Clare's sabbatical

As some of you may know, Clare is intending to step back from October Books responsibilities for a few months and will be taking a sabbatical from April 2024 through to early July. Clare has been with October Books since 2016 and was instrumental in the community purchase of the old NatWest bank and the renovations and move to new premises. She has helped the team to grow over the time she has been involved and has implemented many new processes to ensure that the organisation stays true to the values and ethos that are the heart of all we do.

Clare is passionate about October Books being an organisation that is owned, inspired and run by the community. The benefits of this collaborative, connected and creative way of running a business are many fold, but it does take more time and communication compared to a traditional hierarchical business owned by an individual. Slowing things down and listening, really listening to our community, their needs, ideas and dreams is a way of being in business that Clare would like to see grow and flourish in our city and beyond.

This process could be described by the concept of Scaling Deep (not scaling up or out). Scaling Deep is ‘the deep personal and broad cultural transformational work that is required to create durable systems change’. For more on Scaling Deep see this report from Systems Sanctuary. These ideas and their link to what we do at October Books, the connection to the 100s of other SMEs in our city, our cities economy, the social value we provide are all things that Clare would like a bit of time to explore while she is on sabbatical.

There’s lots of reading, lots of listening and some contemplating to be done.