Nostalgia

Well I bashed out the Guildford T to Redhill Y charity marathon walk last Sunday -26 miles in just slightly over 9 hours, so a shade under 3mph which is good going...and I really enjoyed it, and finished strongly.Thank you to those who contributed to the fundraising for Redhill YMCA's work with disabled children.

Today, Friday , is going well - the Surrey Healthwatch Board approved a  project proposal last night that we submitted at their invitation to undertake market research into the Health needs/opinions of young people. This fits exactly with our "Leadership, representation and advocacy role".

I have been running a short strategic context session this morning for a brilliant member organisation of ours; it went well..they gave me a bottle of my favourite red wine..and it was at Polesden Lacy (Nat Trust) which I am ashamed to say I had never been to in all my 27 years in Surrey. I rehearsed some themes which will be contained  in the Young Surrey : Strategic Review I'll start writing next week, and these went well.

 Off to County Hall this afternoon to talk to visiting Welsh Government officials about youth work commissioning........And was interviewed yesterday by phone by Birmingham University's INLOGOV department about the same subject. Waves of academic nostalgia, as the great Prof John Stewart is apparently still working there occasionally. One of my most  treasured books is by him - "The Responsive Local Authority". Hmm....

Went to Surrey CC Services for Young People recommissioning conference on Monday; they HAVE made a lot of progress- their needs analysis is a superb bit of work for example, but is "Employability" the only focus for young people /Youth Services? Is co- production a misnomer ...should it be "complementary production"  to better convey the notion that the sectors need to blend services together?

Otherwise I've been slogging through compilation of all the Pqasso Level 2  papers to accompany our submission for external assessment for this quality assurance mark. We'll submit next week.
So it's been a really positive week.

Mothering Sunday......
Mike