Coffee and Calendars

There is nothing like a cold grey Monday morning to make you feel back home in the UK. Walking along the Seven Sisters road I realise I’m definitely not in Australia. The green trees are skeletal.  I’m into the tail end of jetlag, but each night, every dream I have, no matter what the story, ends up on another long haul flight. Why can’t I dream of cruise liners instead? Or buses that never come, like in London.

Today it’s another Working Assets session, throwing around ideas with our partners Changemakers.  Having talked in Oz about the difference between the narrative of coffee, and the language of disadvantaged thinking, I’m now into playing games where people present themselves – or their services - as coffee, to focus on branding their advantages.  Despite the current turn of my dreams, my coffee is the ‘big dreamer’.  Drink to dream a better world.  And because I can never do the same thing twice, every cup is as different as the day it’s drunk. … Which was no where near as exciting a coffee as my colleagues.  Starbucks, watch out! What coffee are you?

For some random reason, the session on Working Assets generates a stack of ideas on alternative advent calendars. This is rich material for possibilities. My favourite is the Big Society calendar, with nothing in any of the doors, allowing you and the local community to fill them in yourself.   Any takers?   Keep an eye out next year in Asda...