Care.

Yesterday I was invited to do a talk in Birmingham, to discuss an artist’s animation video tackling the housing crisis and building on the ideas of video activism and the use of the archive as a revolutionary tool.

It was here that many different areas across England were discussed via the lens of navigating the housing crisis and wanting to get stable living & build a home via council housing.

What was spoken about shocked me a bit. Of course, I academically understand that every place is different. Every ward in Doncaster is different, with its own microscopism of assets and issues. As is the human condition. But I didn’t realized that all the things we do to help people in Doncaster in/access social housing weren’t just done everywhere else?

From helping folks fill out forms for housing, ensuring a more connected approach including social workers etc, getting people a bed for the night who are on the street, to supporting TARA’s and environmental pride etc. I watched videos/heard oral histories of communities having to fight to create a group to help each other fill out forms etc. It was wild. Because it’s so obvious that these things we try and do in Doncaster are vital to a healthier understanding of tenants’ needs. and it’s so vital to building policies, designing new housing, etc, & it needs to be made WITH tenants, of all kinds! Properly. In collaboration.

Now, we still have lots of work to do to get better and the housing landscape in the UK is grim AF adding to our endless challenges which means 100s of people’s housing needs are not being met. BUT we still have these support things in place that aren’t there elsewhere.

This got me thinking about care. And collaboration / co-production. On power, on basic needs and health. I thought a lot about the labour of love in our systems.

If y’all follow me on Twitter, you will know that the past month & a bit feels like all i’ve been doing is a lot of kicking off and getting ground down by inane system-protocol-silo’d behaviours that come across as not connected enough. And as a result, creates poorer outcomes for residents (not person-centred responses) and leaves me feeling burnt out and like – “what’s the point??”. Doesn’t help that I’ve been under the weather too, which drains my usual resilience.

Exhausted on the floor outside a train toilet, from a crazy week, on another too packed & poorly commissioned CrossCountry service (another lack of care)- I was reflecting on all of this. I had also just read the research papers associated with the Guardian’s front page yday: that seeing the same GP = better care outcomes, less hospital admissions, it’s cheaper & keeps people alive longer (25% less risk of death within the next 12 months). Julie & I joked that my GP is adding YEARS to my life. But this is everything we all ALREADY know. But the gov/policy-makers/commissioners are not following our own guidance and evidence. https://www.kingsfund.org.uk/insight-and-analysis/press-releases/radical-refocusing-primary-community-services

All of this swirled inside my head. It made me think of Madeleine Bunting’s “Labours of Love” book when reflecting on our systems of care. For those navigating it and those working and advocating in them.

Within the medical field, a rigid social hierarchy prevails: doctors are tasked with diagnosing and treating, while the responsibility of caring is systematically passed down the ranks, from nurses, HCP & social workers, to healthcare assistants, home caregivers, and countless unpaid individuals such as family members, friends, and volunteers. We see this mirrored in Local Authorities to education systems and beyond.

Despite its profound moral significance and the lofty rhetoric it often accompanies in political discourse, caring remains relegated to a position of low status. There exists a pervasive desire to be perceived as caring without the necessity of engaging in the actual hands-on work of caregiving. This aversion stems from the inherent messiness and discomfort associated with physical care, confronting realities and experiences that many would prefer to avoid.

Madeleine Bunting cites Californian Palliative care doctor B.J. Miller, who describes palliative care as “the art of not running away.” However, in my own experience, acute care is sometimes less challenging than confronting tasks such as managing incontinence, or attending to the complex needs of individuals with severe dementia or disabilities, trying to support people who are homeless & experiencing deep trauma. Additionally, caring for those struggling with addiction, individuals impacted by suicide or abuse, or individuals experiencing psychosis presents its own set of difficulties. Faced with sometimes hostile behaviour, and profound suffering, the natural inclination is to flee. To just accept the first answer that comes back to you. Nevertheless, there are individuals who courageously remain by their side, providing unwavering care and support.

Our determinants of health create the circumstances we face in life, and these deeply influence our need for care. Sadly, those who lack financial resources, social connections, education, or a supportive environment from the very beginning (early help/support = best bang for your ££) are more likely to require assistance.

It is a poignant reminder of the pressing need for empathy and collective efforts to address the growing disparities in our community’s care landscape.

As a councillor, I witness, observe & even experience the Inverse Care Law, eloquently introduced by GP Dr. Julian Tudor Hart in 1971. It unveils a reality where the availability of (health) care is inversely proportional to the urgency of its need. I see the directness of this when I discuss our local casework/issues to other more affluent wards & it’s like 2 different worlds and jobs. These disparities become even more pronounced when market mechanisms dictate the distribution of care.

“Labours of Love” serves as a powerful call to action. Philosopher Michael Sandel aptly points out that our society has transitioned from a free-market economy to a free-market society, inadvertently importing the values and incentives of free markets into social spheres where they do not belong, at all. It is imperative that we reintegrate the values and ethics of care and compassion into our societal framework.

To achieve this, we must cultivate the skill of facing challenges head-on rather than shying away from them. But how do you get a big system to do that? This is my constant question. One that lays heavy between the lines of the moany emails I send.

During moments of privilege, we often pass off tasks that we find tedious, frightening, or gross to others. Yet, it’s crucial to understand that not all caregiving roles are viewed equally. While healthcare professionals caring for the wounded or terminally ill are often highlighted in popular culture, there is a noticeable absence of representation for those dealing with neurological disorders, mental illnesses, or learning disabilities. For our council colleagues who are out doing home visits with people who are deeply frightened or have lots of complexity happening around them. All of this work is often undervalued and not seen as a major skill – when it is – & doesn’t offer the time/space for it happen, rules created by the systems themselves (in response to demand/reduction of resources). Media & organizations depictions of caregiving tend to focus on moments of tranquility and kindness, glossing over the emotional strain and ethical dilemmas that come with looking after others.

This oversight perpetuates a distorted perception of care, failing to acknowledge the significant challenges and sacrifices made by caregivers on a daily basis.

My friend & colleague the other week said, “[organizations] often think that carers are a nice to have, not a necessity.” And it is this friction I find myself rubbing up against & would argue is what is panning out in front of us all across the NHS & beyond.

Care, frequently romanticized or disregarded in media representations, encompasses substantial emotional toil and ethical complexities. The serene depictions of care fall short of capturing the fatigue, self-reproach, isolation and moral conundrums confronted by caregivers, a considerable number of whom are burdened with excessive workloads and inadequate support.

The relational aspect of care, fraught with complexities and emotional demands, poses significant challenges for people and any system that needs to care but isn’t doing it effectively that contributes to burnout of carers (all types of carers, home and work).

When providing care to individuals who have endured trauma (which is a lot of folks), building trust is a gradual process. Initial meetings/communications can be challenging as we all have to navigate boundaries and assess each other’s sincerity. In such encounters, the system is often tempted to encouraging 1-dimensional responses to save time. But end up triggering many involved.

However, I have been where a lot of my residents, who come to me, are. This serves as a reminder of the crucial importance of being fully engaged when faced with people who are distressed or fearful. The relationships formed in these moments of vulnerability are not always easy, as acknowledged by the emails and messages that often begin with, “Sorry for taking up your time…”

At times, I am the only person my residents can get a hold of. I become their key worker by default.

Providing meaningful care to people requires patience and perseverance, with rewards often delayed. Esp. in a system that only half of it understands the necessity to adapt to the needs of a person. However, we must continue to remake our places and investments that allow compassion to bloom. Arthur Frank, a medical sociologist, aptly notes that the disruption of ongoing relationships in caring systems is not merely an organizational issue but a moral failure. It distorts the potential for people to truly connect and support each other.

Again, I think of the work we do in Adult Social Care in Doncaster – a wide and wonderous directorate of spaces and people in the dedication of supporting us all to live the best life and feel cared for. Where we are on the co-production journey with people who know what accessing adult social care in the Donx feels/is like.

We talked at length last month about co-production, caring, collaboration, labour and power. That care is not just a trait; it’s a laborious endeavor deeply influenced by our own experiences of being cared for. It’s demanding work, often undertaken in harsh and risky conditions.

However, this work requires resources, such as time, proper wages, and support, to be sustainable. When individuals who possess a natural disposition for caring lack these resources, they risk burning out as they repeatedly find themselves unable to meet the high standards they set for themselves.

Every day, dedicated professionals in the realm of care are forced to relinquish their roles due to burnout. Exhausted professionals in our systems and organizations, overwhelmed by systems not letting them naturally adapt & treat the needs *of that person/community* & the endless paperwork that comes with it. This shift threatens to squander the innate goodwill and compassion of millions of caring individuals who are expected to continue caring with nothing more than their own inherent kindness to sustain them.

If we truly aim to elevate the status of care, to create more caring systems that connect us all together, and foster a more compassionate society, we must recognize and actively support the immense effort involved in this labour of love.

Material assistance & fair financial expenses, alongside acknowledgment of the challenges faced by caregivers, is essential for cultivating a sustainable culture of care.

I’m proud to see that in Doncaster we are standing in good stead, and need to shout about it more TBH. Sometimes you indeed need to go somewhere else to see stuff that you’re usually looking really closely at. I’m really proud of how caring Doncaster is, both in how we all work together and our fantastic communities.

But I am determined that we will continue to build more infrastructure/freedom to allow care and autonomy and creativity to collide every day, to responddd to people and what they really, truly need. Often that’s time & space & proper listening.

The way forward, I think, is to learn not to run away. To stay and be and figure it out, truly. Together.

The year of Krypton: Unveiling the Invisible Elements in Our Lives & Time

Another cycle around the sun! Such joy! The beginning of last year I brought in the New Year and my Jan Birthday feeling like absolute crap. It took me months, probably around July before I felt like I could walk up hills again without my legs feeling like balloons and so so breathless. I had to be put on new asthma meds post covid – and these not only got rid of some of the long-covid symptoms but it made my life with Asthma a MILLION times better. I hardly ever get woken up in the middle of the night, struggling to breath. When I run, it doesn’t sound like i’m choking and there’s something restricting my airways. I didn’t know that this is how normal people live! And breathe!

As always, it’s such a privlege to get to acknowledge the passing of a date that is singularly yours. A day that celebrates that you were lucky enough to not only be born (a very risky process) but are still here today. Another day to make a mark, make a moment. And it always feels a bit morbid that someone in their 30s talks like they’re in their 80’s. But I know that time is not owed to any of us and getting older means I’ve got to see more places, eat more delicious foods, make 100s of new memories with my mom, bro and friends and so much more.

Living with a life-limiting illness is a peculiar, sometimes lonely kind of impotence. If you ran a thousand miles, aced a billion exams, hit a dozen home runs, nothing could reverse or erase the fact of a life changing illness/event/trauma. Living with a chronic illness or disability, of any kind, is usually invisible. And that invisibility can be quite hard to manage within societies destructive late-stage capitalism of depletion.

It’s been a decade since I entered the Kingdom of the Sick, each border gives me something else to work out how to live or manage it. But each day is a glory, especially if upright and able to move with ease, without pain. Something that wasn’t possible 6-7 years ago.

I am still grappling with what all of this means, esp as things will never be “normal” for me. But in this short time, some old age-old truths became even more apparent to me. I will discuss the year ahead through my year of Krypton.

In the vast symphony of elements that dance through the periodic table, one often overlooked performer stands out—the elusive and enigmatic krypton. While it might be more commonly associated with Superman’s fictional home planet, this noble gas has a real and fascinating presence in our own world, quietly existing in the shadows of the Earth’s atmosphere.

Krypton, making up a mere 1 part per million by volume in the air we breathe, is a rarity among gases. It is a silent observer, colorless, odorless, and tasteless, embodying a near invisibility that contrasts sharply with its superheroic namesake. Distilled from air cooled to a liquid state, krypton emerges from this process as one of the rarest atmospheric gases, occupying a place of subtle significance.

One place where we can find the element down on earth is in volcanic rocks. After I got sick, I became a bit obsessed with volcanoes. Volcanoes and Volcanic islands offer a window into our planet’s even deeper past. We walk over islands – countries! That were formed from Volcanoes. And we don’t give it a second thought. Living alongside volcanoes is an intricate dance between humanity and the raw, untamed forces that shape our world. It’s a dance that spans generations, where the past echoes in the present, and the invisible power of these majestic geological giants continues to mold the future. When I think about it, it makes me feel quite insignificant but truly connected to the earth. A connection I can’t quite articulate – but it makes me feel truly alive – with wonderment and what it means for humans on the earth right now./

Geologic time unfolds in a vast and patient tapestry, weaving the narrative of our planet’s existence across epochs and eons. It is a chronicle written not in ink or on parchment but etched into the very bones of the Earth.

This temporal saga, measured in millions and billions of years, stretches far beyond the grasp of our transient human experience, challenging our capacity for comprehension. Mountains rise and fall, continents drift, and oceans reshape themselves in a slow dance choreographed by the forces of nature. In this immense expanse, the rise and fall of civilizations are but fleeting moments, akin to the ephemeral rustle of leaves in the cosmic wind. I don’t know about you, but feeling this – I FEEL ALIVE!

Krypton is a huge part of this: Over geologic time, the Earth’s crust and much of its mantle are in constant, albeit slow, motion, as tectonic plates are recycled from the crust to the mantle and back again. Like the churning of butter, the churning of the planet’s thickest layer serves not to homogenize its components but to separate them based on their density, volatility, and chemical properties. As a result, almost nothing we encounter on Earth’s surface bears any relation to the planet’s average composition. But some pockets of the mantle seem to have been immune to that mixing and have instead remained undisturbed by geological processes since at least the first 100 million years of the planet’s history.

When bits of those primitive materials make their way to the surface—as they do in the Galápagos, Iceland, and a few other volcanic regions – all places I have visited—they provide scientists with a valuable look back in time to reveal what the infant planet was originally made of. The findings on these primitive materials paint a picture not only of krypton itself but of carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, and oxygen—all the building blocks of life.

The year of Krypton reminds us that we are as much a part of the universe as the sun, the trees, and the stars. In that sense, we have already won. There is no failure in being.

The chemical inertness of krypton, with its full outer shell of electrons, shields it from eager reactions with other elements. Unlike its noble gas companion neon, krypton does form compounds, albeit sparingly. The most notable is krypton difluoride (KrF2), a colorless solid that defies stability above minus 22 degrees Fahrenheit. This compound, a fleeting creation, showcases the peculiarities of krypton’s behavior when enticed into chemical unions. krypton has an isotopic composition matching what’s found in the solar wind, for example, that’s at least circumstantial evidence that the krypton came from the Sun.

Here I think there’s something for us to remember about giving people light and food to grow. Grow where ever they maybe. Without sunlight we would not be able to source any of energy for food, for plants, for oxygen. A harsh cycle. An urgent reminder to take on the energy from the earth, air, sunlight in foods and vitamin D – and use it for better in our communities. I will take this as a call for action for more allotment growing this year! I confess that I love that Krypton reminds me that we are walking around with a little bit of star inside of us all!

The challenge in working with krypton is that there’s so little of it. The element itself is rare enough, but its least abundant isotopes are two to three orders of magnitude rarer still. In the current context of the political landscapes within the UK, and across the world where worse things are happening, we can be led astray into believing that there’s not enough things to go around: not enough space in our countries, in our communities, in our lives. This is a false economy created to drive distraction and unnecessary competiton. The true fact is actually – there is enough and together we can go further and farther than if we were isolated and sat in fear. A collective is always stronger. And our sense of humanity is deep.

Krypton helps us contemplate geologic time to evoke a sense of humility, as it underscores the insignificance of our individual journeys in the broader narrative of Earth’s existence. It prompts us to reflect on the impermanence of our endeavors, questioning the durability of our structures, the endurance of our legacies, and the lasting impact of our transient existence. In this vain I will be spending my Krypton year doing just that. helping to make things stronger, rebuilding the communities around where I am and part of. I will use this year to make our structures stronger.

As this Krypton year will challenge our collectiveness due to being an election year – I will takes inspiration from Krypton to redefine notions of time, success, and purpose. In the relentless flow of geologic time, the human experience becomes a momentary whisper in the geological symphony, inviting contemplation on the significance of our pursuits against the backdrop of eternity.

In a world where the spotlight often falls on the practical and commonplace, krypton’s applications are limited by its scarcity. Its exclusivity and high cost restrict its utility, yet it finds a place in specific niches. I always feel like I am a a bit of a niche myself. The noble gas is injected into certain incandescent lightbulbs, quietly prolonging the life of tungsten filaments that illuminate our spaces. It plays a role in some double-paned windows, its heavy nature helping to trap heat within the glass confines.

Contemplating krypton, one can’t help but draw parallels between its quiet existence and our own moments of unseen significance. Much like this noble gas, we may not always be in the limelight, but our presence, no matter how subtle, contributes to the intricate tapestry of life. A lesson for me in my roles. Sometimes I crave acknowledgement for the hardwork on numerous projects I’ve helped to make happen, by my own drive and endless hours of work off my own back – working differently, connecting and thinking outside the box. But then, that’s just my ego. The important part is the things are getting done! Made! Created! Used! It’s not about me at all. Krypton knows this. And I will be more like Krypton.

Krypton invites us to reflect on the beauty found in the overlooked, the silent contributors to the grand narrative of our surroundings. As a person who spent most of my life feeling unseen and unheard – I feel that this signifies the importance of helping people feel heard and seen – but in a genle, authentic and meaningful way. In a world captivated by the spectacular and the grandiose, there is a quiet elegance to be found in the unassuming, the invisible, and the rare. Just as krypton quietly resides in the background of our atmosphere, we too weave our stories into the fabric of existence, leaving our mark in ways unseen and often uncelebrated. Something I am constantly in awe about with my residents, and friends, who just do so so so much for people and their communities – without ever needing a big sing-song and hu-har! They get on it and create incredible marks.

The dance continues, evolving with each step we take, a testament to the enduring relationship between humanity and the invisible, transformative power of the earth beneath us.

So, the next time you switch on an incandescent bulb or gaze through a double-paned window, take a moment to appreciate the silent elegance of krypton and this year ahead. Marvel at its scarcity, ponder its chemical idiosyncrasies, and recognize that even the most unassuming elements can hold a world of intrigue within their unspoken presence.

I will use this year to look for the hidden, to listen to voices less heard, to take in the beauty, to use materials economically, and build strength and energy into all i am part of. I will use curiosity and intrigue and compassion as my guiding values.

to celebrate my birthday, I chose to see Wonka. & I’m so glad I did. In many ways, it’s the reminder that our imaginations – and joys and love in life – things often invisible – like krypton- are the invisible force fields that help us push through, survive, live, grow and thrive. And that’s what my year of krypton will be.

[Comic 2023] Lessons in Being In Time

This years comic is all watercolour and ink, handdrawn & painted. Straight from my head to the paper. No planning, no pencil. Just ink to paper and rift as I went along. No edits.

This year has been a crazy one. It’s gone so so so fast. It feels as if I just finished last years comic. As I reflect on the past year, entwining the themes that have shaped our conversations and explorations, I am reminded of the profound connections between the natural world and our human experiences. Just as I’ve surfed to find breath, power, and mental clarity in both the Pacific, Celtic Sea, North Seas, and Atlantic (from North America to the coasts of Portugal), I’ve observed patterns in the landscape, from tides and sunlight to moon phases and soil types. Even including polar clouds that sat above us like a magical vortex to another world over the end of the year. The world around us, intricately connected, whispers tales of our cosmic origin and eventual return to the soil, the very ground we tread upon.

In the midst of grief and anxiety, I, like many others, turned to the act of growing things as a means of healing. Feeling the salt water on my skin & thickening my crazy hair, soil under my fingertips; acknowledging our elemental composition—carbon and minerals sourced from stars and dark matter—I embraced the interconnectedness of life and the earth. This newfound perspective transformed my perception of the world.

Friends and their family members became quite sick – some have recovered, others haven’t and won’t. This was, and still is, incredibly hard. I always think I’ll be better in these situations than I am. But as I go into 2024 – I do a call to myself to be better to help people feel supported as we navigate the really hard, tricky, devastating, scary parts of what it means to love and live a life – that lives beyond the physical landscapes to the landscapes of grief and hope within us.

I had 2 tumours removed this year. Constantly reminding me of the finite resource of time we get. ”illness” usually has a clear beginning: the onset of symptoms, the diagnosis, the first day of treatment. But so often it’s not that format at all, and the end of things is harder to pinpoint.

This feels especially true for me given the fact that I am in treatment indefinitely. Spending the year with this knowledge feeling clearer and with compassionate and dedicated friends and humans felt like a culmination—like the most acute phase, the scariest phase, had come to an end.

In the shadows of grief, I uncovered strength, perspective, and clarity. The juxtaposition of beauty and hardship, held delicately in the palm of experience, unveiled the essence of being human. The in-betweenness, the interplay of grief and hope, became a source of power, a reminder of life’s impermanence, and the preciousness of each day.

I love to retrace my steps, because I feel like I can never truely know a place. As I revisited San Francisco for the 6th time (& each time I see and experience I whole different SF), I found myself captivated by the flora, capturing the intricate beauty of plants growing on sidewalks and the rhythmic dance of ocean waves and sand dunes. It’s my fav part of SF; the edges and the inner & outter sunset down to the ocean beaches. I use my sense of smell more here – using it to really clock in memories of what SF is like through its smell. Smells of: Citrus, Eucalyptus, Fir, Flower, Fruit, Herb, Lavender, Lime, Palo Santo, Redwood, Sage, Sea, Sea Salt, Water, and different types of Wood. Capturing a vivid olfactory picture of California’s iconic coastline. Envision a breezy morning by the ocean, with the gentle kiss of salty sea air melding seamlessly with towering redwoods and aromatic eucalyptus. At its core, the delicate elegance of white lavender blossoms, exuding tranquility and serenity.

A lot of the drawings below are inspired by this memory. I’d do anything to be in San Fran right now. These moments of observation and cultivation became a lens through which I navigated the complexities of the year, discovering solace and purpose in small yet profound acts.

Touching base with bodies of water – elements that are needed for life – became a lens through which I approached the complexities of the year.

In the context of our conversations about grief, hope, and the creative process, the narratives intertwined seamlessly. I relate to the notion of transforming life’s interruptions into creative grist, transmuting isolation into creative solitude and connection. Each pen stroke, cup of coffee, and garden planted became a testament to understanding the world and our place in it.

There are some things in the universe you can only find by looking away from them. Sometimes we have to make real space.

Amidst the complexities, the commitment for the year ahead is clear—to embrace and acknowledge our grief and our time, allowing it to coexist with the transformative potential within life’s interruptions. In the coming days/weeks/months, we will weave creative narratives from the threads of isolation, finding solace and connection in each moment. Just as the lines drawn across the faces of waves are eternally present, each endeavor holds a complete and eternal quality, never far from us.

The journey ahead, a celebration of the paradoxes of existence, encapsulates the resilience to hold both beauty and hardship in the same palm. It’s a testament to the challenges and triumphs inherent in the human experience, an ongoing narrative of healing, growth, and the perpetual opportunity to try again.

The challenge is not merely to count the days but to make each one count, recognizing the beauty in the imperfect, the profound, and the unpredictable nature of our shared human existence.

Time is a dimension, and our lives stretch across it, each of us a four-dimensional shape taking up some small space in the universe. All moments existing at once and forever.

If that’s not a call to properly LIVE, then what is?

My Councillor year WRAPPED: 2023

I’ve found so much joy in looking back on the past year, inspired by the tradition of Spotify Wrapped (by the way, here are my top 100 songs of the year—FYI!). Reflecting on my journey as an elected councillor, I’m always trying to take a good, honest look at my actions, the systems at play, and how everything comes together. This ongoing reflection is like the heartbeat of continuous improvement, guiding us toward both short and long-term goals.

This year has been a remarkable journey, with seeds planted almost two years ago finally blossoming into unexpected successes, such as securing Levelling Up Funding and then getting invited to step into the role of Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care – which was VERY unexpected. Seeing these plans that we grew and looked after, start to bloom – so far on – is a testament to the power of hard work and innovative thinking, and staying the course! Though all of this is not without its moments of burnout and frustration.

The awareness of life’s brevity has become a guiding force, urging me to want to avoid repetitive cycles – but at the same time to try and embrace a slower, steadier, and more sustainable approach. This lesson in patience and perseverance echoes Obama’s Book: “The Audacity of Hope.” It serves as a reminder not to succumb to impatience or seek quick fixes – many people working with me will note how frustrated I get when I feel myself just repeating stuff over and over again. A reminder that one needs to be patient in order for things to grow with a good foundation. In this journey, the emphasis is on staying the course and making each moment count. I still think we can have a call to action to ensure that meetings bring resolutions, not monotony, by recognizing that life is too short – and I need to remind myself that if I keep working on stuff – IT WILL happen, in some way or form. Just maybe a year or 2 later than I had expected, ha!

However, with additional responsibilities comes increased accountability. Let’s keep it real here. Stepping into the role of a new cabinet member, just two years into my journey as a freshly elected councillor, and without any prior exposure to this pathway, has been challenging. I’ve grappled with significant impostor syndrome, dedicating countless hours to connect, understand, and navigate the myriad intricacies of this area and within Doncaster as a whole. All in the pursuit of becoming a more effective leader and contributing to positive changes for the residents of Doncaster. Yet, what an absolute privilege it is to serve all of you. It’s a real honour. To cut my teeth on new challenges & get to meet and learn with so many incredible new people. While I haven’t delved into my cabinet casework in this overview, rest assured, I’ll be releasing a newsletter in the new year that provides a more comprehensive look at it all and get you all excited at what is happening and how we can make it even better, together!

Through this reflection, I try to be as transparent as possible about the ups and downs of being a councillor. As someone who tends to share a lot, I’m mindful of how I communicate things because, let’s face it, communication is crucial—it’s the backbone of everything. Yet, doing it right is probably one of the trickiest things ever.

As we approach the end of the calendar year, it’s a time for a broader reflection—a contemplation of the long view. It’s a chance to plan for the year ahead. Despite dealing with chronic pain, especially at the beginning of the year. – and several surgeries in the summer and fall of this year, I’ve learned that it’s easy to get lost in the future to cope with the present. But recognizing the importance of reflecting on the past and present is key to personal growth and avoiding repeating the same challenges.

One thing I’ve seen in myself that I need to get better at – is sitting better with uncertainty. I already thought I was good at this – with dealing with chronic illness – but alas – it turns out I still need to get better at it!

So, keeping all this in mind, let’s dive into an exploration of the significant themes of community, hope, imposter syndrome, and the desire to help individuals not just exist but truly thrive within their communities. How has this past year unfolded for me/us, considering these crucial aspects? Let’s find out together!

OVERVIEW:

I went to EVEN MORE meetings than last year, a 117.09% increase, infact! And when I counted the numbers, it wasn’t just because of my new role – but by half way through the year – just as a ward councillor – I was nearly at the same amount of meetings last year. That’s nuts to think about it! Especially when we distil that time down into actual minutes and then months. Imagine having 24 hours of meetings for 1.5 months!

Again, these meetings were of all types! Briefings, scrutinies, meeting with residents, meeting with partners, meetings trying to solve case work issues – on housing and crime – mostly. Then after June, it went up as I joined many more meetings – such as the Make it Real Board & became Co-Chair of the Carers Strategic Oversight Board.

Highfields, Woodlands and Carcroft had significant increases in the presence of Anti-Social-Behaviour (ASB) – esp towards the summer and beyond. Often, as councillors, we have to fight for resources from partners, presenting different types of evidence due to the complex issues of our communities not feeling safe enough (& the systems not clear or well designed) to report officially. Yet we all know this stuff is happening. We’re VERY lucky in our ward because our Stronger communities team is amazing. Through all this, we were able to secure extra policing & more involvement in local projects from a myriad of partners. Thanks to those extra meetings 😉 And we got Highfields officially as a Regenerative Neighbourhood Project. Which I am SO excited about!

This year, the first point of contact with a resident felt equally shared between email, social media, and in person. Social Media went up massively because people would share their issues on Facebook community groups and a million people would tag me in (This is good because my reputation is growing as a decent-ish cllr!). We would then eventually start to get the casework through email but it started on social media.

There’s a big age split between how people reach out. Middle age and younger is via social media and email. Older folks is in person, old school mail and via phone calls and some text messages. I think the surgery model needs to be updated into how people actually live their lives to make it more accessible for familes and younger working people. Some really interesting design questions on how to enhance accessibility and participation in local democratic services here.

TOP THEMES OF CASEWORK:

My first year as a councillor (2021) was ALLLLLL about our green open spaces, last year (2022) it seemed to clear itself up more, but this year (2023) we ended up back to it being significant. Bin issues and poorer grass cutting seemed to dominate. I’m Not sure if it’s because we were all spending more time outside, or because we didn’t have as drier summer as 2022 – so grass cutting wasn’t as much as an issue then and a wetter summer made it harder to cut?

Fly tipping became a bane of our life around the Highfields & carcroft areas, with Highfields being significant. Lots of it coming from out of the area.

Aside from that, this year was all about the roads. Road safety, cleaner roads (too much trash and moss on paths), wanting road speeds to be reduced (& the Tories think people want the opposite!), loads of emails about poor driving (& had my fair share of experiencing poor car driving in the area whilst on my bike), and general safety – such as LIGHTING. Below images are before and after some of Streetscenes fantastic work.

We put in some fantastic solar lighting in Carcroft and Adwick Park, using safer streets 4 funding and our 106/LUF park money – all of which was very well recieved.

We’ve litter-picked LOADSSSSS this year. We must have done over 140 bags of litter picking through various groups from our “creative walk litter picks” to working with the Brownies, to general litter picking sessions!

We’ve had loads of positive comments – which is ALWAYS nice – on the work at Adwick Park. Thanks to ARTY PARTY IN THE PARK event in 2022 – we were able to secure 70k of Levelling Up Parks funding (only a chunk of it could be spent on playground stuff). this meant we could do some great stuff, including adding new adaptive/accessible play equipment – which I chose equipment that specifically allowed communal use; using what our data from Arty Party said and from the MAKE SPACE FOR GIRLS report. And since it’s been installed, the playground has been SO BUSY! And with lots more teen girls hanging out (they were absent before the upgrades) – backing up what the research suggests! I can’t wait to keep on exploring this further and making our playground and open/public spaces more accessible, female and young kid and teen-friendly!

Housing has been a HUGE one this year. Of all sorts. It is often, like environment, multifaceted with multi-partner/areas of issues. I’ve had a lot of complex issues with peoples wellbeing in housing situations this year. Some of those have been incredibly hard, and it’s often really hard to know what to do next after you’ve done everything you can.

AMAZING STUFF THAT HAPPENED THIS YEAR

Making Adwick & Carcroft ward more playful.

As mentioned earlier, through authentic and creative engagement with residents through events such as ARTY PARTY – we were able to secure Levelling Up Funding for Adwick Park. This joins up the already ongoing body of work such as the tennis courts and basketball courts that are back in full use and looking sexy!

We have lightening across the paths in the park and the playground has completed Phase 1 of updates, with phase 2 of even more exciting updates on the play equipment will be happening in 2024. I hope y’all have enjoyed the millions of benches that have appeared as well… not my 1st choice but part of the grant requirements!

We got some incredible community involvement – taking matters into our own hands to make our spaces the way we want them for our young people. From painting Highfields Playground – to cleaning up the BMX track bones in Highfields Country Park! These were some of our most powerful moments of this year!

We did CAMP GET TOGETHER – TWICE!

we had incredible feedback from parents and kids. And saw some incredible changes within the young people – instilling confidence, a safe space to try things and fail but retry again, making beautiful things, and having lots of fun through creative arty-games. We had people who claimed that some young people were badly behaved – but by the end of the camps – they were creative geniuses! Securing my belief that people just need some attention, belief, and support – and a space to flex their ideas and energies in – and it’s like magic. We supported over 100 local young people over the summer holidays!

Through CAMP GET TOGETHER, we were able to also secure some funding and working with Keepmoat partners for our MAKERS SPACE – YOUTH HANG OUT SPACE that will be called FOMO (Fear of Missing Out).

This has been gnarly trying to get the right containers – but after 6 months – I think we’re now on the right track. Working with different partners means you have to forgo some control – sometimes that works out, sometimes it doesn’t – but we can’t control everything all the time. Anyways, FOMO should be functional and active by the middle of next year! And I’M EXCITED!

WE HAD LOTS OF EVENTS!

To name a few:

CARKI SHOUTS summer Fayre! New Leaf mini Festival! Highfields Gala! Easter & Summer Fairs at the Library, Halloween Discos and Time Out fundraising events for Great North Medical. All organized mostly by members of our communities with some of our support. How flipping amazing is that?!!?

Woodlands Community Library is THRIVING

It’s technically been back into the “communities” hands since the relaunch on the Oct 27th 2022. So many people told me it wouldn’t work. That we wouldn’t get people coming in or becoming new members. “libraries aren’t used” – imagine if I had listened to that? I just believed it would happen, I supported everyone I could to be part of the library and got as much energy and enthusiasm as I could in there. At 1 point it got a bit ropey – just due to people skills. But we worked through it and it made the community running the library, stronger. My old boss in America, Kate Lemay, used to tell me that you can tell the universe what you need, and it’ll manifest. Well, whatever happened this year – the universe delivered it for me.

Beyond the traditional library role, this space thrives with a rich tapestry of events, groups, and services, including initiatives like Your Place and partnerships with organizations such as the MIND charity & Great North Medical GP practice. Residents actively engage as co-creators, contributing to diverse activities like our Wellbeing Reading Group and two distinct Art Groups. From menopause support workshops to daily communal lunches, family activities, and literary/artistic/craft events, the library has become a central point of connection for residents of all ages, including the remarkable 101-year-old Bernard, who never misses a good lunch!

Since its relaunch in October 2022, the library has become a haven for connection, creativity, and support, thanks to a dedicated group of volunteers. These volunteers, many of whom live with various disabilities including learning disabilities, play a crucial role in creating a space centred on belonging and safety. Led by our invaluable head volunteer, Liz White, this team ensures that Woodlands Library is more than a place; it’s a community treasure.

In this supportive environment, people feel empowered to make time for themselves and their communities, embodying the essence of good social care. We want this place to grow and be used more by people in social care to connect residents to what’s close to them, and for them to be a part of this story as well!

As civil rights activist James Baldwin aptly put it, “The longer I live, the more deeply I learn that love — whether we call it friendship or family or romance — is the work of mirroring and magnifying each other’s light.”

Here’s to the ongoing journey of magnifying each other’s light!

WE GOT THE (big) LEVELLING UP FUNDING !!!

Do you remember that last year I was very sad that we weren’t successful gaining the Levelling Up Funding Phase 2 (LUF2), because the government changed the parameters around the submissions – AFTER everyone had submitted. Well, I wasn’t expecting us to get it in the 3rd round! And sought out other options. BUT WE DID.

And I’m 100000000000% sure that this happened due to our incredible community involvement and action that we got to design the plans, and the business case, for the Welfare Miners Hall WITH the people who will be using it. The only one left of its kind in the UK. And it’s 100 years old next year!

I can’t share more than this ATM, as we need to clarify some details. BUT WOW. Talk about patience. This wouldn’t have been possible if it wasn’t for all the community, people’s generous skill and time offering, and the amazing officers at the council who made it happen and got our project into the application in the first place. Y’all amazing! Looking forward to what 2024 brings for us regarding our project here.

Community Regenerative Gardens in Carcroft

Through CARKI SHOUTS! local group and the Carcroft brownies, we’ve got the first regenerative community food garden project happening. It’s still very early days yet – but we should be hitting the ground (no pun intended) late winter/very early spring 2024 so we can get ready for peak growing season! If you’re interested – let us know!! There will be a separate post about this soon.

HIGHFIELDS FUTURE PARKS WORK

Some exciting things will be happening at Highfields Country Park thanks to Sports Englands Future Parks funding. we’re still very much in the engagement part of the project – but I’m looking for exciting projects and enthusiastic community members to help us imagine and create some fantastic events in the run-up.

This year we have had some gnarly issues with the Highfields landscape. It’s not been easy. Debbie and I even had to do our own little water testing! but luckily – it’s still an amazing place to go and be – and i’m looking forward to us all working together to help make it reach its incredible potential!!

REGENERATIVE NEIGHBOURHOOD PROJECT

I’m excited for us to be embracing a regenerative neighborhood approach within my ward. I think it is pivotal in fostering sustainable and thriving communities. Unlike conventional development methods, the regenerative model places a strong emphasis on restoring and revitalizing the local environment, social fabric, and economic vitality. By prioritizing the health and well-being of both people and the planet, this method encourages a more holistic and interconnected approach to community building. It seeks to create spaces that not only meet current needs but actively contribute to the regeneration of natural ecosystems, promote social cohesion, and stimulate economic resilience. Something that places like Highfields really, really needs. I’m excited to work on building and enacting our vision with the community. The vision and figuring out how to make it happen are my favourite parts of the processes!

AND THERES MORE, BUT THIS POST IS ALREADY TOO LONG

We have some banging projects and work coming up in 2024.

What I’ve learned this year is a multitude of things. A colleague said to me the other day that, “it’s easy and nice when you have money to do things but when you don’t, then things can’t happen”.

The thing is, I’ve had to fight, and make endless opportunities from nothing to make a case for or apply for grants and pots of money. You have to be meticulous in reading everything you get under your nose and doing extra research. I actually love doing most of this.

My old USA boss, Kate Lemay, used to tell us: “You always have to be ready for an opportunity – even if the opportunity doesn’t happen or arise, YOU ARE READY!” That has stuck with me and it’s a good mantra for being a councillor. Because that’s what all of the above is. Is being ready for an opportunity. Finding creative, evidence-based, connections and work arounds to blocks.

But there is one main factor – that is a big block and it’s very hard to get around – and it’s a factor that glues everything together as both a supporter and a barrier, and that block is TIME.

Contemporary demands and the perpetual busyness characteristic of late-stage capitalism contribute to a pervasive scarcity of time for meaningful community engagement. Our generation is marked by poly-crises, which amplify a perpetual sense of urgency, leaving individuals stretched thin.

Participation in numerous communities underscores the recognition of group potential – as shown numerous times above. However, there is a constraint of limited capacity that creates friction, resulting in a pervasive sense of overcommitment – I know I certainly feel this myself. This predicament poses challenges for community builders, esp in an area like mine where people’s lives are “complex” and intricate with a number of factors.

But here’s the thing about deep community – it needs time. Sure, everyone’s excited about co-creation and decentralization, but we often forget that it requires people to invest more time, and in reality, everyone’s stretched thin. So we need to make sure people’s time is valued and cared for.

Building a deep community is intentional work. From creating a nourishing environment to listening deeply, it all takes time. Organizing gatherings? That’s a whole process of paying attention to details, extending thoughtful invitations, co-creating agendas, leaving handwritten notes, and making sure everyone feels cared for. It’s a lot, but it’s worth it.

Paradoxically, spending a lot of time on these activities can make people underestimate the efforts of those involved, which leads community builders to feel burnt out. This is especially true for me when I feel burnt out, and start to act and feel very frustrated.

Through all of this year – knowing this issue. Here are some of the thing’s I’ve learned and which I think are useful for the year & any project ahead. I hope you find it useful too!

Rhythm and Patience: Recognizing that communities flourish over the long term, establishing a consistent and measured rhythm of activities becomes paramount.
Remove the Guilt: Let’s make it okay for community members to show up in ways that feel comfortable for them without guilt.
Provide Pathways: Offering clear and scalable avenues for involvement accommodates varying levels of time commitment. Give simple recommendations for people to get involved – MAKE IT EASY. Communication is key!
Take Care of Leaders: Acknowledging and expressing gratitude for the dedicated individuals investing significant time ensures their well-being and continued commitment. I’m always going to their houses, checking in, filling things out for them sometimes. Take care of them and provide the necessary resources.
Energy Considerations: Observing and understanding the energy dynamics within the community allows for a nuanced approach, recognizing that individuals, even with limited time, will engage when the community provides a source of positive energy.

How wild has 2023 been?!

Thank you to everyone who made all the above, and SO MUCH MORE not written about, possible.

It’s been an honor, and a privilege to get to work with some many amazing, generous, kind, talented, thoughtful, compassionate, energetic people and we’re all working towards to same goals.

Here’s to making more stuff happen and thrive and bloom and feel cared for in 2024!

Bit by bit, we will re-build things with colour, hope & togetherness.

This is one for the lesson & memory books.

Yesterday we were crawling on missed bits of glass shards and gravel as we painted heavy-weight stainless steel playground equipment that’s nearly double my age. Instead of whining, we heard laughter. Instead of complaining, we heard stories and ideas and hopes.

Residents, of all ages, came out on both days – offering their time and commitment to making things better. Last week we got rid of multiple bags of trash, loads of soil that had accumulated for years off shoes around the play equipment, and broken glass and plastic. We scraped off flakey layers of years of paint off the equipment – ready for when the weather was right to paint.

It took us 3 hours in the freezing wind to get the park ready, and over 6 hours to paint it in more wind and sun. As a team. At one point, over much needed sandwiches in our 15 min lunch break, we got deeper into issues of mental health and the access issues and needs locally. All were discussed over mechanical paint and coca colas.

We often hear “community isn’t the same anymore“, “Community is dead“, “People aren’t interested” etc, etc. That is a story of separation that gets told to us. It gets whispered from ear to ear. Said like it’s fact. But it’s not true.

Every day, both as a resident – & as a councillor, I see that our community is very much ALIVE. People, everywhere, all at once, are caring for each other.

That care and community are in people helping to paint playgrounds, it’s in people turning up every day to make sure that our amazing library is OPEN, it’s in the coaching of junior sports clubs, figuring out how to open a youth club, growing a community garden, doing litter picks….

…It’s in the people working non-stop to help build new assets like a community sports pavilion and run foodbanks. It’s in the groups, the chats, the neighbours checking in on one and another, the dog walkers saying hello. It’s everywhere. And community is ALIVE.

Every day I am privileged to witness people being good to each other and believing in a better tomorrow. That is no small feat, especially after years, and years of national government massive cuts and endless negative (often untrue) media that seeps through everything, working hard to pit us against one and another.

It takes hard work and commitment to people, care, love, planet, and community to fight against the general status quo of every day.

Whilst I see this stuff as a truly revolutionary act; the act of growing and blooming despite the conditions being in the cracks of concrete rather than a garden bed. This isn’t some toxic positive nonsense, because smiling our way through real injustices and hardships won’t change the system. But underneath this, the true fertilizer of life – even in hardship – is compassion, kindness, courage and hope. This stuff scales better than competitiveness, frustration, pettiness, regret, revenge, merit (whatever that means), or apathy. Kindness ratchets up. It leads to more kindness.

Making things harder for ourselves is the easy thing to do. Being a jerk to yourself or someone else? Easy peezy. Being unsupportive and negative? Lemon squeezy. We don’t get better when we’re tearing ourselves, or our communities, or other things down, or refusing help because we tell ourselves that we don’t deserve it.

Do you want to know what is hard to do?

Building yourself back up after you fall apart/being sick/etc. Giving yourself a proper break. After everything has been cut.

Believing in yourself.

Holding onto hope during a rough day/week/month/year/decade. That’s badass behaviour. Accepting help. Trusting yourself enough to take a break. To take a leap of faith in yourself and your community? That takes confidence and courage.

Being kind to yourself and others. That takes real strength. And all those things actually lead to you getting better. Better in your work, better in your ideas, in your body & self, a better community. Because it’s infectious!

Everyday I am being schooled by my incredible residents. They show me this, give me a lesson reminder: I am inspired and moved by my communities commitment to believing in us, turning up even when the odds are stacked against us, and making things happen/better for everyone!

The work is sometimes incredibly hard – but what I know about Adwick, Carcroft, Highfields, Skellow & Woodlands is that we are all hard workers! And our legacy is planting seeds in a garden that lasts for MANY years to come.

What I need to keep refusing to forget is that every great and difficult thing has required a strong sense of optimism. Don’t lose it, even when things are extra grim and tough.

Thank you again, so much, to these amazing people!

Charleen Hopper, Kelly Walker, Caz Smith, Richard Bailey, Lauren Beaumont, nicola culkin, my partner in crime: cllr Debbie Hutchinson and the blue smurf (hehe) & anyone else I have missed who helped us get the park ready to paint, and then spent all day painting with us.

To the next challenge. Bit by bit, we will re-make things colourful, hopeful and bright!

The Year Ahead of Bromine: Blurring of time and re-focusing

I’ve made it to another cycle around the sun. No small feat after this past year, and now starting the new year with blood tests showing loads of abnormalities. For as long as I can remember, even before i started having ill-health… I’ve always felt like I wasn’t going to live that long. Ask any of my friends from high school, they’ll tell you I didn’t think I’d make it to 25. Not from illness, but just this nagging feeling that I didn’t have as long as others, more likely by an accident. I am from an area where people live 25 years less than in richer areas. And we had a significant amount of kids killed or die throughout high school. Maybe this had sunk into my subconscious.

Then that fateful diagnosis 10 years ago, almost seemed like my fears WERE now justified. Just as I had predicted. That night after the visit to the Mass Hospital oncology clinic – I went back to my cabin, at summer camp, out in New Hampshire on an island.

I googled everything I could on this tentative diagnosis I was just given – and after 100’s of pages from Google of some gnarly odds- I shut my laptop lid and walked outside onto the ball field. It was around midnight, eerily quiet – even for that time. And I looked up at the sky, like I had done 100s of times before. This night was clear and bright and entirely powdered with stars. And there, I felt a physical weight of time. The worlds biggest sense of awe. Suddenly, I could really, truly, see the stars!

It was this celestial splendor that suddenly made me realize how little time, how -potentially- little life, I had left. My sense of youthful eternity was inseparably mixed for me with a sense of transience — and death. This kind of feeling stays with you. I laid down on the ballfield feeling the cool summer ground and lush grass behind my body and the weight of time upon me, starting up into light that was from the past, shining down upon. And i realized I had entered a new liminal space/state: inbetweenness.

Back then, I just felt like I wouldn’t make it to 25, but that came and went, onto 26, 27, 28… Now i’m at the age of Bromine.

Oliver Sacks said that for him, “Elements and birthdays have been intertwined for me since boyhood, when I learned about atomic numbers.”

Ever since I read his book, Gratitude, i realized how entwined we are with the elements that make every single living thing or part of the worlds we live in. this way of seeing a birthday milestone, 10 years from life did change, makes so much sense.

Perhaps the fact that when you’re 1 (or born?), that age on the periodic table is Hydrogen. The lightest element and yet the most abundant chemical substance in the universe, constituting roughly 75% of all normal matter. The element that helps to make water – the very thing most of our bodies are made of, and what every living thing needs to survive, makes the point. Life and at its true lightest.

I have somehow lived through Arsenic (1 of the years of lock-down covid). But what can Bromine teach me?

Well, I have only just learned about Bromine in real life- as a councillor, how fitting? When trying to get rid of a knocked-down building’s rubble, they said some of the floor tiles were coated in Bromine & wasn’t sure whether we’d need a specialist to come and dispose of the chemically laced material. At the time I thought that this was weird, given people had been walking, dancing and creating lives ontop of that floor for years and years.

Bromine is the 3rd lightest element in the halogens group. Its properties are between those of chlorine and iodine. An element, not much like myself, that defies definition in many way by being inbetween 2 more well known elements.

What is interesting about elemental bromine, esp for the year ahead, is that it’s very reactive and thus does not occur as a native element in nature but it occurs in colourless soluble crystalline mineral salts, analogous to table salt. In fact, bromine is so reactive that it has to form bonds in pairs—never in single atoms.

When I place this in the context of the UK, what it tells me is that working together, in the every day, at the fundamentals, is the way in which we can make a difference. A difference that is desperately needed right now. Collectivity, collaboration, team work, co-operatives. Whatever word works for you, in order to change the status quo of anything, we must bond and join together to use our energies in the best way to different and radical states. Every default state needs energy to fight to move the mark. But it’s exhausting doing it alone. Become more bromine, & get more (re)active, together. There’s more power in numbers!

At room temperature and pressure, it is one of the few liquid elements. The only one that can sustain the same pressure & stay a liquid at room temp is mercury. This says to me, I need to keep my cool – and be my true authentic self in stressful situations.

Bromide can’t be sourced from the earths crust. Some plants actively accumulate bromine. First of all, they are beans — lentils, peas, haricots, and also seaweed. Its the high solubility of the bromide ion that causes its accumulation in the oceans. I will take this characteristic forward into 2023 – to soak up as much as I can, in terms of learning and taking in the natural lands and spaces around me. Esp as I try and grow into more of a regenerative thinker. This feels even more potent as one of the economic drivers of Bromide is for argriculture.

Bromine is the 10th most abundant element in sea water. I love that when I go surfing, it is here where this element can be sourced. The ocean, in its immensity and unseen depths, seem to harbor hidden meaning that the Bromine year will help me to explore more. The end of last year after I got sick from the water, I haven’t been back out, but I miss surfing. So this year will be to do more of that. When I surf, I love how the sun drops into the ocean, its beams casting a wide band of light on the water. The reflected shards glimmer through vapor in the far distances, producing an irresistible illusion of endlessness.

Despite us finding out bromine is toxic – post using it for things like fire retardants & in swimming pools and sedation in medicine. It got discovered that now it appears that bromine is an essential trace element in humans. And is still a key player in small doses for innovating pharmacutical drugs. There is, again, this strange mirror there of balances and yin-yangs, and connectedness. Things can be good and bad at the same time. The Bromine year is a reminder for me to think, and re-think, and to not put things too much against each other.

And lastly, the most Smizz thing about Bromine is that it is used to do 35mm film photography development immulsion. The compound is a prime ingredient of light sensitive constituent; and a semi-conductor. It captures time, memories, moments… light. Life. Conducted into structural colours – that is, colours that result from surface textures that refract, rather than contain, pigment.

Last year I vowed to take more 35mm film photos, AND get them developed. I want to continue that habit on, and get better. Last year quite a few of my film photos came out unfocused and blurry. I kept rushing to take the shot, and would snap and walk/move at the same time. You really can’t do that with film. But What a metaphor for me?! For this year – I need to be more focused and patient. Wait for the shot. Stand still and take a moment to know exactly I’m looking at, to take IN the moment. A moments rest.

This reminds me of Gerhard Richter’s Silicate body of paintings. Large oil-on-canvas pieces, of blurrs. Or glitches? What is a blur? It’s a corruption of an image, an assault upon its clarity, one that turns transparent lenses into opaque shower curtains, gauzy veils.

the blur serves as a perfect general metaphor for memory, its degradation, for the corrosion wrought by time. “I blur to make everything equal, everything equally important and equally unimportant,” Richter explains about his work.

It is both more focus and blurring and capturing of life, light, and memory and reflection for me that Bromine will bring.

Over the last few months and years, I have been able to see my life as from a great altitude, as a sort of landscape, and with a deepening sense of the connection of all its parts.

Despite being really run down for 2+ months, I feel intensely alive, and I want and hope in the time that remains to deepen my friendships, to say farewell to those I love, to write more, to travel if I have the strength, to achieve new levels of understanding and insight.

On the morning of my birthday, a friend & colleague replied a message about time. How fitting? Time is not some separate quality that impassively flows around us. Time is, in Rovelli’s words, “part of a complicated geometry woven together with the geometry of space”.

For Rovelli, there is more: according to his theorising, time itself disappears at the most fundamental level. His theories ask us to accept the notion that time is merely a function of our “blurred” human perception. We see the world only through a glass, darkly; we are watching – as my old art teacher used to love to teach us – Plato’s shadow-play in the cave. But using Bromine, we can capture it in different ways.

Taking the lead from Bromine, I’ll keep looking up at the sky of spilled glitter. And take a role of protection (resting & advocating for myself and others), to focus and connect, to surf and be at the ocean more, and seek it as a reminder to join forces TOGETHER. Bond together like atoms, and collectively we can change the status quo.

2022 in photos

2022 was the year I vowed to take more 35mm film photos, and actually get them developed! Enjoy some gnarly grainy quality photos of my year, alongside some soft vibrant digital photos.

As John Berger is quoted saying: “The camera relieves us of the burden of memory… All photographs are there to remind us of what we forget,’ he recants. ’In this — as in other ways — they are the opposite of paintings. Paintings record what the painter remembers.”

As a drawer, it’s nice to get to re-take this journey of 2022 through some surprising and tender, and fun, and crazy moments.

I will leave you all with this quote:

“Love is a combination of six ingredients: care, commitment, knowledge, responsibility, respect and trust. As you go about your life, you can ask: the action I’m taking, does it have these six ingredients?”

-bell hooks

[Comic 2022] Inbetweenness: Searching and Growing For Aliveness

There is so much in the world to see. To explore, to notice. My slow ease back into international travel has characterized this year. I have missed traveling and my friends in other countries. I love getting outside of my usual spaces because it’s always a learning opportunity. A reminder to change perspective or angle. So often we get stuck in what’s in front of us, that we’re unable to see beyond it.

This year was the year where I think we all got a bit stuck (as a country) and tried to pretend that covid was over (I didn’t but I saw and felt it). An epistemic harm, if there ever was one. Pushed into trying to believe that we could all just get back to ‘normal’. We forgot all of those lessons that the pandemic taught us, and tried to either rewind back to 2019 or squeeze our out-of-date designs into 2019 expectations. Which did a lot of harm. To people, to earth, to place.

We just forgot people were grieving, for all sorts of losses that we have collectively accumulated. Made to work, and put even more pressure on people without acknowledging many of us were missing loved ones, in big numbers. That we had changed, even if our systems refused to do so too.

This was brought home, even more, when we lost our friend, mentor, and colleague in August. Adding more grief on top of grief. So many questions. He promised me he’d help re-plant trees after our climate change wildfire in July. Now every time I plant something – I think of Peter. He is still dearly missed.

I surfed to find breath, feel power in my body and clear my mind. I got to surf in both the Pacific and Atlantic. I watched for patterns in the landscape and worlds around me. Tides, sunlight, moon phases, soil types, weather forecasts, growing almanacs, and more.

But what I noticed was that I, and many others, started to grow things – as a way to put our grief and anxieties into healing and growing. Feel soil under our finger nails. We are, after all, made from stars and dark matter – of carbon & minerals that make up soil – the ground that we work upon and will return to at the end of our lives. All connected.

I find myself now looking for plants and life every where. I notice this as I look back through my photos from San Francisco and see that 75% of them are of plants just growing on sidewalks, and ocean waves and sand dunes. This was my 6th trip to SF & I had never appreciated, or even seen, the flora as I do now.

It is through planting, growing, thinking about the earth and our connections and patterns around me that I see in nearly everything I did and trying to do this year. And these small revelations and actions have kept me going.

To live long enough in this world means to learn to nestle the twins of grief and hope. There is climate change, there is too much poverty, and death, but there is also hope, love and a fierce will to fight for our earth and justice for people who need it right now.

As I walk and work in the shadows of grief I am surprised that, whilst at times it hits me like a massive wave unexpectedly, it has given me strength, perspective, and clarity. There is power in the inbetweenness, it reminds me of the things that are really important and that every day is a gift and an opportunity towards something better.

I am determined that in the next year to come, we will feel & allow to be with our grief. But we will also transform life’s interruptions into creative grist, transmute isolation into creative solitude and connection, and with each pen stroke, cup of coffee, garden planted, each story listened to – we will better understand the world and our place in it.

Holding the really beautiful things and profoundly hard things in the same palm—it’s one of those paradoxes, one of the challenges of being human. But we all have the power to heal & grow things, and in turn, always get to try again. And that’s what this years comic is about.

My Councillor year WRAPPED: 2022

I love Spotify Wrapped (Here’s mine from this year FYI OFC Yungblud is #1, cuz DONX REPRESENT!), so I always try and do it for my year as an elected councillor.

I’ve been trying to reflect as I go along, being a councillor, so I can keep critically reflecting on my actions/systems/processes/what i’ll do better/different next time etc – but there’s more learning to be done in both the short and long view.

One of my goals for me being in this role is to both ask: what is the role of a local councillor in 2022/3? (Arguably a bit different from even just 2 decades ago as things get more complex & multiple orgs/partners deliver and collaborate for council-like services) and also how can I be as transparent as possible on what it’s like to be a councillor?

This is hoping that showing the nitty-gritty, the fun stuff, the not-so-fun stuff – that it will inspire other people to want to become a councillor. That being an elected official is more than complaints about bins (tho surprisingly get a lot of that), and endless standing order papers and meetings. That we have the freedom to use a lot of different methods to explore how/why/when/where/who of people/place/communities/planet’s needs.

How it uses and builds so many skills and training for the person who is a councillor. And that anyone can be it: Young, old, a carer, a professional, self employed, an artist, a healthcare professional, a stay at home person, a retail worker, whatever! This is for everyone, and all kinds of people in local government that reflects the population that they are serving. A mixed bag of everything adds great perspectives, experiences, and ideas and opportunities.

And ofc, I hope this shows the work and time that this role takes.

Whilst somewhat arbitrary, the end of the calendar year does present us all with a valuable opportunity to reflect on the year that was: The long view. And plan for the year that will be. As someone who has to deal a lot with chronic pain, esp over this last 2 months, I think we often learn to tolerate the sometimes-painful present by living in the future. It’s easy to glaze over the past/present and focus on the future, but failure to reflect will eventually manifest as a failure to grow and repeat the same issues.

So, with that in mind – what has my past year looked like!?!

I went to a lot of meetings. It works out as nearly 1 every other day. That actually feels a lot now, ha!

A lot of these were about proactive or complex things. Such as getting the Welfare Miners Hall on the Levelling Up Fund, or in response to big community info events, such as the planning issues for New Family Homes (children homes… I’m rebranding them as New Fam Homes now, as that’s what they are and takes off the stigma and clinical-ness of ‘children’s home’) to our 2 hour training on different things like Cost of Living Crisis etc. And don’t forget that I am also chair of Health & Adult Social Care Scrutiny, so I have more meetings because of this role.

What I notice now is that residents prefer to get in touch with you through everything BUT email – even though I really do try to tell them to email me instead, if they do it through social media etc. The fact that a huge chunk of my casework came from being somewhere / in person – often older folks – makes me feel like the councillor role is still accessed predominately in its traditional form. Even though I think the surgery model needs to be updated into how people actually live their lives to make it more accessible for familes and younger working people. Some really interesting design questions on how to enhance accessibility and participation in local democratic services here.

TOP 3 THEMES OF MY CASEWORK

This year wasn’t as clear-cut as last year (no pun intended). Last year was environment casework HEAVY. But this year, a lot of those issues we had weren’t repeated. Which is fantastic, it means we were listened to and practice was changed. But green space is our biggest asset here in my ward, and people are passionate about wanting better things and activities for young people. So whilst some things were resolved, when combined with ASB – environment still got top billing as the overall theme of casework. Between wildfires, and children wanting to do more litter picking events and more tree planting, tree dramas of all sorts, planning community garden designs, and most of all: not being able to enjoy green spaces due to flying tipping, crazy ASB of quad bikes and car chases made this number one.

It’s also worth noting that Environment tends to have a seasonal vibe to it. So whilst it gets #1 spot – HUGE chunks of that comes from early spring, all summer and to late fall.

Also in this area is the need for play park upgrades. I get emails and messages about this almost every week. More info later on in this post.

Homelessness and accessible housing needs continue to grow and is a lot of my emails. People just want good, affordable (accessible) housing that is stable and secure. That isn’t as easy to get as it once was. A report in from the ONS this week shows that in Yorkshire, the rent on the median home is unaffordable for households on the median income. This means that more people are turning to council housing because it’s affordable & reliable. Unfortunately, we need the gov to invest in building more social housing for LAs! With our growing aging and poorly population, our (UK) housing stock does not come close the needs our future population will need. And its massive shortsightedness, from the UK Gov, not to encourage better housing quality standards and true accessible housing design. And your local authority are left to pick up the pieces.

I’ve used last years image because it’s exactly the same! But with an added extra of crazy increase of robberies and some truly gnarly weapon use and attacks, including shootings. I project for this to get worse, as the cost of living crisis puts added stress and strain onto people and pushes into desperation.

I had our youth councillors for the area tell me that their 2nd priority is that they don’t feel safe. That shook me to the core.

At our Community Engagement Meetings for the North (CEM), even though it’s all the partners across the council and police, 98% of what arises is about crime & ASB. I could write a whole separate post on this, alas for now – what we have to look forward to is we will FINALLY get our own North Doncaster policing team on 9th Jan (my bday!). (which we haven’t had… for a decade? or more?). And arguably is probs one of the main reasons this area statistically and feels like it’s been getting worse. So here’s to next years beginning to turn it around!

Other big themes

Included lots of road stuff. Including very very poor signage and diversion planning. Lots of stuff about cycle paths, and traffic lights, and pot holes and air pollution and more. What I mostly take from this is: cars are the bane of our lives but we are so car-centric that we can not see for the life of us that most of the things we’re complaining about would be eased by walking, cycling, investing in and taking public transport more. Alas… until the latter happens (unlikely soon under this national gov) we are stuck with air pollution, and bad driving.

Some individual cases I spent a lot of time on

+ Listening to residents and trying to share knowledge on New Family Homes and kids in care. (June-Aug)

+ Cycle path development (All year)

+ Highfields barriers and fences to stop illegal cars and fires and more (all year)

+ Highfields country park enhancing meetings/Future Parks (including ASB and issues with bin emptying) (All year)

+ Adwick Park Pavillion development (All year, every couple of months)

Some of the big Proactive things I’ve done this year:

Planet Power with kids !

We got loads of kids out to plant trees in March. They LOVED IT. Unfortunately, the all burned down in the 40+C heat wildfires in the summer. But the kids demanded action, and so we did lots of litter picking and discussion of future stuff.

Building up Youth Provision/connections!

We started Camp Get Together! To make sure young people had access to pure fun activities over the summer- that wasn’t obsessed with just physical activity – but play, making, friendship and leadership – with adventure in their own area. This experience was AMAZING. So rewarding but it was also HARD. And gosh, this summer was HOT. I learned loads about managing 30+ random kids of all ages in outdoor settings and making and team leadership. It felt really successful, despite some of the challenges, because we had kids with all kinds of learning needs, and physical disabilities, and autism and lots of local kids who wouldn’t have had access to this kind of fun or making if it never happened. We even got thank you cards and gifts at the end of the project! I still have them on my desk 😀

Now we’re constituted, it’s put us in good sted to develop more projects, programs and investments.

Building a Community Play Manifesto!

I applied for us to get some arts council money for the Jubilee in June, where we did ARTY PARTY IN THE PARK. The funding allowed us to get artists & designers to lead art workshops, bring art objects and play objects to help people think what is play, how play makes you feel, how we can use all diff senses through play, etc. This was the start of finding out what play means to my community, how we can make play for every one! Not just kids, and not just play equipment. You can find out the findings for the communities vision of play equipment here, which i am hoping will properly begin in 2023, as we just secured extra funding!

See the communities call for more play and youth investment in the video below!

My goal? To make adwick & carcroft the most playful, creative, resilient and collective imaginative community/ward 😉

WE RE-LAUNCHED OUR COMMUNITY LIBRARY!!!

This was a tricky one. When I was elected 17+ months ago, I had no idea how we could make the library be open for the whole community again. And for it to be this space of belonging and activity. As a team of councillors, alongside the libraries team – Bill Mchugh and Cllr Nidge Ball – we somehow ended up getting the space back. A year ago today, it didn’t look like this was possible. 2 months on from the re-launch party (which had over 250++ folks attend), groups are joining left right and centre, we have some very happy and committed new and old volunteers (who basically make ALL of this possible), we have the triage team (Doncaster Your Place) who are pivotal in making it a space for everyone and links to all kinds of support. This past Saturday we had our 1st xmas markets, which went down well (150+ peeps attended) and in the new year we have author talks, art exhibitions and youth programs planned. What a difference a year makes? What a difference that the team works in making the dream work?

Community Crime Stoppers! (Design sessions)

As stated above, at our CEM meetings – the communities across the North locality are crying out for more preventative/proactive/resourced/empathetic policing when it comes to the increasing rates of ASB & crime of all sorts. We also have a reporting problem, in that crime & ASB have become so part of the natural landscape that we see daily, that it becomes apathetic (Plus SY police online crime reporting site sucks balls – it is in desperate need of user friendly re-design & de-bugging & get rid of loads of unnecessary data collection that would make a reporter feel like they can’t trust this site).

I’ll be honest with y’all. It felt powerless in these CEM meetings. For various complex reasons. So I thought, let’s do what I do for my day job with the community? Do a 3 hour design session, thinking through ideas and choosing one & designing how it would work – in responce to a theme (the themes were: prevention, reporting, community safety). I was nervous. I wasn’t sure how engaged folks would be, if 3 hours was too long? Well… it went on for nearly 4 hours & we got kicked out of the building we were in because it was too late. The people came up with AMAZING ideas. 4 incredible ones that i’m taking forward to the police in Mid Jan to see how we can make them work.

PIZZAAAAA PARTTTTYYY! (Welfare Hall Consultation/engagement event)

Let’s reinvision what a community centre can be. Let’s dream big! Make it run on green energy. Have a social enterprize community health run programs in it. Exhibitions, stand up comedy shows for SY! A local cafe training local people and employing residents nearby. What can our heritage inspire and push forward our challenges for collective making and imagining today?

This was an amazing event. 100’s of pizza slices. And blessed with the nicest, hottest day in March ever. Over 400 folks came, gave us 100’s and 100’s of ideas. Energy. Community. Everything – and that space/history/what it stands for – helped it come together. We have the amazing architects come and help use this to help us create the plan – which went towards us being able to put forward this plan: BUILT WITH AND BY THE COMMUNITY – for the 2nd round of the governments Levelling Up Funding. It’s been delayed a bazillion times, including again to 23rd Jan 2023. But we really need it to come through. There are backup plans (cuz I think it might be political), but I am just eager to take the momentum we have, and get rolling!

We won the SHU Levelling Up Challenge Fund!

Working with my colleagues from SHU (where I’m a lecturer). We applied for SHU’s levelling up challenge call out over the summer. Working with amazing academics/researchers from architecture, to psychology, urban planning, creative health, art & design & more – our idea is about using creative methods & bouncing off my area’s heritage of Woodlands Conservation Area (Model Village) – Garden Cities of the future. Ebenezer Howard’s book, originally published in London in 1898 as To-morrow: A Peaceful Path to Real Reform and then in 1902 as Garden Cities of To-morrow, proposed a peaceful but inherently radical experiment in city, town, and regional planning aimed at creating more healthy, self-sufficient, and just places to live and work that balanced the open space of the countryside with the cultural vibrancy of the city. Woodlands ‘model village’ is based on this – is one of the most accurate renditions of his design ideas in the country. And yet, so many people don’t know this history.

We’re going to use this, to help my community begin to dream and write/make/sing/photograph/design/draw/think/etc their own regenerative neighbourhood collective plan/manifesto – instill their own vision and power into place. Which will be visual and an exhibition – and then hope we can get funding for the ideas from there. But the workshops and ideas will dictate the rest, and maybe even the outcome idea of right now. We start doing from Jan 2023! My hope is that using a bit of donut economics, mixed with some Daniel Christian Wahl designing regenerative cultures, mixed with the super zany creative methods of art practice, and social justice – we will be 1 step closer to maintaining the energy that keeps coming up for the events we put on.

And there’s more!

But this post is long enough already. I will write a separate post reflecting upon the greatest opportunity I had, to take Jenny Andersson’s Power of Place course, with about 50 other DonX Council folks (& SO many incredible & generous regenerative thinkers from around the country & world). The reading was immense, the learning and ideas deep and immersed. It was a real commitment amongst my 500 other things to do. But I am so grateful for that opportunity and the commitment. It properly challenged and changed the way I think, practice, reflect. The levelling up challenge fund we got, was I think – in HUGE part to me taking that course and really thinking about the role of place/earth & stories of separation & other models in my communities. But this is another post.

Overall

Everything mentioned above was only made possible by collectivism and collaboration and listening and understanding. With some/a lot of trust – that we could pull it all off – and so much not yet done. People’s generosity in time through work or volunteering or stories/experiences, through activism and resilience, through team work – my amazing 2 cllr collegues (Debbie & John Mo) who go along with my crazy ideas. My amazing cllr friends – like Leanne & Julie & Lani & Gemma – who listen to me bang on or ask inane questions. To the incredible officers and directors who offer their expertise & time to ensure we can get the best results – and do a lot of teaching on the way. And to our leadership – where it is – i believe, led by compassion and care for the people and place of Doncaster.

It has to be noted that people are in grief. A collective grief. and they don’t have time to deal/feel/acknowledge/be with it. We have all suffered & suffering through collective grief reeling on from covid-19 onwards (my community with austerity before that too). It feels like a mass harm to not build up and listen and acknowledge it. As such, every thing/event/case is laced with a trace of grief on/in it. I am still wondering what to do with this, as we move forward. And I hope some of these projects: whether it be play, or imagining, making, asset building, safe space belonging – will help us.

I am still, non-stop learning. What a gift! A JOY! An ultimate privilege. Just the other day I learned about 120 yr old Victorian bridge engineering and water-logging – what other job do you get to do that in? I’m still finding it hard not to always solve everything (that’s ok), balancing resident views with truth/ethics & benefit (who likes to say no? & it feels at odds of the role itself) – and the local authority timescales, tho often a gift in reality – still blag my head. It’s like it exists in another dimension where time exists in a different form ( although time is ofc a construct anyways, as is the calendar year).

I feel like everything we’ve done has endless stories and threads baked into it, which makes it even more special and memorable. the most memorable moments this year are the ones that we bestow our own magic upon. And Jenny’s/Damian’s teachings have taught me this year that rather than the story behind an object/thing/project, it’s a world within.

I think of Italo Calvino’s Invisible Cities (one of my most fav books, I love travel (non) fiction). Invisible Cities is a work of fiction that imagines the explorer Marco Polo in conversation with the emperor Kublai Khan. In separate, chaptered accounts, Polo describes cities in Khan’s empire so fantastical as to be unbelievable. And yet, his reports of each place—from how they look, smell, and feel, to the people who inhabit them—are so finely wrought that you forget they’re impossible. You’re fully, immersively transported.

In homage to Invisible Cities – and Power of Place, I take the task of “mapping” (pattern noticing) and forget objects/policies/projects/places as it exists in our world and imagine them in an invisible city/place/community contained within. I always start slow and build on from there.

In many ways it is an act of play. By being immersed in play we can lose all sense of scale and reality. And that’s kind of what I want us to do – esp in the dark grim context we find ourselves in right now. To build our collective imagination. One detail can led to another until you stop describing and start imagining instead.

Being a councillor this year, with all this new knowledge, it feels like I am I writing/drawing my way into this city/community, this place with political and economic darkness and instead – with my residents – we are beginng to start to filter more light into it.

What does it look like, smell like, and feel like there? How has the environment shaped the citizens? What do they fear? What do they wish for? When you think you’ve gone deep, go deeper. Get lost.

To getting lost, imagining and listening to grow/repair/heal/see/ be new lights. That’s a wrap! Tho the job/role/work is never finished.

Reflecting Upon The Cool Grey City of San Francisco (Photo Essay)

The winds of the Future wait

At the iron walls of her Gate,

And the western ocean breaks in thunder,

And the western stars go slowly under,

And her gaze is ever West

In the dream of her young unrest.

Her sea is a voice that calls,

And her star a voice above,

And her wind a voice on her walls—

My cool, grey city of love.
– – – – George Sterling.

“San Francisco,” Gary Kamiya writes in his book, Cool Gray City of Love: 49 Views of San Francisco, “is all about the collision between man and the universe.”

What a wonderful description of the city on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. It’s been over a month since I was last in San Francisco. And I’m actually pine-ing to go back.

Luckily, one of my “new years resolutions” this year was to take more film photos. As I miss the physicality of film that you don’t get with digital. The way you can never ever be sure of how the images will come out. Too many variables. Did I put the film in properly? I didn’t keep the film chill, it’s out of date, it went through the xray scanner in security loads of times, the lens, the grain, the light, the light metre, the developing process, the scanning… A good chunck of it all up to the film-gods. A lot out of our control. 24-36 different potential chances. Remembering what you took a photo of too, is also part of that delayed process surprise!

This trip I took a really (too heavy) heavy Leicaflex SL2 35mm Camera. A bargin I bought off ebay during lockdown. I’d only put 1 roll of b&w film through it previously to check that it worked. I took it with half a roll of cinestill 800 already exposed. It was a heavy camera to carry about. But I loved the grain it gave and made photos look almost like drawings. I don’t know what pocessed me to take this instead of a simple point & shoot, like my Olympus Trip 35, or my ye-old-faithful Olympus OM-1. No, I took this weight with me instead.

SF is a challenge and chalice from a visual standpoint. As a photographer, I struggle to decide: Should I ignore the manmade and instead look to gifts of the gods? Or should I embrace the outcomes of human ingenuity? There is an abundance of both in the city of seven hills. My phone camera reel is just photos and video of the incredible plants that grow across the city. So I wanted the film camera to be different.

A poem by George Sterling inspired Kamiya’s book title, so I am took a cue from both of them. When I was in SF – There was a rolling fog that made everything overcast, pinky or blue gray. I leaned into it by using black & white & cinestill 800 film roll when there. To capture the cool gray and blues views of the city, and it is my way of telling its visual story. I focused a lot on the beach – in part to capture the ineffable sand dunes envrionment and peace and energy. Another part for a surfing zine I’m making.

It has ended up combined with what I love most about SF and beach/surfy photography — silence, fog, abstraction, and an opportunity to wander. The essence that has come out from these are what I call “dreamy grays.”

Ironically, I have been on the journey for a while; but I didn’t realize it. A small selection of images below are digital b&w but 98% of them are from the heavy beast camera. I hope you enjoy the grain – a mirror of what SF is all about. built on the ever rolling sand-dunes, and the ever-present beauty of rolling fog.

Glad to be re-living some of this SF adventure, 1 month later. Thanks to the joys of film!