My leaving words to the brilliant Smart Works staff

This week, the brilliant staff at Smart Works Charity threw me a magnificent party. It involved cupcakes, presents, cards, polyboards, an infographic, the most unexpected and magical leaving poem from our COO Rosemary Ashworth and of course the finest quiz. Dress code ("Kate Stephens") was followed with aplomb.

I wanted to share my speech here as I hope it will mean something to those who could not be there, and everyone who is part of the wonderful Smart Works community. Thank you to all of you.

Kate

Thank you all so much, this is beyond anything I could have thought of and you are the best staff team. I could only ever leave knowing I have left behind a team who are ready to go and do this.? Because there is so much to do.? And you are the people to do it.? I am incredibly proud of you all.? It is amazing to look around and see new faces, see faces I have known for a long time, and to know that together you can take this forward so I want to say a massive thank you to you all.

As Rosie says, everything that has happened here will stay with us wherever we go next and whatever we choose to do. Because what happens here is so special and so different to anywhere else.?

So I have two final requests and then I am going to share something with you.

Firstly, please keep the absolute professionalism that I am so proud of, and that we all have. Never apologies for what we are doing. This is important work. I carry that with me and I hope that all of you will too.?We have to look after this service, our clients and our volunteers, and keep it professional, keep it brilliant.?We have to be taken seriously.? So please, take on the baton and carry it for me.

The other thing I have to say (of course) is that a high tide rises all ships. And by that I mean that this is quite unique. 70 staff across the UK, 60 trustees, 750 volunteers, the vast majority who are women. And we have to make sure we look after each other and lift each other up and support each other to do what it is that we are aiming to do. It would be very easy, as many of you will have heard me say, for this not to work, for this to become something where there is judgement, or it’s the lowest common denominator and we must never do that.? We must always keep very safe this special thing that we have here.

So those are my two requests, look after Smart Works for me with those two things.

And then to finish.

Sometimes a poem is the only thing that can capture a moment.

So I want to share with you “Small Kindnesses,” by Danusha Laméris, which feels as if it has been written for everyone here.

It is a poem celebrating minor, automatic graciousness within a community, which can shine a light on greater needs. Small kindnesses which act as a bridge, especially in our world of autonomy and separation.

It talks to a deep, fundamental hope and memory of belonging that I believe we all have inside us.

It talks to what I believe is the Smart Works magic.

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Small Kindnesses

By Danusha Laméris

I’ve been thinking about the way, when you walk down a crowded aisle, people pull in their legs to let you by.

Or how strangers still say “bless you” when someone sneezes, a leftover from the Bubonic plague. “Don’t die,” we are saying.

And sometimes, when you spill lemons from your grocery bag, someone else will help you pick them up.

Mostly, we don’t want to harm each other. We want to be handed our cup of tea hot, and to say thank you to the person handing it.

To smile at them and for them to smile back.

For the waitress to call us honey when she sets down the bowl of clam chowder, and for the driver in the red pick-up truck to let us pass.

We have so little of each other, now.

So far from tribe and fire. Only these brief moments of exchange.

What if they are the true dwelling of the holy, these fleeting temples we make together when we say,

“Here, have my seat,”

“Go ahead — you first,”

“I like your dress.”

That’s it. There are many more words, but I am going to stop now.? Enough now, in fact! Lets all have a great evening together.

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(*with apologies to Danusha for substituting coffee for tea, and hat for dress, for Smart Works purposes)