike any pie I’ve ever seen (thank goodness) also to be found in West Earlham at Rasa’s Cafe. With the richest soured cream on the side 😋

I didn’t/couldn’t finish it! by @rebkawhite

One of the greyest October days so far - spent in lovely and unlovely King’s Lynn. Depending on your viewpoint.

I don’t know why, but this small flat town gives rise to many emotions.

Because of the career I’ve chosen (and I’m spending two days with homelessness charities), I can’t help but see and hear people struggling in amongst a town of such rich history and reach across the globe over a millennium. Pain is visible in the high street, the library and the pubs mid afternoon.

Sitting in a homelessness drop in, I was surrounded mostly by staff as well as those seeking help from Ukraine and Eastern Europe more generally as well as Afghanistan and West Africa.

A charity CEO was as unable to answer my question - ‘what can I do to help?’ I empathise strongly with that inability to see the wood for the trees, to feel like you’re sticking a pin in a dam and to feel paralysed into not knowing where to start - when in reality, the size of the deficit is where you know you have to start. You’re just out of ideas what to do about it that you haven’t already tried.

On top of the ‘normal’ drop in, our Reform-led county council having curtailed translation services has contributed to a massive uptick in crisis presentations, unnecessary distress and confusion - alongside a change in homelessness policy at the borough council. All whilst the charity considers how it will pay its staff in the coming months whilst simultaneously losing staff due to burnout.

I drove down the road to another homelessness charity. This one actually had to close over the summer - no longer able to actually pay staff. It now has funds to last until December and not surprisingly finds it hard to recruit and re-recruit the staff it lost. How do you support people facing crises without a stable staff team (let alone with one)?

Most of all I feel guilt at the relief I feel to be broadly out of it - on the periphery - helping in a tiny way where I can with my own experiences and capacity.

What a world! by @rebkawhite

🫵 by @rebkawhite

I should have posted these sooner as there’s only today and tomorrow left of this excellent exhibition in the @theundercroftgallery by @3citiesgroup.

It’s titled ‘Now You See Me’

It’s very worth popping along if you’ve the time and alway good to support a diverse range of local artists. by @rebkawhite

Last night I started an NR2 bookclub. A group to six, all with differing but overlapping reasons for being there.

It was a cracking first meet with some strong connections already underway.

Four weeks ago I posted on Facebook about whether anyone would be interested in a bookclub.

- 50+ people responded

- 20 messaged me

- 14 joined the WhatsApp group

- 3 sent apologies last night

- 6 turned up

It would be easy to be disappointed on 50+ becoming 6.

On the contrary - just two people would have been a success because I believe in this.

🤔 Sometimes it takes time for ideas to take off.

🤔 Sometime people need to see it’s a ‘success’ before they feel comfortable coming along.

🤔 Sometimes life just gets in the way.

I can’t wait to read books with 2, 6 or 32 lovely people in my community.

#bookclub #nr2 #reading #books #booksbooksbooks by @rebkawhite

‘Best day ever’

So said a little boy of about six at yesterday’s @camerados_org Public Living Room in Jenny Lind Park.

As we approach our one year anniversary, one of the most notable things is how different every time is.

The end of July was dead.

But yesterday was busy busy with two little boys appearing before we’d even finished setting up. They piled into my Russian Doll with glee, played a bit of Connect Four, politely requested a cuppa and a lot of biscuits and scooted around on their bikes 🍪. Who says kids don’t play outside anymore?

Over the course of the morning more of their friends, their parents and accompanying dogs joined us and even the guy rough sleeping behind the loos stood on the edge and had a cuppa.

The camaraderie was constant and if we hadn’t started to pack away I think we might have been chatting with our neighbours all day 🛋️

And that’s what it’s all about.

#publiclivingroom by @rebkawhite

Having enjoyed ‘Turkish’ coffee in both Montenegro and Bosnia this summer, I found myself with lots of finely ground coffee in my rucksack and no pot to make it in.

I’ve wanted to reduce my milk intake for a while, so this felt like an intriguing alternative, albeit I need a bit of sugar as it’s black coffee and I also needed a džezva - a long handled pot for the stove.

A not very authentic dževza (it should be copper and probably not sage in colour) later and the coffee is delicious.

On top of that, Zam Zam on Dereham Road stocks the coffee (it’s as finely ground as flour), so I think this new coffee habit is here to stay. by @rebkawhite

The size of them 😮 🍎 by @rebkawhite

Good evening from Walsoken.

What a beautiful evening in amongst the apple orchard. The smell of apple outside my little Airbnb is almost overwhelming 🍏

Here in good time ahead of a workshop with the excellent people of @theferryproject in Wisbech tomorrow.

What a busy nature-filled few days.

From the Leiston Book Festival on Saturday where the theme of all seven books was nature, to a little pick in West Earlham Woods on Saturday followed by a fascinating talk in Train Wood @friendsoftrainwoodmw about Norwich City (as opposed to Thorpe) train station that sat at the Barn Road end of the Marriott’s Way.

Until dwindling passenger numbers and the Luftwaffe intervened!

Some September sunshine on the allotment yesterday and an apple orchard today in evening sunshine ☀️

I can almost forget my to-do list 😉

Photo at Leiston Book Festival thanks to the brilliant @chofferz_

#nature #outside #norfolk #cambridgeshire #walsoken by @rebkawhite

Every community I’ve worked in and with ultimately wants the same thing: to live somewhere people are proud of, invest in, thrive in and build a future in.

As Chair of Pride in Place in West Earlham & Bowthorpe I’ve been thinking a lot about what pride means and through what Community Wealth Building teaches us, I’m beginning to see the possibilities before us.

- It’s not another grant.

- It’s not more goodwill.

Rather, money that behaves like a friend - as with the social investment I secured in 2020.

It was patient, relationship-led AND designed to put impact at the heart as well as keep value circulating rather than extracting.

Regular investment asks “what’s the return for me?”

Social investment asks “what’s the return for us?”

I’ve been looking at Kindred in the Liverpool City Region as a real model of hope.

- They’ve invested £3m across 55 social enterprises.

Not only has this investment created over 100 jobs and levered a further £16.4m into the local economy, but there was:

- no competitive bidding

- no organisations pitched against each other

Relationships are built over time, and a ‘pay back, pay forward’ model where repaid investment funds the next organisation.

You read that right!

Not only does the investment catalyse those organisations to make a difference in that community.

But it moves on to the next great idea and catalyses more organisations resulting in more and more impact that goes way beyond the immediate work of the organisation, and into the ‘how’ of what they do as much as the ‘what’.

Where regeneration projects and old school philanthropy sees money and trust leave areas, social investment builds trust because it trusts people.

Trust is transformative in communities and contributes to pride.

If you’re not sure when I write about social investment what I mean, I recommend @goodfinanceuk as a brilliant place to start exploring it if you want a thriving community where people are proud to live there too.

#socialinvestment #investment #charity #socialenterprise #income by @rebkawhite

Well that was a wonderful, if exhausting day hosting Leiston Book Festival. What an incredible achievement by the team.

There was a point half way through the day when I was overwhelmed by the wonder of all these incredible authors (and their interviewers) expressing their joy, hope and connection with the natural world.

In the context of climate change, hope became a theme over the day, layered with the reality of finding hope in the small actions of individuals and communities and the larger players not pulling their weight.

I couldn’t help but feel that hope is easier to find the older you are - you won’t be affected so much after all.

Ultimately, it felt like hope was bit in the eye of the beholder.

Louis de Bernière was extraordinary, as expected, with enough stories to fill a week-long festival.

Wonderful to meet @deborahtomkinswriter and hear more about her book, The Wilder Path in all its enigmatic beauty. I loved loved loved it and can report that fiction belongs at a festival with a nature focus 👏

@timdee1 makes us unexpectedly fall in love with gulls in his book, Landfill. You’ll never look at the gulls the same way again.

@bishop_norwich connected our feet with spirituality in The Way Under Our Feet.

Great to meet @collissharvey and hear more about corners of Suffolk (as a Norfolk gal) best explored on foot - in her vivid book, Thoughtlands.

@mattgaw, with his thoughtful reflections on the joy of experiencing weathers many of us may eschew in In All Weathers, was a thought-provoking and considered delight as well as a reminder not to be put off by ‘bad’ weather as autumn arrives.

And of course @robertashton1 and his wide-ranging book - Down to Earth, in which we learned that it wasn’t only my dad that would wee on the compost.

Great to see @chofferz_ taking photos too - can wait to see them all.

#Books #nature #bookfestival #festival #leiston by @rebkawhite