Its been a long time coming

I've not had much opportunity in the last few months to sit down and think and be quiet enough to get out a computer in my spare time and write down what has been going on.

The last few months have been totally frenetic with a growing business to deal with, 4 children to look after and guide [aged from 2 to nearly 17yrs old] and my wife working a couple of nights a week and all day on Saturday.

Its been fun but I do feel a desperate need to slow down and have a holiday. This week I've started work at 7am four days in a row and not been through till 10pm. I started this business 7 years ago in November after being made redundant and often wonder if I'd have done it if I knew then what I know now. That said we now have 12 employees world wide and work with many of the world's leading brands and when I reel them off to people [which I do several times each week to prospective customers, partners and employees] I have to pinch myself to be sure its real. This has been brought home to me several times this year and made me realise why I do what I do and make me sure I did the right thing.

Some time ago now we started working with Tesco to help them gather data from their supply chains to assist them in understanding where the cotton comes from in their clothing and home furnishing lines. This was directly to support their stance on not sourcing cotton that comes from Uzbekistan. Since then many leading clothing brands have started working with us on the same issue. Its really been an amazing journey for me to see all this happen. Best of all, it would seem that this has had an effect on the Uzbeks who are now looking like they may start to abolish child slave labour. Would this have happened if we hadn't had a system to help? I don't know, but its good to think we had at least some influence. Here's what the Guardian had to say about it in May. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/may/24/retail-ethicalbusiness

Last year we worked with Walmart on a project to create a range of fully traceable jewellery which is traceable to mines of known origin. That was a fabulous project which resulted in the creation of one of the best selling lines of jewellery at Walmart. More about this project can be found at http://loveearthinfo.com. The legacy of that work is that we have a fantastic public example of what we can do to show prospective customers and I am in no doubt it has helped us as a business a lot over the last year.

Yesterday Walmart announced for the first time in public something we've heard snippets about for a while. They have launched something they call a Sustainability Index. This is a bold move from an organisation the size of Walmart and I really hope it gets the support it deserves from their tens of thousands of suppliers. They recognise that to be successful over the next 10, 20 and more years they have to do something to make their supply chains sustainable and transparent. Its great hearing this in public. Its something we've been talking about for at least the last 7 years and finally hearing it from the biggest retailer in the world cements that belief we are right. Not only that one of the key presentations mentions the project we worked on for the Love Earth Jewellery.

Leslie Dach, EVP Corporate Affairs & Government Relations, discussed the company's mission, the importance of Sustainability and their 2009 Global Sustainability Report in this video. http://walmartstores.com/Video/?id=1378. About 7 minutes and 28 seconds into the video he started talking about the Love Earth Project. Hearing him say things like "The issue of traceability in our products is one of the most important" and about the service we developed "not only does it work great, but the product sells great" made me raise a hand and shout "YAY" in a very un English manner!



All this sort of thing makes me sure that I am doing the right thing work wise.

Out side of work has been busy too. I've kept up my veg growing, and twittered about it quite a bit. See the feed at the side, but not had time to write much. I have photographed interesting bits as they have happened though!

On and off over the past few months I've spent several hours a week learning to Morris Dance with the BUMMS [Bishopstone Union of Morris Men - http://bumms.info]. This is something which has been a huge amount of fun and we've performed several times. Sadly in recent weeks there's been a bit of a ding dong between the BUMMS over a donation to the church fete which we danced at. I hate bad feeling in anything, and really hate it when its around something which is morally right to do and I'm on one side of the fence and friends are on the other side. The whole episode has shown something in me that I didn't realise was there. I've lain in bed awake worrying about it which seems daft when I analyse it in the cold light of day, but its caused an emotion in me that I don't understand fully. I was prepared to walk away from it all if the decision had been not to make the donation. I love the fun of the practice, the beer and the live performance and would have given all that up. In hindsight I probably should have kept that to myself until the decision was made. Thankfully, despite my rants on the subject the right [in my opinion] decision was made, a donation was given and I'm trying to put it behind me. If any of the BUMMS are reading this. I love you all!

The summer school holidays are upon us, and for the first time in my life [as far as I know] we're not having a holiday. That feels crap to me. With Liz working and us not going to Herm as we have done for the last 7 years it suddenly feels like it is only winter that lies ahead. I so want to take a break, but didn't book anything and all my colleagues have booked up all the available time off. We'll take some long weekends I hope and have day trips but its not the same some how.

I want to end on something optimistic and will do. The veg garden looks great, and we've had more gooseberries and rhubarb this year than we had in the whole of last year. This year's bean crops are nearly ready to start harvesting and it looks like there will be more than ever before. I'm planning a bit summer curry night with colleagues from work coming here for a big veg nosh up. We're probably about to buy a new car, and I'm getting a bike to cycle part of my journey to work. Oh yes, I also took up GeoCaching [http://www.geocaching.com] which has been great fun and the only activity I've ever found which gets all 4 children, Liz and mother out all walking together. Highly recommended.