#41 The Retro, Young Entrepreneurs and a Review

Weeknotes — Monday 27 April – Sunday 3 May 2026

Summary of the week

Retrospective week. Looking back at the conference, debriefing with the core volunteers. A Dragon's Den scenario with Sheffield College.

IAF Conference Retro

The IAF conference retro happened this week, and it was an honest and good reflection. What worked, what we would do differently, and what surprised us. I love a proper retrospective, not a surface-level "that went well" but a proper look at the whole thing with enough honesty to make the next one better.

I've been drafting the IAF feedback form, getting structured feedback from participants along with what all the core volunteers recommended. Looking through some of the work I have done over the past few months, I am considering looking at the IAF pathways to becoming an endorsed facilitator.

Dot and Dash

I'm still taking it easier this week with little social media as I try to recoup the energy spent on the conference over the last few months. It's been intense, and I have neglected blog writing and the other things that keep my energy in balance.

Contract consultancy work is back in full this week. I use pinterest a lot to collect data visuals, mapping, and different ways to visually tell a story when you are looking at complex services.

So spent some time looking through some of my notion and pinterest boards I've collected over the years. Planning out some visuals to use in reporting back, I decided it was a good time to get Dave Gray 100 visual frameworks to inspire some of the work, using some of the metaphors for this work but also to practice different sketchnoting visuals. I had fun re-looking at some of my old Service Design reference books and ended up getting sucked into case studies, and it was so enjoyable reconnecting with and refreshing all things service design related again.

App Work

Backend refinements and additional features are on hold until we know more from the user research session. Had a community body doubling Thrive session again. great to see people joining in from places around the globe.

At the Cooper project, I helped with scoring young entrepreneurs from Sheffield College pitching their business ideas. There were really great ones; the winner gets support from Rose, the incubation manager, to help with their business idea. Scoring all based on how they presented their ideas, the solution, the target audience, the business model, and competition awareness amongst other things. It brought back memories of doing my first pitches, trying to communicate all those things in a concise way with potential investors. It's not easy, and they all did well.

Creative downtime

One way that I have of re-energising and spending some downtime is creating things; I am a massive fan of jelly roll race quilts. I've been working on this project for my sister's birthday present. It's been hot the past few days and wearing a quilt while sewing has been a hot process! Normally I quilt during the winter months for that reason.. It's a workout and I've had to be careful with my wrist injury so I have only been able to do short mini sewing sprints.

I wonder... If we hold on to projects longer than we need to because finishing feels too final, when actually, closing something off properly is what makes space for the next thing to begin.

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