“It worked! So much so, I now really don’t want to leave!” Nisha Parbhoo, a volunteer with Communities 1st was telling me about why she wanted to volunteer. “I stopped working to have time with my family and young children, so I hadn’t worked for quite a number of years. I thought volunteering would ease me back into work, helping me to gain greater confidence.” Nisha found that volunteering has really helped and she is very happy to continue doing so. “I had other reasons for volunteering,” she added. “I want to give something back to the community and I wanted to help people.

Leadership today feels different. Not simply harder, but heavier. The pace of change is accelerating, expectations are high, and the time available to think well is shrinking.  Adaptation has always been part of leadership - many of us accept it as a natural rhythm of the work. What has changed is the compression of time: decisions arriving faster, pressures stacking more quickly, and reflective space being squeezed on all sides.

When you’re next having a beverage at the Communities 1st Coffee Cart in St Albans civic centre, don’t be surprised if your drink is served with a song and a smile! There is a lot of interest in singing amongst the volunteers at the cart. This is because Emma, a recent recruit, has a deep interest in music and singing. Her love for music matches her enthusiasm for volunteering on the Coffee Cart.

Across the country, a quiet shift is happening. You can feel it in conversations with residents, partners, volunteers and staff. People are asking bigger questions - not just about the cost of living, the pressure on public services, or the uncertainty coming with the next budget, but about something more fundamental:

What kind of country are we becoming?

These aren’t questions about services or neighbourhood issues alone; they point to something deeper - the wider atmosphere we live in and the evolving story of who we are as a society.