Odes and ends

I felt far sadder than I expected to feel about our departure from the European Union a week ago. At the moment of departure itself, I was singing “Ode to Joy” with tears streaming down my face with members of the 3 Million campaign group. The EU might miss the UK but it won’t miss my terrible O-level German.

Council work

The Lambeth Made Safer team ran an excellent workshop for councillors on the council’s strategy to tackle serious youth violence. Two residents shared their personal experiences of bereavement and a life turned around to help build our understanding. We also heard from Black Thrive, one of Lambeth’s key partners, about the necessity for this strategy to acknowledge and tackle the impact of racism as a contributing factor, and embed anti-racist practice throughout. Some of the residents’ experiences really brought this home to us all.

I’m keen to work on developing the role of local ward councillors in supporting the council and communities to make Lambeth safer for our young people.

Work work

In a burst of dullness, I’ve been catching up on invoicing and accounts this week. I need a better system for managing this stuff than Excel.

Recommendations gratefully received!

Politics

Following my Dudley South adventure, I was keen to share my experiences with Labour Together’s election review. Labour’s basic connection to local communities, wherever and whoever they are needs to be strengthened. We’ve got to be a party that that is relevant to them.

The commitment to support Labour members with the tools to do this better is why I’ve been backing Rosena Allin-Khan’s campaign. Following nearly 50 CLP meetings during yesterday’s Super Thursday, she’s now only six nominations away from making the final ballot.

I thought this was an excellent article by Kate Osamor about the importance of representation in politics. And everywhere else for that matter.

Personal learning points

I’ve been having some interesting discussions this week about where inclusion can create exclusion if terms are adopted without adequate conversations and explanations. Someone told me about feeling really small in a meeting where everyone was asked to introduce themselves with their preferred pronouns because she didn’t understand why. I also found this Gender Reveal podcast discussion about the limitations of the words non-binary and trans very interesting. What this taught me is the importance of positive, open conversations about terms, rather making assumptions about what terms people prefer or that everyone understands their meanings.

Articles

These thoughts led to this blogpost about inclusion for LGBT History month .

What am I reading?

My friend, Guinevere Glasfurd has just published her second novel, A Year Without Summer. I loved her first so I’m looking forward to getting stuck in.

Joy-giving things

This week I went to see Madonna at the London Palladium. Think I was last there to see Wind in the Willows in about 1975. It was so good to see her on a night when she seemed so happy, making digs about “How’s that Brexit going for ya?” and “What’s with this electing sociopaths with bad hair?”. And the no phones policy is one I can really get behind.

Her Madame X show is perfect in a theatre like the Palladium and we were lucky to see it in its entirety even if the venue did try to cut off the last song, I Rise, at the curfew:

Madonna wasn’t impressed but what happened next created a wonderful and fitting finale.

Happy weekend everyone. Here’s to music!