Today is officially my 1-year anniversary at MEL research. 🎉 It feels very strange. Not because it’s gone so quickly, but more because it feels like I’ve been here for years. I’ve felt so welcomed and been given the freedom to grow and develop the evaluation team (without the challenging of long sign off processes too - what a luxury!). I’m very proud to own that it’s been such a great year for us. As a team we’ve got 4 new amazing team members (Evan, Richard, Emily, Holly) we’ve made the open commitment to only do empowering evaluative practice, we’ve pushed and challenged ourselves to really speak up about inclusive and trauma informed research. We’re facing our fears – talking at events about our passion for inclusive research and engaging/ creative methods, and we’re challenging ourselves to test new tools and approaches to help with the complex, people focused work that we do – such as interactive longitudinal story telling. It has been BUSY. To be honest I’d say at times it’s felt intense. But it has been so so worth it. I’ve had the pleasure of working in many fab teams but honestly I’ve never been surrounded by such a breadth of diverse talent. And the motivation to do (what Sophi lovely terms) human research is just inspiring. And most of all I’m so proud to work at a company with a genuine, and I’d dare say fearless, commitment to social value and EDI. It is a breath of fresh air. It is no small feat to be fearless in your willingness to learn, be better, recognise (and be honest) about when you need to get better. I wouldn’t be able to push for inclusive research practice so passionately without the support and commitment of this lovely organisation. In summary year one at MEL = amazing year. Onwards and upwards (wondering about the dog pic? It's completely irrelevant. But they're cute no!?)
What lovely words - we are extremely lucky to have you Skye and you and the team are doing an amazing job!
Founder of VMC Consulting | Chair of The Living Room
2moSounds brilliant Skye! Amazing what you can get done without lots of process and bureaucracy in your way isn’t it 😃