Cymrodoriaeth

Ripples Story: “Enterprise on the menu”

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In this article, Neve Howells-Aitken, a Rank Fellow, shares her experience of being part of a management team that ran a successful student social enterprise at a South Wales college, which provided sustainable, inclusive, and affordable meals for the student body.

Hot to Go (HTG) is a student-run social enterprise based in UWC Atlantic College, which serves as a restaurant for the student body. It was founded by a student in 2019 and has been dedicated to fulfilling its three core values on campus and in the wider South Wales community: charity, community, and sustainability.

HTG attempts to emulate a working restaurant as closely as possible; we have a head chef, sous chef, and head pastry chef who lead a team of more than twenty people in the kitchen weekly. The front-of-house team has bartenders, baristas, head waitresses and a dedicated team of over 20 rotating waitstaff. I got involved in HTG in August of 2022 and worked as part of the management team until March 2024, when I passed down the position as my time at the college ended.

Charity, being one of the core values at HTG, means our impact on the community is always at the forefront of events and services. This year, we have successfully donated over £3,500 to scholarship fundraisers at the college to directly impact our college community. This will help future students by contributing to the financial aid required to attend UWC. Additionally, we strive to make HTG as inclusive as possible. This is vital as we aim to serve all students, who are a highly diverse group of people in many ways. The gap between the socio-economic backgrounds of Atlantic College students is relatively large; however, we never want this to stop people from affording our food and enjoying themselves with us. Because of this, we offer a free dining experience for those who qualify for the school’s ‘Student Financial Services’. This has sometimes been challenging, as the costs we incur have risen dramatically over the last two years due to the cost-of-living crisis. First and foremost, we are a charity, so our aim to serve all students on campus has been unwavering.

Our efforts to be sustainable have also proved challenging; however, they have been a brilliant endeavour for growth and learning. HTG has always been vegetarian to minimise emissions and make food accessible to as many people as possible. At the beginning of the year, I completed a research project analysing the impacts of only using hyper-locally sourced ingredients on HTG.

The limited produce we would have access to, with the infrastructure and resources available, would negatively impact our desire to share global culture and possibly limit the menu, which would restrict customers and our impact on the charity.

We are able to serve an extremely diverse menu because of our collaborations with national groups on campus and the unique background of every chef. People love to come and enjoy the delicious dishes we prepare. We can unite our campus community as a team, serving between 50 to 100 students and staff weekly.

HTG has been an incredible experience that I will value for the rest of my life. Not only has it taught me the intricacies of running an enterprise, ignited a passion for food and helped me nurture personal skills surrounding finance, leadership, and organisation; but it has allowed me to enjoy making a positive impact on my community

Neve Howells-Aitken

Rank Fellow

Ripples Story: “Committing to values that help leaders make good decisions”

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In this blog post, Mark Herbert, a Fellow (Class of 2003) and Co-founder and Director at Salt & Light Leadership Coaching, shares his journey of joining forces with his best friend, Jon Bircher, to equip leaders with better decision-making skills based on true Christian values.

I’m Mark Herbert, a Fellow (Class of 2003) and Co-founder and Director at Salt & Light Leadership Coaching. Our company helps leaders and leadership teams make better decisions.

I benefited from Rank’s School Leadership Award during my time at Monkton and have spent the last 20 years in education and not-for-profit leadership, including 10 years in church leadership. Each of these different contexts was rich with opportunities to develop my leadership skills and help release the leadership in others. I learned more about effective communication, managing conflict and motivating teams.

I published a book, “I’m Not a Leader”, in 2021, and began an entrepreneurial journey into leadership coaching. In 2023, I co-founded Salt & Light Coaching Ltd with my friend Jon Bircher, and we work in various sectors, equipping leaders to make better decisions. As we worked with leaders, we realised that navigating the dynamics around decision-making was a common challenge. Our world needs better leaders, and quality decision-making is one of the marks of outstanding leadership. For us, this is rooted in leaders doing better thinking and asking better questions. We strive to create organisational ecosystems that support a thinking environment, empowering leaders to make better decisions.

Our world is volatile, and leadership is complex, especially when the stakes are high. Decisions matter because our leadership is visible in our choices and how we make them, demonstrating who we are, how we think, and what we value. We are convinced that every decision has a ripple effect and that our life story unfolds one decision at a time.

Choosing to step away from a familiar career in my mid-thirties and embark on uncharted territory was daunting. The journey involved a steep learning curve, asking hundreds of questions and building a network. I made mistakes and had to dig deep into reserves of resilience, especially with the additional pressures of supporting a young family while starting a new company from scratch. Looking back, the leadership foundations I have drawn upon daily were founded during my time at school. The opportunities that Rank gave me to develop my leadership as a teenager started the ripples that continue to spread today.

People often ask us – “Where does the name Salt & Light come from?” Salt and Light are Biblical metaphors. We work with leaders from multiple faiths or none, but as Christians, Jon and I are committed to being Salt and Light as Jesus encourages his followers. For us, this means adding flavour and value to our coaching conversations, spotlighting the genius in others, and shining a light on a clear path ahead.

At Salt & Light, one of our core values is to walk alongside our clients, nurturing lasting relationships and offering a mix of challenge and support.

Mark Herbert

Co-founder and Director at Salt & Light Leadership Coaching

Ripples Story: “The language of heritage”

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In this article, Mariama Techie-Afful, a Rank Fellow (Class of 2009) and a first-generation Briton born in the UK to Sierra Leonean parents, shares how she developed a deck of cards to help Africans learn their native language and stay connected to their cultural roots.

I’m Mariama, from the Fellowship, Class of 2009, a first-generation Briton born in the UK to Sierra Leonean parents, married to a Ghanaian, mother of two and the founder of Nafolan (pronounced Na-foh-lan). My parents did a fantastic job instilling a sense of cultural pride in my siblings and me. Although our ability to have conversations in Krio is questionable at best, it’s a skill we possess, nonetheless.

Many Africans living on the continent are multi-lingual. Meanwhile, those born outside of Africa to African parents tend to only be receptive to bilingualism; that is, they cannot engage in active conversation despite being able to understand the language.

Nafolan (which means ‘You should learn’) was birthed out of the desire to see more learning resources for my son in Krio and Twi so that he will be connected to his cultural roots, especially as English is the default language in my home. There are limited resources on the market for parents of African heritage who wish to teach their children their native language, something I discovered in 2021, shortly after my son was born.

With this in mind, I created a deck of 25-27 cards containing words and phrases commonly used in everyday speech and a pronunciation guide. I launched the business in 2022, and with just over two years of experience, it is still in its infancy. The reception so far has been overwhelmingly positive, and whilst I am no marketing guru or know every supporter personally, it has been important from the onset to ensure I share the brand’s vision with simplicity and clarity.

I have been able to leverage the power of community, a lesson I first learnt during my Community Action Placement at the Arun Community Church; it is to this that I accredit my success. Currently, we have four languages spoken by communities across Africa’s Western and Eastern coasts (Krio, Twi, Yoruba, and Swahili). We are working on a series of audio guides to supplement the cards. There are more than 2000 languages spoken in Africa, so the long-term goal is to be able to provide comprehensive language resources for as many of these languages as possible.

Mariama Techie-Afful

Rank Fellow (Class of 2009)

Rank Ripples Magazine – October ’23 Edition Out Now

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The rebranded edition of Rank Ripples magazine focuses on the power of the collective. Alongside your regular Fellowship update, it features articles about collective working from across our network.

Steve Arnott, Jordan Ignatius and Nadia Alomar share insights on collaborative leadership from personal and professional perspective. Memorial Award Winners, Niamh Mawhinney and Calum Johnston share their incredible journeys and there’s inspiration from Liz Weaver, Co-CEO of Canada’s Tamarack Institute. Their Communities Ending Poverty programme has contributed to poverty being reduced for 1 million Canadians. Plus, some at a glance tips for collaborative leadership on page 28.

We hope you enjoy reading it!

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Rank Ripples, Spring 2023 edition is out now!

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This edition of Rank Ripples magazine focuses on the cost-of-living crisis. It features articles about enterprising and innovative responses from leaders across our network. There’s also some inspiration from Canada from our friends at Place Matters and an article about trust-based philanthropy from our resident PhD Janis Petzinger.

You’ll also find a double-page spread of the Foundation’s year in numbers. It quantifies our founder’s vision that each and every pebble can create ripples into towns and communities right across the country. We’re delighted with what we’ve achieved together with you.

We hope you enjoy reading it!

RankRipplesCostOfLivingEditionApril2023-1Download

Learning Through Leadership Talk 2023

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‘If not you then who?’: Rose Fitzpatrick CBE QPM

In this blog post, John Hind, our Director of Education and Leadership, shares his thoughts on our recent Learning Through Leadership talk, “If not you then who?” by Rose Fitzpatrick CBE QPM. The event took place on 21 March 2023.

Rose Fitzpatrick CBE QPM giving the talk

Late March saw a first as the Fellowship’s ‘Learning through Leadership’ programme transferred to Rank’s Garden Walk Headquarters. Those present were privileged to hear Rose Fitzpatrick, Foundation trustee and member of the Fellowship Leadership Team, share her experiences of over 30 years of service in the City and Met Police forces, culminating in her role as Deputy Chief Constable of the newly formed Police Scotland service in 2013.

A pioneering meeting at Garden Walk chimed with pioneering aspects of Rose’s career. A Theology and Philosophy graduate, she joined the city police at a time when only 2% of recruits held degrees and only 8% were women. As a relatively mature recruit with clear potential she was promoted to inspector in less than five years when the average time taken was ten. Her role with the City force was challenging: the force’s counter-terrorist role being stretched by incidents such as the Bishopsgate bomb, but it was the impact of the Macpherson report following Stephen Lawrence’s murder that persuaded Rose that her real passion was for community policing. Transferring to the Met force as a Superintendent, she became the Borough Commander for Tower Hamlets in 2002 as at that time the only female officer in such a position in the Met force. 

Her description of working in a diverse ethnic community as ‘mind blowingly interesting’ is testament to her commitment to true community work and it was this interest that took her out of a very brief retirement from her service into her role in Police Scotland.  Here – pioneering again – she faced the challenge of how best to make the new unitary national force address the differing needs of its various component communities – the needs of policing in Glasgow, for example, being radically different from those in Highland communities. Five years of facing the cultural and political challenges inherent in her role left her fulfilled but exhausted though a second retirement was even shorter than her first. Two days into her family holiday she was asked to establish and chair a new National Suicide Prevention Leadership Group for Scotland, a role which she still holds.

In all of this, a clear part of the answer to Rose’s title question lies in the manifest sense of duty and service that clearly drives her. Indeed, a crucial point she made was the need to reflect before taking on some challenges and to recognise when others may be better placed to take them on. Listening to one’s instinct was vital in such cases and Rose made the point that one can practise this, not least when facing up to the ethical and moral challenges leadership presents. Avowedly assuring us she was not the hero who ran into danger – though some of her colleagues were – she nonetheless showed real moral courage on a number of occasions when determined to do what she believed to be the right thing – even at the cost of temporary unpopularity. That leadership can be lonely is true – especially in situations where one has to stand up for one’s principles – and this was compounded for Rose by the lack of female peers at her level within the organisations she served. She did however make the point that asking for help is vital when facing challenging decisions is in no sense a sign of weakness: rather, it is a way of developing strengths.

Rose spoke on the day the Casey report into the Met police was published. Clearly digesting the report in full was impossible: however, in response to questions from a thoughtful and engaged audience, she did stress the need for proper resourcing of the police service, especially with regard to recruitment, vetting and training. In keeping with our theme, appropriate leadership is vital too. Looking back on all Rose said, it was clear that her moral purpose and sense of duty, coupled with a genuine understanding of the importance of the police’s relationship with their community, made her the kind of leader the police need. Those of us present were fortunate indeed to hear what she had to say.

Ynglŷn â'r awdur:

John Hind joined the Rank Foundation in June 2021 as Director of Education and Leadership. He is responsible for overseeing the School Leadership Award and Fellowship, following a career in teaching, most recently as Principal of Dame Allan’s Schools in Newcastle-upon-Tyne from 2004 to 2020. John studied history at Cambridge University, completed an MEd at Newcastle, and a part-time PhD at Durham.