‘When I have Time’ – 24 April 2023 by Joss Kang

This week just gone was the first time in nearly 18 years that I’ve felt I have genuinely paused on the work front  – all contracts closed (well almost!) Both mentally and physically. It’s the strangest mix of emotions 😕.

On the plus side, I’ve managed to undertake some expert-led CPD (LinkedIn Training – been meaning to do that for yonks!), selected workshops for Saturday’s brilliant #LSRN2023 conference (professional learning at its best 💫), reactivated and booked onto The Coaching Academy’s CPD for coaches – holistic coaching, wellbeing and corporate to start with. It’s part of the lifetime protégé package I purchased way back in 2006 for an eye-watering sum! It was worth the investment, but I’ve been too busy to access it – never mind enjoy it.

I’ve been on a Thinking Walk with my good colleague, business partner and friend Lou Mycroft (sun on our faces and so much greenery – glorious), got on top of year-end accounts, reviewed my pension and lots more – you get the idea. All the stuff I’d said I’ll do when I have time! Ironically, I found my Gmail Task-list from 2007. One of the categories was ‘When I have Time’ task list!’ 🤣🤣🤣 I never want one of those again.

I am so looking forward to taking on the role of learner after spending my working life designing and running local and national workforce professional development programmes for various clients, including most recently the Education and Training Foundation. I’ve been working on and off on an ‘exit’ strategy for about a year and a half now, triggered by my hubby’s prolonged stay in ICU during most of 2021 but that’s a story for another blog. Suffice to say miracles do happen 🙏🏾.

 

Let me explain.

I’ve been running a small organisation called touchconsulting Ltd for the past 18 years. I set it up in August 2005 to follow my dream of working in professional development within the post-16 sector following a life-changing stint in industry.  This

dream was inspired by my amazing mentor and line manager Julie Starr – who I apprenticed with from 1997-2000 as a coach. Julie saw something in me that I couldn’t (Blind Self – Johari’s Window.) Having made the leap to the freelancing world, I never dreamt in a million years I’d transition from working freelance on national programmes such as the Subject Learning Coaching programme to winning contracts to co-design, co- deliver and oversee the running of national DfE-funded programmes i.e.: #APConnect, #CfEM, #StudyGood, Practice Development Groups.

But I did. 😊 I’ve had the enormous privilege of bringing together and working with brilliant project teams, co-creating powerful professional development programmes which have touched the lives of those who’ve participated and indirectly those they’ve worked with.

 

A far cry

It’s a far cry from 2001 when I sat in a dusty College staffroom – no timetable, no resources, no kit – bawling my eyes out as I questioned whether moving from industry with its brand new spanking kit to an under resourced FE sector was the right call. It was. The riches in FE are huge! FE has my ❤️.

The past 18 years have been all about project work – often short term, intensive and then moving on to the next thing. It’s been stressful and joyous in equal measures. But I am tired. I’ve had enough of the short-termism. Yes, I’ll still do some short-term projects but it will no longer be my bread and butter.

I’ve just finished on the DfE funded, five year, ETF-led Centres for Excellence in Mathematics (CfEM) programme. touchconsulting led on the action research pathway from 2018-2023. I keep thinking about the 21 or so practitioners who took on the role of Centre Lead, those who took on the role of Action Research Lead and the three RMLs who spent up to five years breathing and living the highs and lows of CfEM. Many have moved onto pastures new as the CfEM contract, and their contracts, came to an end. They will continue to do brilliant work.

How are you feeling?

It’s got to be a huge array of juxtaposed emotions: sadness, excitement, trepidation, relief? I know I’m going through that transition curve.

 

What next?

Over the next 12 months I want to do less in order to do more. I reckon it will look like this…

Expand our new social enterprise – FE Constellations.

Dr Lou Mycroft and I set this membership community up just under a year ago to pool and activate our deep learning over the last five years about learning in community and across pan-organisational online spaces. It’s modelled on long-termism. It’s a cross between the ‘hallways of learning’ Nancy Dixon talks about but in an online (curated) space which goes well beyond the walls of any one organisation. Community first. Content second.

Our big purpose 

FE Constellations brings together changemakers in FE through an online curated learning experience so that we can connect, collaborate and co-create previously unimagined futures for ourselves and the communities we serve.

Our strapline

from good intentions to sustainable change

Our ethics
Seva | Potentia | Community
Transition | Momentum | Sustainability |
Pro-social | Anti-competitive | Pan-organisational

 

• Continue my yoga practice. It helps calm my racing mind.
• Enjoy life. Spend intentional time with family and friends. Block time out in my diary just like I block it out for meetings giving both activities, in my head, equal status. It’s working.
• Enjoy the thrill of being a ‘proper’ learner again on a mixture of expert-led CPD and informal peer-to-peer learning. I’m so looking forward to re-connecting.
• Get better at marketing and comms and being more visible.

touch and partners – that’s touch associates, Birmingham City University, The Women’s Leadership Network, BAMEd Network, Edge Hill University, Creative Balance and CollectivED plus the Instructional Coaching Group –  are also on the Education and Training Foundation’s Leadership and Mentoring frameworks. That was a tough bit of tendering but let’s see what opportunities it brings. The new frameworks appeal as they are designed to enable longer-term projects.

My biggest commitment though is to do and be now. So, a heartfelt goodbye to my ‘When I have Time’ task-list.

 

*Cover photo by ASWIN CHANDRAN on Unsplash