Let’s be clear, I’m grateful to be working from home. Between the flexibility and the commute (to my living room) it’s difficult to criticise. We are an international organisation, and I get to hear the coolest things that my colleagues have been up to every morning as we are scattered across Europe; I’ve learned so much with this set up. But there is something uniquely special about getting to see someone face-to-face. It’s not often that we at the Open Preservation Foundation get to meet in person, but we’ve been lucky so far this year. We met together with our Board of Directors in London back in January, and a handful of us were able to meet together again last week.
We have had a number of things this year that have been increasingly difficult to sort over Google Meet, and so after they started to pile up we made the decision to send a few staff members to meet one another in Edinburgh, Scotland. The ability to screen share is a modern workplace miracle, but there’s nothing quite like being able to wander over to a colleague and sort something out. Here’s a look at how it went and why it was such a great opportunity for us.
In preparation for the meeting, we sorted the logistics, where to stay and who to send where, and how best to send our Administrative Officer Amanda to Edinburgh Castle on her lunch break (the latter we sadly did not achieve). We did comprehensively craft a brief agenda, to encompass both what seemed like an endless list of things to get sorted, and time for spontaneous discussions and inevitable rabbit holes.
Famously, Edinburgh is so unbelievably beautiful it looks like it was pulled from a painting; a unique blend of history and architecture. It’s always an inspiring place to work, and we hoped it would inspire us to speed through our admin. Meeting in the early morning, we began by swapping the requested treats and snacks that have to be exchanged when we are able to visit one another. Getting stuck in, we highlighted relevant recent milestones, and celebrated individual and team accomplishments,
We split into two groups; our Board Treasurer Paul, Executive Director Julie and Finance Manager Lana discussing our Annual Accounts and financial status. They worked their way through a long checklist of numbers, processes and actions. Meanwhile, Amanda – our Administrative Officer – and I sat down and had multiple discussions about various things involving our members and community care. For the past year, Amanda has been painstakingly taking care of our new (ish) CRM, and it was great to be able to dedicate time to making it great, making sure everything is connected and noted, so we can give our members and the community the care and attention it deserves. It’s very exciting for us to finally have the reach and need for a CRM system, and we are grateful for the time to dedicate ourselves to learning more about the institutions and people that make them. We are always learning how best to both store and utilise the information that we have, and we are excited with these new developments. What we have been desperately in need of is the time to sort it out.
On the second morning we tried to outline clear action items going forward, and ensured we were on the same page as a team. We explored ways to incorporate more in-person interactions into our predominantly remote work culture in this sector, as we committed to maintaining the camaraderie and collaborative spirit that has emerged in the past few years. We are always searching for new ideas to increase our support of our members, and also how to facilitate new networking opportunities. The time we had these few days in Edinburgh, to brainstorm and bounce off each other’s ideas as we went, was truly a game-changer.
I had to split away in the early afternoon, as I had to host our webinar that was taking place, but the others undertook technical training to better understand our back office systems that operate over both the UK and the Netherlands.
Reuniting in person – even if only a few of our team – was a great experience that reinforced the importance of teamwork, communication, and human connection. We returned to our remote desks with renewed energy, clearer minds, and a better shared vision of our next steps.
And if you don’t consider that enough of a success, we leave you with the knowledge that we were able to get our Executive Director to try the Scottish delicacy of a deep fried mars bar (and she was definitely not a fan).
