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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…
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Standing in the middle
Notes on judgement, neutrality, and the quiet work of refereeing I’ve just finished day one of six days of referee exams in Cyprus. The exams also form part of the Cadet, Junior & Under 21 European Championships. To maintain standards, referees are examined regularly — national, continental and world level.Theory. Practical. Judgement. It’s not a…
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Movement is Medicine?
I think the editorial is really valuable. But I’d caution against conflating exercise and movement. For someone who’s sedentary or struggling, they don’t need exercise first — they need movement. Exercise comes later.There’s a difference. Exercise is structured, prescribed, often supervised. Movement is simply stepping outside, walking, chatting, playing, being present in the world again.…
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Bushidō for Place Leaders
What karate taught me about leadership, place, and the quiet work of stewardship I’ve been involved in karate since I was five years old. I won’t say how many years that is — because then you’ll realise how old I am. Most of my family are involved, or have been involved too. I’ve researched martial…
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Place Expansion:
Notes on Stewardship from the Ground If you look only at the paperwork, Place Expansion can seem like a set of plans, milestones and reports. If you sit in the work long enough, it feels very different. It feels like conversations in cold parks and along the prom.Like volunteers staying late because they care.Like young…
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I Don’t Use AI to Write. I Use It to Think.
There’s a lazy narrative forming about AI. That it’s for shortcuts.For automation.For replacing thinking. I’ve probably helped shape that narrative myself. I’ve openly challenged shallow, copy-paste uses of AI — especially in community and place-based work where trust, judgement and lived experience actually matter. So there was a slightly ironic moment a few weeks ago.…
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What Are We Actually Trying to Learn?
How Hartlepool Sport is using Test & Learn to shape Place Expansion When people hear “Test & Learn”, it’s easy to picture more sessions, more classes, more programmes. But that isn’t what we’re doing. Because if we simply delivered more activity, we might get busier — but we wouldn’t necessarily get better. For Hartlepool Sport,…
Northern Ambiguity
…always learning
Northern Ambiguity 