A Close Shave

Not one of an intimate nature (oh, you low-minded souls...) but a brush with redundancy. Not quite so fun (or maybe just as much fun, depending on your point of view...)

At the beginning of March I was given 30 days notice of redundancy - all down to a corporate funder not being too forthcoming with the cash for my project. I'd put in a funding bid, been given a sort of verbal agreement but when it came to the cold hard cash, there was a distinct lack of paperwork - particularly of the cheque variety. Strangely enough, the reluctance to come up with the cash coincided with the corporate funder's profit projection for the next financial year looking like it might be a billion or so short... They would still be making billions of course, but everything is relative, I suppose.

To cut an angst-filled story very short, the funding finally came through (£15k short, but I'd managed to fundraise about £7k from increasingly despairing match-funding bids) one day before I was due to leave... Phew. The same problem will rear its ugly head again at Christmas this year, but at least I have some time to plan for it.

I hadn't realised quite how attached I was to my job until I was about to lose it. I moan and complain with the best of them, but I value what I do and who I do it for and I know I affect people's lives for the better: that is no bad thing to be able to say for yourself. Funding for the voluntary sector is precarious and subjective at the best of times: these are not the best of times.

So, with a tip of my hat to the corporate robbers who buy themselves a conscience by (under)funding jobs like mine (having said that, the fund manager is an absolute gem of a bloke, so it isn't personal!) I thought I leave you with a video, of which the song has been gnawing at my head for weeks ... It's the catchy chorus! It'll get ya, honest gov!