Humber MeshWORKS...

Jan-Feb: Delivered Spiral Dynamics-centred staff training sessions for the Garths.

Feb: Worked with Cathy Byrne on developing Spiral strategies to employ in her application to become headteacher of the new school being formed from the merger of the Danepark and Court Park primary schools in Hull.
Commentary: A 'graduate' from the previous Summer's SD-NLP open workshop programme, the remarkable story of Cathy's management of the merger is told as a case study in 'The Parks' in the Education pages.

In some circles, there's a lot of contention about the elitism so often associated with those who claim to think in 2nd Tier - especially TURQUOISE thinking. But I actually do think Cathy does think in TURQUOISE at times. Her fearlessness, her ability to see things clearly from multiple perspectives and to build towards the 'Big Picture' would fit with the little we know about this vMEME - and she's often been way ahead of me in her ability to understand the complexity in a situation.

Mar-April: In association with David Burnby & Associates, delivered in-house version of 'An Introduction to Spiral Dynamics & Related Models of Neuro-Linguistic Programming' for the Senior Management Team of Hull's Preston Road New Deal for Communities project.
Commentary: I had inveigled former Common Purpose in Hull director David into coming on my second open workshop programme. By its conclusion, he was one of the most enthusiastic about the models.

Like myself three years earlier, understanding the models gave David a certain release. He had been considering going independent for some time. Now he couldn't find any reasons left why not to! (And he has been highly successful since as an independent facilitator!)

The Preston Road project was one of the Deputy Prime Minister's Office prestigious and very high-profile 'New Deal for Communities' regeneration schemes. (Both John Prescott and Tony Blair were present at its launch.) With £55M to spend over several years, their brief was the social and economic regeneration of one of Hull's most deprived areas. However, limited 1st Tier thinking had placed the project headquarters at one end of the estate - and they wondered why they were relatively successful at communicating with people in the 'tribal areas' close to them but people in the tribal areas at the other end of the estate hardly ever came to their HQ! (Crossing another 'tribe's' area was - often literally! - a dangerous thing to do.)
 

Through Spiral Dynamics, they began to see some of the reasons they were not being as successful as they knew they should be and to formulate some new and more effective strategies.

April-May: Ran Mentoring workshops for Year 8 groups at St Mary's College.
Commentary: These were the brainchild of St Mary's teacher Lewis Lynch.

A participant in my first SD-NLP open workshop programme and assistant on the second, Lewis was part of a team working on developing 'buddies' for students in the year below. It was the first time I had pitched NLP-type concepts explicitly at a group of 13-year- olds - but the students all claimed to have enjoyed it and ongoing feedback from Lewis was good.

Expounding at One of the Year 8 Workshops, May 2002 - with Lewis Lynch. [Andrea Stephens]

April-May: Working for David Burnby, facilitated the new Humberside Consortium for Learning in putting together their start-up Business Plan.
Commentary: The Consortium for Learning was the result of the merger of the 3 Humber training provider associations - North Lincolnshire, North-East Lincolnshire and Hull & the East Riding - to give them a stronger voice with the Learning & Skills Council Humberside.

Although there were some internal problems earlier on, working with the four directors - Lynn McGowan, Sue Bloomfield, Audrey Dawson and Allan Wakefield - was both a challenge and a pleasure. The quality of thinking around their board room table was impressive!

April-May: In association with David Burnby, staged third open programme of "An Introduction to Spiral Dynamics & Related Models of Neuro-Linguistic Programming" in Hull - this time over 2 days.
Commentary: Photos from this workshop programme can be viewed in the Galleries pages.

July: The Humberside MESH Network celebrated its first anniversary with the biggest turn-out to date at its new home in Centre 88 in Hull.
Commentary: Photos from this Meeting can be viewed in the Galleries pages.

A silhouette at the Europarc Innovation Circle, August 2002. [Duncan Harper]

follow-ons - but, apart from a meeting with Education, nothing happened.

Sept-Oct: Delivered ’Creating a MeshWORK’ training programme to the Community Investment Team of North Lincolnshire Council. The programme meshed Spiral Dynamics, Adizes LifeCycle and several key NLP models to enable the team to take a MeshWORK approach to its development.
Commentary: Jenny Gavin-Allen had been recruited onto the April-May SD-NLP workshop programme by David Burnby and recognised the importance of the models both to her own team's working and to their various community groups.

A case study of how the team used the learning to partially restructure their department can be viewed in the Business pages. Photos from the training can be viewed in the Galleries pages.

Oct: Was interviewed about Humber MeshWORKS by Jonathan Parker of BBC Radio Humberside aboard the BBC Bus.

Nov: As a follow-on to the August meeting with Simone Butterworth, met with Mouchel, the consultants appointed by the Department of Education & Skills to assist Hull City Council's Directorate of Education improve classroom peformance, and introduced them to Spiral Dynamics and Neurological Levels.
Commentary: As Mouchel were basically hassled into the meeting by the Education Directorate, responding to pressure from Simone, and allowed only 45 minutes for the meeting, nothing was accomplished other than to make their team aware.

Nov: Designed and delivered in-house ISO 9001 Auditor Training programme for QSI.

Dec: Carried out a major piece of Therapy which enabled a woman trapped in a loveless marriage to increase her sense of self-worth until she could leave the relationship behind.

Aug: Gave a follow-up presentation on Spiral Dynamics and Adizes LifeCycle to 2001's event at the Grimsby Europarc Innovation Circle.

Aug: Met with Simone Butterworth, Leader of the recently-elected Liberal-Democrat-led Kingston Upon Hull City Council, to discuss how the MeshWORK approach could greatly assist with resolving many of Hull's problems.
Commentary: How much Simone understood Spiral Dynamics in the limited time we had was difficult to say - but she certainly got Neurological Levels unequivocally!

She dragged in two other Lib Dem councillors - John Robertson and Carl Minns - to expound the virtues of a values-based approach.

I offered to act as her unpaid advisor and Simone promised