It seems people want to listen to my random ramblings sometimes and so I get asked to speak at events. I rarely say yes; I have a day job and any time I take out is likely to come out of my leave entitlement. When I got the request from Rosie Haighton from GivebackUK I said yes immediately.

Why?

I wasn’t sure myself at first. The premise of GivebackUK is to create a library of film clips which can be made available to the charity sector in the UK. These clips are then made available in a number of categories:

• Expert
• Everyday
• Charity

I assume my videos are going into the soon to be launched overweight middle aged man section of the website as a comedy interlude.

But why help the launch?

Firstly, I was stunned with the quality of the videos they produced. I rambled for a bit and they made me seem clear and relatively lucid. If they can make me sound (and look) normal, they can do that for anyone.

Secondly, working in local government I know from first hand experience the impact of the third sector in supporting people in desperate circumstances. It’s likely we all have personal responsibility in our work; to me this is more about taking personal responsibility in our lives.

The idea of filming and making content available for free is entirely with my beliefs about how we can work in L&D for nil or neutral cost.

Most importantly though, you never know when you, or someone you know, might need some charitable support. It could be for reasons of cancer, mental health, bereavement, finance, or any one of the hundreds of reasons people slip through the cracks in society. If it did happen to someone you cared for, wouldn’t you like to know that you could have helped the individual supporting your loved one?

To make this work they need help. The 3 things they’re after are listed in the image above:

1. People to film – who do you know who might be good at something? It doesn’t matter what specifically – don’t edit yourself…let the team decide if it’s worthy or not. Your business as usual might be someone’s Eureka moment.
2. Ways of funding – I can’t help with this but who do you know who might be able to help? How many connections are you away from a benevolent supporter?
3. Spread the word – if you think this is a good idea, please pass the message on.

The name of this amazing initiative is GivebackUK; this is about paying it forward. Please help.