This week, we lost someone very special indeed. Anne, sometimes known as Anne-driod – the super hero partner to i-Paddy, passed away on Tuesday following a short illness. Over the last few weeks, members of our team (past and current) visited her in hospital, with James being the person to bring her home that one last time.
Consumed with pain, it has really made me reflect on our Starting Point community, family even , who “filter coffee not people”.
As most people will know, we have recently received Lottery funding to develop our volunteer offer. It will increase our small volunteering team ten fold and I have been thinking (worrying) how we keep that family feel when we grow.
Sat round her bedside with Ryan and James, I saw how special our bonds were. We don’t always get it right, but we give it a bloody good go and we will continue to. That is the only answer I have to my worries about growth.
When you are responsible for building a team, you hear all the time about how incredibly important work/life balance is, and it absolutely is. But no one talks about heart/work/life balance and that is what we have here.
Anne knew that despite everything life threw at her, she had people who shared their hearts with her here at Starting Point. She didn’t suffer fools but she felt safe here with us.
We are all wired to need a sense of belonging. Being treated with the same respect you’d treat a family member can help a team manage their other stresses, become more resilient, and boost their self-esteem.
Anne once told me that her ambition was to have my job and I spent 10 years watching my back. As someone who had never been part of a workforce, we all knew that journey would be a long one. Anne did make the move from volunteer to worker but sadly Covid put a stop to that and we never did get to that digital inclusion conference I promised (because it didn’t happen).
This said, I’m not faced with regret. I am full of amazing memories, and a gratefulness that I was gifted my time with Anne. She shared experiences with me that allowed me to grow, mostly in compassion.
She will always be a huge party of our story and in time we will work on a fitting way to remember her.
We have created a small form HERE to capture your memories of Anne to share with her son and granddaughter. I truly hope that Lana grows up to fully understand how brave her Ninin was and we will do all we can to keep her spirit alive in our new work.
Teams can do great things when people have a sense of belonging that comes from treating people like family. Thank you for taking time to read about ours and our loss.
Nicola.
