A Saturday morning well spent with fellow governors, a cup of tea and a biscuit. I joined our @ELATtrust Governor Conference as Chair of Governors at @HallMead School. With autumn settling in, it felt like a fitting time to take stock, celebrating what the Trust’s three-year strategy has achieved and looking ahead to the next. Since Covid, I feel there have been fewer opportunities to get together in person with people in similar roles. I’ve missed that. The chance to compare notes, ask “How have you dealt with this?” and have a proper conversation makes such a difference. How many problems are solved, or at least feel half the size, over a cup of tea and a biscuit?! Sometimes you come away with an idea to try. Sometimes it’s just reassuring to know that someone else is working through the same thing. We spent time reflecting on what we’re proud of at Hall Mead, where we want to do better, and the part our schools play in their wider communities. Having space to think about that together was really valuable. A big thank you to everyone who organised the day, and to my fellow governors for giving their Saturday morning and so much more throughout the year. I’m proud to work alongside them and our brilliant school staff, all wanting the best for our young people.

A lovely evening representing @ToynbeeHall at St Margaret’s Church, Westminster Abbey, celebrating 30 years of @CAPuk. Behind that milestone are three decades of people giving their time, care and expertise to help others through some of the hardest moments in their lives. Congratulations to the staff, volunteers and local churches whose commitment makes that work possible. Having someone listen without judgement, help you find a way forward and remind you that you don’t have to face things alone can make an enormous difference. That’s something worth celebrating. Congratulations on 30 years of helping people find a way out of debt and poverty, and thank you for everything you do.

Today marks the start of Advice Week, and I spent the morning in Parliament with colleagues from across the advice sector for the launch of @AdviceUK's #AdviceSaves campaign. The event was hosted by @RushanaraAli MP, our local MP at @ToynbeeHall, who we had the pleasure of welcoming to @ToynbeeHall just last Friday. As a trustee of @AdviceUK, Im proud of the work were doing to champion independent advice organisations across the country, particularly when demand continues to grow and funding remains under pressure. One of my personal highlights was hearing from @SarahSackman MP, Minister of State for Justice, who shared how volunteering at Toynbee Halll more than 20 years ago helped shape her understanding of access to justice and continues to influence her work today. As Interim CEO, hearing that was a really proud moment. Its a lovely reminder of the lasting impact organisations like ours can have, both on the people we support and those who go on to champion change. We also heard from @StephencTimms MP and Liz Bayram, CEO of @AdviceUK, who spoke about the growing pressures facing advice services and the need for a national advice strategy, sustainable funding and investment in the people delivering this vital work. Through my roles at @Toynbee Hall, @AdviceUK and @BGEnergyTrust, I see the importance of advice from different perspectives: delivering services, championing the sector and supporting the funding that makes it possible. What connects all three is a shared belief that people should be able to access good advice when they need it. Advice saves lives, prevents crises and strengthens communities. We see that every day at @ToynbeeHall, and across the country thousands of advisers are making that difference every single day. The challenge now is making sure the sector has the investment and support it needs to reach everyone who needs help. #AdviceSaves #AdviceWeek #AccessToJustice

Lovely to welcome @RushanaraAli MP to @ToynbeeHall today. What stood out for me was her passion for helping people access better job opportunities. We spent a lot of time talking about graduates leaving university and struggling to find work - the unfairness of doing everything asked of you and still struggling to get a foot in the door. It was a good opportunity to share our recently launched Debt Adviser Academy and talk about the 19 new trainee debt advisers who recently joined us, starting their careers helping others access the advice they need. We also talked about our advice services, our participatory action research with Disability Rights UK, and the experiences of the local people we support. Thank you to Rushanara for such an engaged conversation, and to our teams for the work we were able to share.

Good to be in Swansea for @BGEnergyTrust’s first advocacy roundtable, joining as a trustee to discuss how we reach people earlier and prevent fuel poverty. Through my work leading @ToynbeeHall, I see why advice, trusted community relationships and listening to people’s experiences need to go hand in hand. We draw on those experiences to champion change, and I really value the opportunity to learn from others doing this work across the country. I’ll also be joining the roundtables in York and Edinburgh over the next few weeks. Connecting with advice organisations across the nations helps us understand what’s shared, what differs locally and what we can do better together. Thank you to everyone who contributed in Swansea, and to Faith in Families/Multibank Cymru for hosting us.

Went into The Traitors thinking I could trust him. Turns out he was a Traitor, convinced everyone to banish me, and then had the audacity to pose for photos afterwards. The betrayal. The manipulation. The absolute lack of remorse. Relationship status: under investigation. 🗡️

Think the photo says it all… two awards for @ToynbeeHall! 🏆🏆 Tonight in Manchester, we won both of our categories at Credit Strategy’s Collections & Vulnerability Awards: 🏆 Debt Advice Provider of the Year for Debt Free Advice, the partnership we lead providing community-based debt advice across London. 🏆 Best Vulnerable Customer Support Team for Toynbee Hall’s Mental Health Crisis Breathing Space team. We were up against some brilliant organisations, so winning both means a lot. The credit for these wins goes to our colleagues at Toynbee Hall and across our Debt Free Advice partnership. I see how hard you work and how much you care about getting things right for the people who come to us for help. A particular thank you to our Mental Health Crisis Breathing Space team. I know how demanding this work can be, and I’m so pleased you’re getting this recognition. Thank you to everyone who made this happen. These awards are yours.

Lots of new faces - and one familiar face lurking in the back (me!). 🧡 A very warm welcome to our new Trainee Debt Advisors at @ToynbeeHall. This year marks 20 years of leading our debt advice partnership in London. Welcoming the next generation feels like a lovely way to look ahead. Funding through the government’s Financial Inclusion Strategy is helping us grow our adviser training programme and welcome more people into debt advice. Our trainees are beginning their core training at @ToynbeeHall before working across our own and partner locations. They’ll learn the technical side of debt advice. But just as much of the work is about listening without judgement, understanding what someone is going through and helping them find a way forward. There’s a lot to take in when you start. Thank you to the colleagues sharing their experience, answering questions and making our new trainees feel welcome. That support makes such a difference. And to our trainees - we’re really glad you’re here. I’m looking forward to getting to know you and seeing what we’ll achieve together!

Great to be back in Washington, D.C. for my fourth consecutive #NFCCconnect - and my first as Interim CEO of @ToynbeeHall. This year’s theme, “75 Years of Trust. A New Era of Innovation”, felt very apt. I was also really pleased to be joined by Kate Barron, our Interim Director of Advice Services. Kate and I had the opportunity to speak about the effective use of AI in client debt counselling services, alongside Postremo, our IT partner in the UK who also work with @NFCC here in the US. We shared how MoneyPennie has developed since we first talked about it at Connect a couple of years ago. It has moved from an experiment into something embedded across both @DebtFreeAdvice_ and Macmillan Money & More, supporting advisers in their day-to-day work, with further opportunities ahead including how AI could support quality assurance. Another highlight was getting the Global Credit Counselling Alliance back together. It’s now four years since we first sat down at Connect and agreed that organisations in the UK, US, Canada and South Korea could learn more by working together. Since then, that conversation has become a real international partnership. We hadn’t seen our US and Canadian colleagues in person since last year’s Connect, although we were lucky to welcome Dr Kim and colleagues from CCRS to London in June as part of our celebration of 20 years of @DebtFreeAdvice_. There was lots to take away from this year, but one point from Boston Consulting Group really stayed with me. Some organisations offering people poorer routes out of debt are often much better at making themselves easy to find and easy to use. Their marketing is personalised, their customer journeys are simple, and AI is making that increasingly sophisticated. For trusted advice services, being good at what we do isn’t enough. We also have to make sure people can find us, understand us and access us just as easily. A huge thank you to Mike, Jen and the whole @NFCC team for inviting us back and for being such generous hosts. Four years in, Connect continues to give us new ideas, new questions and a reminder that, although our systems are different, many of the challenges facing people with money worries are remarkably similar. #NFCCConnect2026 #DebtAdvice #FinancialInclusion #AI #ToynbeeHall #DebtFreeAdvice – at Washington, DC

Energy debt is rarely just about an energy bill. It can mean a cold home, impossible choices and financial pressure affecting every part of someone’s life. I have seen that repeatedly during my years working in debt advice. It is why I’m proud to be joining the Board of the @BGEnergyTrust as a Trustee. Since 2004, the Trust has invested more than £230 million and supported over 830,000 people. Its work combines direct help for households with funding for money and energy advice, delivered through trusted community organisations throughout Britain. What particularly excites me is the opportunity to connect what frontline advisors and households are experiencing with decisions about funding, partnerships, service design and innovation. I hope my experience at @ToynbeeHall - leading advice services, building partnerships and developing new ways to reach people - will make a useful contribution. I’m looking forward to working with the Arvinda Gohil OBE, incoming Chief Executive Maff Potts, Tracey Talbot, my fellow trustees and the wider Trust team. Fuel poverty is a systemic problem with intensely human consequences. I’m grateful for the opportunity to help the Trust shape its next chapter.

One of the things that’s really stood out to me in my first month as Interim CEO has been the warmth of our Community Centre. Every week, people come together at @ToynbeeHall to learn, connect, stay active and support one another. It’s a simple idea, but one that’s been at the heart of Toynbee Hall for well over 140 years. If you’re local, have a look at what’s coming up. We’d love to welcome you.

This really resonates with what our teams see every day through @ToynbeeHall and across the @AdviceUK network. Energy costs are often part of a much wider picture involving debt, benefits, housing and financial insecurity. That is why accessible, community-based advice matters so much, particularly when it is delivered in trusted settings and in ways that work for the people who need it. Great to see the @BGEnergyTrust supporting this kind of locally rooted work.

Really important point from @AdviceUK. Through my work at @ToynbeeHall, I see how often poor mental health is connected to wider pressures around debt, housing, benefits and financial insecurity. Advice services can play a vital preventative role, helping people tackle those underlying issues before they reach crisis point. Proud to support that wider movement as an @AdviceUK trustee, and to see the case being made for advice to be part of the conversation about prevention.

I’m proud that @ToynbeeHall has been shortlisted for Best Use of Technology at the UKCCF Awards 2026. Since launching our Video Advice Kiosks in 2021, we have grown from an initial community-based model to more than 30 kiosks in public settings. They are now also live across 13 prisons in the South of England, with a further rollout beginning in healthcare settings through our Macmillan Money & More service. The technology has evolved with each deployment, helping people access free, confidential advice in places where conventional services can be harder to reach. This recognition belongs to the colleagues, advisors and partners who have kept testing, adapting and improving the model. I’m conscious I’ve posted about quite a few awards recently. We seem to be having a very good run, which is brilliant and slightly embarrassing to keep mentioning. Awards are not why we do the work, but they are welcome recognition that our teams are developing services that make a real difference. Read the full story: toynbeehall.org.uk/05/08/202…

This week I learnt something from a ball of orange string. Over the past few weeks, as I’ve settled into the Interim CEO role at @ToynbeeHall, I’ve spent time with every colleague as part of a listening exercise. One thing kept coming up. People were incredibly proud of what they do, but they didn’t always see just how many other people they help every day. So, at our all-staff meeting, we tried something called The Web of Toynbee. We started with one ball of string. Each person held onto the thread before throwing it to someone who had inspired them, supported them or taught them something over the previous three months. I did at least choose orange string, so I could claim it was all very on-brand. Everything after that was delightfully chaotic. As the web grew, people found themselves ducking underneath it, stepping over it and making space for one another just to keep passing the string around. Nobody could simply think about their own piece of the web anymore, because every movement affected everyone else. It struck me that this wasn’t just an icebreaker. It was probably the most honest picture of organisational life I’ve seen in a long time. The finished web was tangled. There were knots everywhere. It wasn’t remotely symmetrical. Standing in the middle of it, I realised this looked far more like a real organisation than any organisational chart ever could. Organisations aren’t built on boxes and reporting lines. They’re built on relationships. Quiet acts of support. Shared knowledge. People stepping in when someone needs help. Sometimes those connections are messy. Sometimes they slow us down. But they’re also where trust is built and where the best ideas emerge. The busier an organisation becomes, the easier it is to stop creating moments where people can see the bigger picture. I think that’s a mistake. Sometimes leadership is about strategy. Sometimes it’s about creating the space for people to recognise the connections they already have. For all the time I spent choosing orange string to keep things on brand, it turns out the untidy bits were the most valuable. I’d love to hear from other leaders. What’s the simplest team activity you’ve used that revealed something unexpectedly profound?

It’s been quite a start to my first full week as Interim CEO of @ToynbeeHall. This week, @ToynbeeHall and our @DebtFreeAdvice_ partnership have been shortlisted across five national award categories at the @ThirdSector and @CharityTimes Awards. And, slightly embarrassingly to mention, I’ve also been shortlisted for Supporting Leader of the Year. A huge thank you to everyone who makes this work possible.