Since the announcement that I will be succeeded by Jo Ivens a lot of people have asked about my plans. So here they are for what they are worth!
I’ve been at Impetus for over 7 years now. It has been a fabulous job working with highly committed and motivated staff and trustees. It was my mission from the start to turn Impetus, or Brighton and Hove Community Initiatives as it was then, into a highly professional and successful, values driven third sector organisation. I hope that is what I have achieved. It has been an interesting journey with the need to respond to constant policy changes and yet still hang on to the essence of what Impetus was and is all about. Achieving Silver Investors in People status was a reflection of the work we had done and the distance travelled.
I have been around the third sector in the city for over two decades. I was involved in the genesis of a fair few of the voluntary organisations in the city. It has been a privilege and a pleasure to see them flourish. The Impetus job enabled me to work across the piste in the sector. For three years I chaired the ChangeUp Consortium and initiated the development of the city Volunteering Strategy that so many people contributed to. I have also tried to champion cooperative and partnership working in line with the sectors values. ChangeUp, the Capacity Building project and the South East Wellbeing Consortium are some examples of this.
Seven years is a long time for me in one job. There comes a time when a fresh pair of hands can further enhance what an organisation can achieve. I also want to change my work life balance, spend less time in front of a computer and more time with real people. I have therefore decided to leave Impetus with a view to working two days a week and spending more time playing jazz, staying fit and looking after grandchildren. I shall continue in my roles as a non executive director of Nourish and the South East Wellbeing Consortium (on behalf of Impetus). I not only have a tremendous respect for many of the people in the third sector in the city but am enormously fond of them. I therefore hope to pick up pieces of work that will be useful to organisations, keep me in touch with some wonderful people and enable me to continue to be and active part of the sector.
It will be a big change for me but I hope it won’t be goodbye.
Steve
