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Community Sensei
The people who have gone before Someone who has gone before In Karate, a Sensei isn’t simply a teacher. It doesn’t just mean instructor or coach. It literally translates as: someone who has gone before. Someone who has walked the path ahead of you. Someone who can help you navigate the learning.The doing.The journey. It’s…
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Holding the table
The unseen work of bringing people together A lot of the work we do isn’t really seen. You might see the occasional social media post.Sometimes a photo of families enjoying an activity in a park.Every now and again an impact report. What you don’t see are the conversations that happen beforehand — and the dozens…
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The Map of a Child’s Town
Sometimes the best way to understand a place is simply to walk it. No surveys.No clipboards.No presentations. Just a group of young people and a simple question: What do you notice? When a school decides to listen One thing that has really stood out recently is how seriously Eskdale Academy have embraced gathering insight from…
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Hit & Run funding
Why short-term money fails communities I didn’t really understand funding until I had to make payroll. For years, I worked on the funder side — holding budgets, shaping programmes, distributing money. It was secure. Strategic and operational, but still at arm’s length. The risk never quite landed with me in the same way. I wasn’t…
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Same Standards, Different Rooms
What three weekends of karate competitions tell us about pathways, culture, and credibility In February, the competitive karate calendar stacked up in a way that sometimes does happen — creating periods of increased pressure and load for athletes, officials, and organisers. Across three consecutive weekends, athletes and officials moved through four very different environments: Cadet,…
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The Bar Has to Be Higher
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about standards. In sport.In governance.In place. Different arenas.Same principle. A referee can’t be half impartial. You either are or you aren’t. There’s no middle ground. Leadership’s the same. The moment a referee bends the rules for convenience, the whole thing unravels. Athletes notice.Coaches notice.Spectators notice. Trust goes. And once…
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Small Things Done Well
Notes from the unglamorous side of getting stuff done. I can’t remember exactly when it clicked. It was one of those slightly tongue-in-cheek realisations you have halfway through a conversation. I kept finding myself drawn to the same type of people. Different jobs.Different industries.Different personalities. But the same trait. They’re the ones who make things…
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More than medals
Inside the craft of building high performance young athletes I’ve just come back from refereeing at the European Karate Championships. Cadets. Juniors. U21s. Big arena. Bright lights. Flags on tracksuits.Young athletes chasing margins most people would never notice. From the outside it looks dramatic. Explosive exchanges.Split-second decisions.Medals. Podiums. Anthems. Then I got home and found…
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Permission Slips
Notes on walks, listening, and who really gets to use space Picture this. We’re known locally for activating community spaces.We’ve even been held up — slightly awkwardly — as examples of how to do this kind of work well. We do things properly. Risk assessments.Insurance.Safeguarding.Cross the t’s. Dot the i’s. All sensible. All necessary. But…
Northern Ambiguity
…always learning
Northern Ambiguity 