January update for leaders: fixing guest turnout and improving our meals
Will Myddelton, product lead
This is a lightly-edited version of our update to Local Welcome leaders in January 2020. We want to be open in our communication so we’re posting it here too.
Local Welcome is a partnership between our team of 8 people and our 100+ leaders in Cardiff, Birmingham, Thornton Heath, Derby, Liverpool, Wakefield, Glasgow and Belfast.
Like all partnerships, communication is essential. When we were smaller it was easy for us to communicate. One of our team went to every meal. We knew everyone from meeting them in person. We spoke to our leaders on the phone all the time.
Now that we’re bigger, communicating with our leaders has got harder. My new year’s resolution is to communicate better with our leaders. It’s good to talk.
Each month I’m sharing our thinking and our current priorities with our leaders and on this blog. If you have any questions you can reach me on will@local-welcome.org.
Fixing guest turnout is our top priority
When we started Local Welcome we found all our refugee guests through hostels called Initial Accommodation Centres (IACs). This was helpful because it removed lots of logistical headaches. We owe a lot to our partnerships with these hostels.
However, there are problems with picking up our refugee guests from hostels. It’s a pain for leaders. It’s a bit infantilising for guests to be escorted. It means meals have variable start times. And it means that all our guests are recent arrivals in the UK and are moved on quickly to other parts of the country - so we don’t get the kinds of ongoing, sustained relationships we know work best.
We are moving to a better system where our refugee guests book free tickets and turn up to the meal themselves. Just like our leaders and members. We’ve been piloting it in Cardiff since August and Liverpool since November. Our Glasgow and Belfast groups launched with the new system. Over the next few months we are rolling it out to Birmingham, Thornton Heath, Derby and Wakefield as well.
This is our top priority. Our meals work much better when everyone turns up as equals.
Improving the meals is our second priority
There are lots of things that are annoying or broken about our meals. Our leaders, members and guests have been telling us this for months (thank you!) and we hear this.
Recipes don’t match grocery orders. Some questions are annoying. Food hygiene gets lost. It’s not clear how to organise the clearing up. Audit sheets don’t match the boxes. The rostis take too long. The paper folders don’t contain all the information.
We are currently making a big set of improvements to this. We will be updating the instructions, the paper folders, the kit in the boxes, and the grocery orders.
This is our second priority. We want to show we’re acting on this feedback.
Adding new recipes will come next
We’ve been making the same three recipes at every meal for a year now! We know that doing the same three recipes over and over again is grating.
Honestly, I thought we would add new recipes last February. But we are a tiny team and we focus on the things that are the most important. Given the work we did in 2019, the recipes were never quite important enough to focus on. But now we’ve got 8 groups with leaders, members and guests it's time for us to add new recipes.
One reason it's taken us so long is that the recipes take a bit more work to create than you might think. There’s a strict budget. They have to cater to dietary requirements. They have to take less than 30 minutes. They need to use the equipment in the boxes. They need to meet our food hygiene rules. And they have to be tasty and delicious.
We are going to add new recipes in the next few months. Once we’ve added our own new recipes we will share our brief so other people suggest their own recipes too.
Our team works in a slightly unusual way
At Local Welcome we are a small team (8 people) trying to do a big thing (grow a national charity from scratch) and it’s hard! There are always more things to do than we have time available. And we want our team to have a good work/life balance so that we don’t work too hard. Several of us have burned out in jobs before. Me included.
Our approach focuses on the most important things first - and we finish one thing before moving to the next thing. This is based on something called Kanban. It’s a way of structuring work to fit the capacity of the team, rather than trying to meet unrealistic requirements we set ourselves. It's what allowed us to do so much in 2019.
However, as many have noticed, it also means that lots of things are a little bit broken around the edges. Like not having more than three recipes. Or potato rostis taking too long. Or having to pick up guests from hostels. Or any number of other things.
I’m OK with things being broken as long as the most important stuff gets addressed.
But I also know that it’s frustrating when people give feedback about what’s not working and it takes us a while to fix it. This feedback is incredibly important to us. It’s one of the main ways we work out what is most important. But we don’t always act on it right away, and I think it’s right to explain why that happens by sharing how we work.
And finally...something a bit personal
Working at Local Welcome has been the most amazing year for me. I’ve worked at a lot of places - government, design agencies, multinationals - but nothing touches this.
We’ve grown from nothing to 8 groups operating in all 4 countries of the UK. We’ve created a strong and supportive culture in our team. And we’re working on something that is making a positive difference to the lives of the people that come to Local Welcome meals. Not just our refugee guests, but also our leaders and members. And us.
The best bit, for me, has been working with our leaders. Meeting our first ever leaders in Cardiff. Seeing the first notifications that leaders had paid real money. Talking to leader after leader after leader on the phone. Handing over our precious meals to be run by leaders without us. Asking leaders for dates every single month. Meeting the leaders who came down to our funding event. Asking leaders for help and being surprised every single time at their generosity. Leaders. Leaders. Leaders.
Working with our leaders has restored my faith in humanity a bit over the last year. That faith has taken a bit of a hammering in recent years. So 2019 meant a lot to me.
I want to end by saying a public thank you to our leaders for being part of this 🙏
Will Myddelton is the product lead for Local Welcome. Say hello on @myddelton or will@local-welcome.org. Or, even better, get involved as a leader or a member.