Leaving do

I must say that a leaving do has never really been my thing. I’m not sure why yet every time I have left a job, in brilliant sunshine or under a cloud, I have just left without the seemingly requisite party. Plenty of goodbyes but none of the hanging around, present giving or speech making. I tell a lie, there was a small gathering when I left North Tyneside Council, perhaps half a dozen people. I was given some very nice cufflinks.

This time though it has been a bit different. Firstly I am leaving for good, with no more jobs to go to and secondly I will be leaving something behind that I have played a fundamental part in building. As you know I am retiring from CyberNorth and paid work in general. I was persuaded and cajoled in a nice way, to celebrate my final departure. Despite my mild protestations I agreed. Iit was true that there were many people I wanted to thank and it seems there were many who wanted to say goodbye. Wrapping the event into a summer social made it easier to swallow.

A good crowd turned up at Gusto on the quayside, with many familiar faces and several students who had come along. Some had travelled quite a distance to come to the event and I was touched by their words and warmth. I wanted to thank people for their support yet they wanted to thank me for the help I had offered them. It’s a funny old world.

Danielle gave a lovely speech and I filled up a few times. I’d made some notes for mine yet could not find them on my phone and so had to fly a bit blind.

After thanking the people who had helped bet CyberNorth off the ground I left the guests with three nuggets of my wisdom. Firstly the region needs to dream bigger. Everything starts with a vision and it takes dreamers to create them. By all means learn from the past but dream about the future that we are going to make. Secondly, the future of work in the region is through collaboration. We are a region of predominantly small businesses yet together we can be a massive business. None of us is bigger than all of us. Finally, anything worthwhile is hard. Perhaps I’ll come back to these in future blogs.

It’s a good job that I had lost my notes as I wouldn’t have been able to read them anyway. It was a lovely night, I had a really good time and there was pizza and cake.

A huge thanks to the team.