Blogs from SajeImpact
We are going to hear a lot about ‘Growth’ over the next year.
Hers is an excellent short explainer/ Blog from Chatham House. It is a Think Tank so I assume they are now classed as one fo the enemies of growth for trying to think more widely about what is is and how you go aobut measuring it and designing policies to make it work for everyone!
I see you are busy?
Are you busy?
We know that so many of our conversations these days revolve around how busy we are. We wear our busyness as a badge of honour. It has become our latest status symbol.
As part of the series on the Sports Think Tank on the 2012 London Games Legacy we have been surveying the views of leaders across the sports sector
I have been slowly moving towards retirement for some time - largely stalled by Covid. But it has finally happened.
This month SajeImpact transitions from my ‘Business’ to a website and lifestyle dedicated to campaigning for all those issues we have been working on over the last 12 years - inactivity, wellbeing poverty, inequality and injustice.
We will be carrying on, but without many of our lovely clients.
Depending on your age the 1st May 1997 may be significant or may mean absolutely nothing. It was of course the day that Labour won its landslide victory in the general election and for the next 13 years changed my life.
So much has been written about the period of the New Labour government and I have thousands of words dedicated to my time in Parliament on my old websites.
But today at SajeImpact the reflection is more about those big changes that mean your life takes a completely different direction. I certainly wouldn’t be doing what I do now without that victory in 1997. I have often wondered where I would be.
I am a natural sceptic.
That makes me sound a little negative I am sure in may minds. We have somehow created a world in which dominant, certain and strongly held views are considered to be worth following.
Even when I was an MP I was fascinated by the certainty of my colleagues on every imaginable subject. I will still young and from a school system that didn’t really teach absolute certainty (I have now discovered of course their certainty is more often than not arrogance!)
Right from the start we’ve been in the back foot. As soon as we allowed Johnson and his government to call basic health protection ’Restrictions’ and the lifting of these as freedom - one part of society had captured the language of lockdown and Covid.
The prime minister’s pledge to scrap legally enforced isolation for people in England with Covid-19 flies in the face of basic infectious disease management, which tells us to avoid infecting other people when you are infectious. It is a basic public health protection, like others we have in daily life: speed limits on roads, the banning of smoking indoors, and laws against drink driving. These limit our freedoms to a certain extent, but we have accepted that “infringement” in order to have a safer and healthier society.
I set myself a challenge of reading and learning from Thought Pieces weekly. I picked up this one today from DEMOS and do believe it is an undervalued public perspective.
We are a divided nation. The last decade in particular has exposed these deep divisions within our society and culture. Since the 2016 Brexit vote more of this anger has been expressed vocally on social media and on the streets.
During the Covid-19 pandemic a new division has arisen - with a vocal minority protesting against vaccines and lockdown measures.
The most beautiful guide to the Danish custom of hygge, the everyday life philosophy for better living.
Hygge is a feeling of belonging and warmth, a moment of comfort and contentment. This beautiful little book will help you to find hygge and embrace it every day. Make a pot of coffee, relax in your favourite chair and discover for yourself how life is better with hygge.
Does your salary mean you’re rich? And what makes you upper, middle or working class? We ask the British public
This is a really helpful suggestion.
Today’s norms of responsiveness are ridiculous. We shouldn’t apologize for failing to meet them.
I have now stopped apologising for any delay i perceive in responding to emails and calls. I am retired and volunteer. Whilst I don’t want to deliberately cause any problems through my timelines, I also want to know when I have a day or week off I don’t have to be checking and responding to email and connecting. However, I haven’t quite reached the point I don’t check emails on days out as some of my timelines are time sensitive. But in due course I will achieve that moment too… where is I am unavailable I am actually not going to respond!
Our 2022 Blog series takes to video to keep things fresh.
This is our Featured Post. Stay in touch!
This is a question I have been asking myself for-nearly 25 years.
However just before Christmas 2021 there was a specific lack of response from the government in the financial package to help with latest Covid Plan B restrictions which excluded the leisure sector, but included hospitality pubs and restaurants.
The sector has warned of the consequences for gyms and leisure services.
Schools have warned about the late notice for secured funding for SGOs and the Pupil Premium.
Local authorities continually highlight the impact of leisure spending on communities.
So why don’t government understand the sector. What do they understand and what have we been doing wrong all this time?
Each year I write that I am not really a big fan of New Year pledges, but then find myself slipping into using the moment to pivot parts of my life. For many it will be a post Christmas diet or joining a gym or learning a new language and booking the trip of a lifetime.
Sadly the last couple of years with Covid has taught us not to perhaps plan too far ahead.
As you will see from my 4000 Weeks Blog, I have already started to realign my life around the prospect of being fully retired and using my weeks ‘wisely’
So this means I will be stopping some things!
I have been trying to write this blog for about a month, which means another 4 of my possible 1500 weeks left have passed.
I have already written extensively about the need for seasons in life. As many regulars will know I have been planning for this next season for some time - hitting 55 and ‘retiring’. Naturally that R word has caused much debate and reflection. I think we all agreed it is the wrong word to describe this next decade.
As the UK Government commences its Spending Review 2021, the Sport for Development Coalition is calling on Chancellor Rishi Sunak to capitalise on sport’s potential as a ‘team player’ in levelling up communities, tackling deprivation and building back better from Covid-19.
Targeted interventions across the Coalition’s UK-wide network produce cost savings and multiple returns on investment, from sustaining mental health and wellbeing and increasing employability and skills, to reducing crime and anti-social behaviour.
In many of the voluntary roles I hold at the moment I am never very far from hearing about the ‘Levelling up agenda’. but what is it. Wha lies behind this rather nebulous phrase..
The BEIS Select Committee took a look and weren’t too impressed!
Have a read.
I am the first to acknowledge that innovation sits at the heart of all my work. It is impossible to sit back and relax about an idea or product whilst the world around is changes so fast. In all aspects of life we need to react - to innovate. Whether that is in sport or business. When I reflect on the work of Saje Impact 10 years ago it looks nothing like what we do today. We have had to innovate to stand still.
I have no joined the LLEP Innovation Board as Vice Chair to Nik Kotecha who lives and breathes Innovation and I am learning every day as a consequence. have a read through this report if you have time.
