The Road to Hell...
I'm a bit addicted to helping people, quite a bit actually... Perhaps its more accurate to say that I'm addicted to helping people to achieve potential I've noticed in them. I seem to have been cursed with some incredibly talented friends who either lack my admin/management skills, are terminally shy, or don't actually realise how talented they are. Someone who is, in my opinion, the most gifted bass-player on the planet, who has played sessions for some 'global' stars makes a living working in TK Max in Exeter, playing occasional gigs with local bands playing music that hardly scrapes the surface of his abilities.
Money has never motivated me. I have taken jobs that excited and challenged me positively. If I can't believe the organisation's hype I can't do the job. I get passionate about making opportunities for people to get the chance to experience at least what I've experienced. I had a pretty middle class upbringing despite actually being piss-poor: my mother was determined to be able to stand up in this country with dignity and pride and made few bones about having invested in her future through me. Grammar school, university, post grad course and a year of teaching in the middle.
The greatest resource of any community is its people: if people don't get to know what is possible they don't develop ambitions of their own- beyond what is expected of them. When I meet people who are being stifled or actively repressed by what they have to do in their lives to keep functioning I try to help. When a friend shared his ideas for a community building in a Co Durham village, I tried to help, similarly when I met a talented creative being exploited by a dodgy-sounding scaffolder and a gifted computer programmer being put at risk by his job working in a betting shop, I helped both to achieve their independence- at financial cost to me. I started my community interest company in 2011 as an alternative way of delivering community development that didn't rely on maintaining a potentially expensive administration. I've served organisations that have moved so far from their original aims that they exist to maintain their administration and not the other way around. A lot of voluntary sector workers in this region lost their jobs in 2011 as the global financial crash took effect and the UK government cut arts and culture first as they always do. I wanted to do offer an alternative to them leaving the sector or the region by creating an organisation based on the targeted combination of freelance skills and contacts in service of communities by creating a professional association.
I don't broadcast what I do: friends tell me I am stupid when they do find out, but I can't see myself changing. It is unfortunate that I have critics who refuse to believe I don't have the motivations of a city banker: wanting to gain as much for myself at everyone else's expense. The disappointing part is when people assume that my organisation is there to take over, to make a financial killing, to impose a way of doing things regardless of what the supposed beneficiaries want. It seems hard for some people to understand or believe that we don't do what we do to accrue personal wealth. In fact I have 'invested' money into the organisation every year it has existed from my own pocket. We have provided work for a group of freelance associates and delivered activities, events and services to 8 or 9 not for profit organisations. This is what I will be pursuing now to avoid the danger of ending up again working for some organisation that lacks the courage its own convictions.
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