The 100 days that rocked our world

Swapping sounds of the sea for the south circular I have arrived back in London with more than the usual thud. Things are moving from lively to red hot, every day brings radical change, loss, opportunity and even the occasional nice lunch with inspiring people like Bright Ideas Trust ceo and former Apprentice winner, Tim Campbell, what a lovely bloke.

Today marks the David Cameron's Coalition Government's first 100 days and despite predictions to the contrary, they look like they mean to go the distance.

Reading the recent interview with Nick Hurd in Third Sector I am struck by a number of things. Firstly the astonishingly dreamy photo of our Minister who looks like he could talk folk into volunteering for all sorts. Secondly the eye watering changes he, together with his colleagues, have introduced in the last 100 days. Oddly, despite having had almost all of my contracts cancelled and hearing daily concerns from members about the worst being yet to come, I remain energised. Whatever else you can say about the first 100 days, they have forced a change in behaviour that has kick started some incredibly creative collaborations.

I am thinking, in particular, of an idea I have been developing that entails working with the best minds and practitioners in the field of public sector outsourcing to create tools for walking people out of the public sector into excellent independent service delivery that maximises public investment and as importantly, social value. At SEL we have been working on outsourcing for a number of years but we readily acknowledge that there are other people with knowledge every bit as valuable as ours and we want to work with them. We had our first meeting today of some of our collaborators, and, if you like that sort of thing, which I do, it was thrilling. All will be revealed in time but at present we are building our cohort of thinkers and partners to unleash on the world our route to success. We will become the scouts that lead legions of folk across the road to a safer, inspiring and cost effective future, if they want to cross the road that is.

As a post script I add photos of Katie saying goodbye to her hermit crab collection as we left Cornwall 2 days ago. Seems like an age ago now. I love hermit crabs, but have you noticed they only ever move into bigger shells, never smaller ones?