So, we’ve had a range of reactions to us talking about dilapidations processes and our bill @ImpactHubBrum. I want to talk to you a little bit, about these reactions, my thoughts, & why we’ve been so vocal. Because, I don’t think it’s helpful to keep it in the dark.

The obvious one has been the usual beautiful Brummie & national pledge of support, advice, and hands on help from the team, members, social sector far and near. We are incredibly lucky to have such a beautiful family of collaborators to help us.

There’s been lots of shock, at the amount of waste, beautiful things they want ripping out, the lack of care from the landlord, the fact that the bill is nearly double what we spent on fit out, & absolutely absurd when you look at the report.

Then there’s been the crew who are like just bankrupt the business, forget your debts to the landlord, that’s what loads of us have done, it’s not a big deal. (Yes, to me it is a big deal to behave like this, to act like the system we want to change).

Then there’s been a strange one from a range of fairly senior people, who in and out of the social sector, who’ve been like oh yeah we’ve had this before, our fund had a huge bill too, or this is why you need to have professional property advice, it’s been gloating & unhelpful.

Because, first of all I want to ask a city & sector who 10 years ago went wild telling young people to follow their dreams & build social enterprise etc, but remember hardly any of you were willing to support this idea & especially didn’t stand up & say you need this or this ...

... where do you think that huge crop of people you encouraged who crowd or community funded / built things had access or big money for lawyers, property people & more? Secondly, if you knew about these awful extractive, exploitative, not regenerative ..

... processes & were in senior positions why didn’t you fight them, fight for a change in law, surface this all the people you were part of encouraging to do stuff? This is why many of us aren’t interested in small tweaks to a system that does this sort of thing, instead want ..

... it burnt to the ground / fundamentally reformed. Is it hard to stand up now to admit, you were part of building systems and benefitting from them that were designed to exploit / extract & you just went along with it as that is capitalism & how privilege / rent seeking ..

... works? Is it hard to admit you didn’t do the radical work to say THIS SORT OF STUFF IS NOT OK? I don’t know, but is that why you now fear so many of us, who bringing this all to the surface & saying no more, especially where people are masquerading in the change space ..

... as radicals? Another reaction has been the usual, Immy you talk to publicly about stuff, this is why people think your fragile or not a good enough leader. NO, if we don’t talk publicly all the time about the real journey, we keep hiding it & letting everyone fall over ..

.. & then make out that those who make it are exceptional, instead of making it possible for everyone to make it. Property, landlords, land, buildings, agents need radical reform, your going to hate it because y’all make loads of money & screw the planet like this, but IT HAS ..

... TO CHANGE. You either carry on your careers hiding hoping that the neoliberal capital extractive lies you’ve created & benefited from get you through without anyone noticing & hopefully an OBE. OR, you start standing up & admitting the shit that’s been built ...

... & start fighting hard for some real flipping just equitable change. If I hear another the social charitable third sector needs to be neutral, I’m going to flip my lid. THIS IS NOT OK, these are shit systems, rules & processes built by PEOPLE, they can be changed by PEOPLE.

We are all complicit everytime we are quiet & hope we can just benefit from this stuff, hope no one notices and then later say we will ‘give back’ when we’ve made it. Na bab.