Paces

Why isn't Paces one of the best 100 not-for-profit organisations to work for?

The Sunday Times yesterday produced a supplement "100 Best not-for-profit organisations to work for".

Paces wasn't listed. Why not?

A simple answer would be that we are not big enough. The smallest organisation in the top 100 has 57 employees. Or another reason could be that we were not one of the "254 organisations that took part in the survey" (You've got to be in it to win it!). Or we were not the right sort of organisation: 7 of the top 10 are housing associations and social landlords, which also make up 45 of the top 100. Or, it could be that Paces is just not the right sort of not-for-profit, for which I could not find a definition.

No matter. The criteria by which the Top 100 were uncovered ("voted for by the people that know them best - their workers"), bears close examination.  So how would you score your conductive education organisation on the following 7 factors:

• Leadership: how employees feel about the way the organisation is run from the top
• Wellbeing: how staff feel about the impact their work has on their quality of life
• My Team: employees' feelings about their immediate colleagues
• Fair Deal: how the workforce perceives the fairness of their rewards
• Giving Something Back: the extent to which employees feel their organisation has a positive impact on society
• My Company: how emotionally connected emplyees feel towards their organisation
• Personal Growth: whether people feel challenged by work, how their skills are being used and scope for advancement.

For each of the Top 45 there was additionally listed:

- Male/female ratio

- Average age

- Staff turnover

- %-age earning over £35,000

It would be a worthwhile exercise to assess the averages but I don't have the free time it would take.

The profiles make interesting reading. What caught my eye?

Ranked 2. P3 a social enterprise charity harnesses the skills of former clients: more than 30% of employees have experience of mental illness or being homeless. 

At 19: KeyRing Living Support Networks, helping people with learning difficulties to live independently as full citizens.

At 52: Rainbow Children's Charity, supports families who have a child with a life-limiting or terminal illness.

At 69: Goodwin Development Trust, improving life in Hull by tackling social problems.

At 70: St Loyes Foundation, in Exeter, trains more than 1,000 people including service veterans for independence.

I asked here a couple of days ago, "Why aren't we being more radical?" and then "Are we being crazy enough?" (to which James Forliti replied in a Comment "Hear, hear!! Yeah, where is the next batch of rabble-rousers?" Spot on, James.)

Radical? Crazy? Now, I ask if we are ambitious enough? Why shouldn't Paces aspire to be one of the best 100 not-for-profits to work for?  The survey for the 2013 Top 100 has already opened.

 

 

Are we being crazy enough? #CondEd

My last post, following Steve Hilton's departure from Number 10, asked "Why aren't we being more radical?" I was thinking of Paces, of course, but also of conductive education in the UK in general.

We had two workshops at Paces this week. I tried on both days to remind Trustees, managers, staff and parents that conductive education is not just another "alternative therapy", one option among many, but a radical departure, a quantum leap forward in the understanding and practice of the education and upbringing of children with motor dysfunctions.

Here's another Steve, the late Steve Jobs:

“Here’s to the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the troublemakers, the round pegs in the square holes… the ones who see things differently — they’re not fond of rules… You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they change things… they push the human race forward, and while some may see them as the crazy ones, we see genius, because the ones who are crazy enough to think that they can change the world, are the ones who do.”

If we are the ones who really are going to "change the world" for children and adults with motor dysfunctions, are we being crazy enough?

Actually, another thought occurs to me. Where are the young ones, conductive education's young crazies?  Don't just leave it to the old men like me! Write to me! Come to Paces! Let's make Paces a crazies place to be!

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#CondEd is a twitter hashtag

Paces at NASS Annual Conference

I'm about to head off to the Annual Conference of NASS at South Normanton, near Derby;  looking forward to taking part in the Panel Discussion that rounds off the first day. My brief is to talk about our experience of applying to become a Free School.

"Panel Discussion: Survival of the Fittest - Surviving and Thriving in Difficult Times

• Tracy De Bernhardt Dunkin, West of England School & College - The Future Remodelled
• Olga Sullivan, Buckinghamshire CC  - Working with local authorities
• Sue Harrison, Xue - Developing a coaching culture
• Norman Perrin, Paces High Green School - Applying for Free School status

I'll slip in mention of conductive education, of course!

Duke of Gloucester opens new Paces School classrooms - loads of pictures

There are more pictures than I'm sure you've got time to look at to be found on the website of Chris Seaman, our photgrapher for the visit of HRH the Duke of Gloucester to Paces.

(On Chris's website, click on 'Events', then on '62106 - HRH Prince Richard, The Duke of Gloucester official opening of Paces. View album')

The picture of Sarah shaking hands with HRH is still my favourite. But then, I would, wouldn't I?

(Previously on this visit here)

Sarah gets to shake hands with a Royal Duke

So proud of her!

HRH the Duke of Gloucester visits Paces School.

 

Duke of Gloucester opens new Paces School classrooms

"The Duke of Gloucester met with pupils, staff, Governors, Trustees and other guests today when he officially opened a new teaching block for Paces School.

On unveiling the commemorative plaque the Dukes said of Paces: " It seems to me that what you do here at Paces either can't be done at all or can be done very well. The alternative education that you offer here is effective and is an example for others to follow." 

 

Chair of Trustees, John Biggin, said that the Duke's visit marked a milestone for the school which provides education for children and young adults with Cerebral Palsy. "Paces has come a long way since it was set up nearly 20 years ago. Having the Duke open the brand new teaching block marks a milestone toward our aim of Paces becoming a Free School and then being able to help so many more children and young adults."

Excellent piece with pics in today's Sheffield Star 

Excellent Yorkshire Post feature on Paces' Special Free School bid

I am very pleased to be able to share with you a link to yesterday's excellent Yorkshire Post article on Paces' ambition to become a Special Free School. Click on ...

Pace Setter in parent-run school schools looking to secure state funding or go to http://bit.ly/iuHfNL

There's a great photo, too.

GIGO or Ask the right question ...

Yesterday, to the surprise of some, to the delight of others, I suggested I was looking ahead into 2011 with some optimisim. "Positiveness" might have been a better word but that's a small point.

I ended more-or-less by suggesting that "people like me who are charged with the task [of serving children with disabilities and their families] need to be focusing, not on 'the cuts' but ... creating and uncovering the opportunities and the ways through".

GIGO, "Garbage In Garbage Out", to computer geeks means that, regardless of the correctness of the logic built into the programme, no output ("answer") will be valid if the input ("question") is erroneous.

Already we at Paces - like you possibly - are receiving notifications of conferences/workshops offering to upskill us in the essentials of negotiating/managing/surviving 'the cuts': how to reduce budgets, downsize staff and so on.

For Paces, and maybe for your organisation too, this is the wrong question.

The right question for Paces is something like: how, in a time of evident financial constraint, do we nevertheless continue to expand our service and to promote conductive education?

This is a very different question indeed. Very different. Requiring a quite different mind-set.

Whoever said it would be easy? But we can at least begin with the right question.

 

And so ... into 2011 with optimism

A few days late, but a Happy New Year to one and all.

Paces opened for 2011 today. The long Christmas and New Year break has given time for rest, reflection and renewal. Actually, with the heavy snow that covered South Yorkshire in the last week of November, then the World Congress in early December, with just a few days remaining on my return before the Christmas closure, gave me personally a much needed extended break. 

On a strong recommendation from someone who was no supporter of New Labour, I had Father Christmas bring me Tony Blair's book "A Journey" which I spent part of my break reading. It was as fascinating a read as I was led to believe; not so much for the politics as for the insight it offers into a leader's mind and thinking and into the nature of leadership itself.

Refreshed, then, I come back to Paces energised for the opportunities I see ahead in 2011. How can that be, surrounded on all sides by threats of "cuts"? I see that in the New Year's Honours, Stephen Bubb, CEO of ACEVO, got a knighthood and his very first blog post of 2011 reports the honour and an interview for The Times (£) in which he proposes a charity tax on bankers. In the course of The Times interview, he is quoted as saying "if charities are hit today, the old and disabled will pay tomorrow ". In the 13 years since Paces moved into what became Paces Campus in 1997, the year of Tony Blair's and New Labour's first election victory, and for several years before that, we have operated, grown and established ourselves in adverse circumstances; in an environment that has been indifferent at best and hostile at worst, to innovation in the education and upbringing of children with cerebral palsy that we seek to exemplify. We have done so without the benefit of large hand-outs of public money. The discipline of managing our slender financial resources has been demanding and instructive. In short, I do not recall any time in the past 13 years being anything other than difficult. I cannot therefore persuade myself that "the cuts" are anything other than a different kind of difficulty, to be managed and the way forward discovered. 

Reasons for optimism? Ian Birrell, formerly of The Independent and a the father of a child with profound disabilities wrote a thought-provoking piece in the Financial Times on 28th December. (You can access this article by registering for free; otherwise £). If disabled children and their parents are to be served, which is what Paces is here for, then people like me who are charged with the task, need to be focusing, not on 'the cuts' but, as Ian does, but creating and uncovering the opportunities and the ways through.

We shall see.

 

 

Two very welcome visitors

Belatedly .... Thursday saw two very welcome and special visitors to Paces.

In the morning, one of Paces' oldest friends, Graham Moore, Chairman of Westfield Health. Graham it was who in 1994 attended our very first public meeting, where we announced our intent to bring Conductive Education to Sheffield and set up our own centre. As Graham tells it, he just couldn't believe what we were planning to do, couldn't see how we could possibly succeed - and decided he'd better help!  On Thursday he offered his help again, and that of Westfield Health, with our plan for refurbishing the old craft workshops as three new classrooms.

By contrast, the afternoon was spent with a new friend, Mike Chitty.  It proved to be one of those all-to-rare afternoons when, after lunch together in the Campus Cafe, we settled down just to talking about what interested us: three of us from the Campus and Mike. We are looking to build on this in the New Year with some work that could benefit our adult group.

Thanks to both Graham and Mike. The world seems a better a place.