As the Wild Rumpus team settle back into our woodland office, the treetop chatter gets louder every day. Quiet murmurs of birdsong have given way to a vibrant cacophony of calls and whistles, accompanying, nourishing and sometimes interrupting our work.
A nice technique when you’re trying to learn and identify birdsong is to start in the quiet months, listening out for and learning the songs of Robins or Songthrushes when there is space around them, so that when things get busy and loud and full of bird-voices, you can pick out your old friends more easily.
In the busyness of Spring and Summer, when projects come into song too, it can be easy for our team to be swept up into the whirlwind of delivery. Wild Rumpus, as a values-driven organisation, has purpose and intention woven through all of our work. Often this can be conversational and anecdotal. Sometimes beautifully organic, sometimes sprawling and confusing. This winter we’ve been working on our theory of change, a shared language and understanding of the change we hope to influence how our projects and programmes of work fit into it.
Our hope is that as the glorious abundance of voices and birdsong and projects and work grows louder, these principles and nutrients will be our old friends, the grounding and familiar threads that tie our work together.