Welcome to this week’s studio notes, week 30 of 52 in 2025. This is ecology of practices, for business and life! I write these notes without using AI. I am choosing to write these weekly notes for a year. I want to improve my writing. I also want to build in reflection and consider what’s happened across a week. Sometimes in the nuances, in the weeds, in the small things there is depth and great value.
This week was a mixed bag of responding to requests for business quotes, saying no to something I’d been pursuing, emptying out my studio-office space completely, with two days away from my desk one learning about rare plants in Wexford. I also attended the Save Lady’s Island Lake campaign meeting, an environmental disaster that local people are gathering into action on. At the end of the week I sent an email that took me all week to write.
Reflections
The email that took me all week to write actually took me +20 years of experience before I could write it. This is the story unfolding forward for Envisioning positive futures:
You take a risk, it’s a rather odd workshop. Something about the future…
The discomfort you feel ebbs away as it all kicks off. The person facilitating the workshop opens up a warm invitation. A series of engrossing exercises makes you forget about the time. You laugh a lot, finding it a bit surprising, you forget about the deadlines. It feels familiar but it’s new, different, possibly the closest thing to play you have felt in a long time.
You become fully present. Everything else falls away, the heaviness and criticality.
You are invited to a future, your future when humans have done everything possible to bring the planet back within planetary boundaries and create a safe just space for all.
It’s the first time anyone has made space for you to lean into a flourishing low-carbon future. But what’s really there?
In small groups collective dreaming and ideas are shared and shaped. Then we go visiting each others worlds. As the group shares and walks through each others spaces the storytelling builds on itself. The groups imagnation soars.
Leaving the workshop, you feel resourced and refreshed. You can’t help but talk about it. Randomly, you find yourself smiling on your bike or the bus home, stopped at traffic lights you think about a futures that you dreamt of. Something someone said makes you wonder about…
You find you can’t help share the ideas you experienced. The workshop becomes this lighthouse altering how you think about things.
I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.
Maya Angelou
I agree with Rob Hopkins, people need feel the possibilities of a future. Maya Angelou’s has been a guide and teacher in how I work with people. In my experience her quote, it is true. In safe guarding the future of the earth, humanity and all beings, as Rob Hopkins writes “We have to fall in love with the future”. It you are working on the hard gritty edge of delivering any of the 2030 EU emissions policy and deadlines this is even more true. Its a very challenging world right now and the violation of human rights and social justice across the globe make it even more pressing.
We might understand the science, the data but our longing deep at the heart of it needs to be a positive flourishing. I share some insights below.
Writing tenders and RFQs is a quandary. I really enjoy the challenge of figuring out the approach, what to pay attention to, plan on a page, building a team to respond to the particular challenge I even love the finance reality of a budget breakdown. But I don’t love how long it takes and the process can feel very arbitrary. I’ll work on this, I’ll give you our business acumen and expertise served on a plate. It’s worth it if you win the business. But I think about all the businesses competing, the resources and time all put into a tender or bid quote. From a public procurement process I’d like to see those numbers and attributed costs. It looks like the Irish Times did an article on it earlier this year but it’s behind a paywall. As a small SME completing tenders is very costly, the % of completed to won contracts is very much in the negative. Alas that’s how the process impacts me.
The Rare Plant Identification Workshop run by Biodiversity Ireland was excellent. We visited sites that included include: Lesser Centaury (Centaurium pulchellum), Chaffweed (Centunculus minimus/Lysimachia minima) and Lanceolate Spleenwort (Asplenium obovatum) and several others. I will write a separate post on it.
The Save Lady’s Island Campaign meeting Thursday evening was a talk by the very knowledgeable Jim Hurley, he shared a six page summary print out of over 40 years of ecological neglect and in action that has resulted from the lake dying. Technically its a large Lagoon, but everyone refers to it as a lake. Jim’s extensive work and information is generously shared on his website, South Wexford Coast – Lady’s Island.
The event was organised by under the umbrella organisations working together to ensure action is taken about the lakes but in particular Wexford Environmental Network, well done to Peadar and Ciara. You can now catch the campaign and keep up to date by joining the email list or on social media.
and on instagram
I spent all of Thursday down around Lady’s Island, I had hopped to swim locally but the main beaches in Carne and St. Helens had a no swim notice. I ventured back towards Rosslare and swam at the end of the point. One of 2 new to me swim spots last week. The other was earlier in the week at Ballymacaw Cove along the Dunmore East Cliff Walk.
Insights
Midway through the year, I am wondering about the synthesis of weekly notes into a monthly newsletter. Looking at themes rather than date based work. Distilling out further the stories and value coming from my work.
The client that asked me about envisioning positive futures asked me if I’d any insights on the work. Positive futures have been part of my work since the 90s. I tried not to respond with a book.
So here are my insights on envisaging positive future work:
- we are not creating a strong enough story of a low-carbon futures; we need to get people excited and inspired about the possibility of real, meaningful change, it should be infectious
- to open up possible new social imaginaries, we have to build capability and space for people to imagine the new, the possible
- business as usual will not get us to where we need to go
- to bring people into this work you have to warm them up, just like training before a big match, it should be giddy and exciting, a bit weird, fun generous and resourceful
- people need to feel something, and to have the space to respond to those feelings as they can also include grief
- the outcome should feel so different and inspiring people are excited and naturally share the stories
The world has kind of cancelled the future and in fairness things are pretty grim with humans rights being disbanded, our sixths planetary boundary crossed, increased polarisation, increased manmade climate change, increased racism, increased uncertainty due to geopolitical wars and tariffs. The breaking down of the system is happening all around us.
Just in the last week
- Live stream genocide from Gaza, starvation and hunger as a weapon including medical staff, NGO’s and journalists. Its criminal.
- Inhumane treatment of migrants, vilification of people fleeing war and terror or just living their lives contributing to society like in the US
- increased racist attacks shocking attack a week ago on an man in Dublin
So how do we find and make space for hope? In a society where everyone has a role to play how do we support people dream a more positive low carbon future if all they know, all they see are stylised billionaire, influencer, hero journey stories and dystopian nightmares.
We need new storytelling, we need to get back to the heart of the matter.
A question for you?
What kind of stories do you tell?
Resources
This is one of the most thought provoking, honest and insightful accounts I’ve read on the reality of using AI, written by poet Megan O’Rourke.
Have you read any of Bayo Akomolafe work? His quote “Times are urgent we must slow down” is very alive for me at the moment.
A view to the week ahead
Continuing to work on an RFQ, some thinking done but writing and bring it all together this week. My attention will move towards some September work Tipperary Community Doughnut Day, and a corporate talk on introducing doughnut economics and the relevance of it for their work in particular the 7 ways to think like a 21st Century Economist.
You can hire me. I have immediate capacity for two – three workshops, mentoring and coaching, consultancy and fractal business management support.
Let me know how I can be of service.
Have a great week.
Roisin Markham 
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