Week 46 of 25 brought disaster and brilliance in about equal measures. Thankful of support and the week ending on the three brilliant notes.
Welcome to my studio notes. I structure my weekly notes as reflection, insights, a question for you, share some resources and look with a view to the week ahead. No LLM or AI are used in the creation and writing these notes. This is an informed decision based on my knowledge and research in the field of generative AI.
Gosh what a week, let’s jump in.
Reflection
This week was a perfect storm literally of disaster but finishing strong with two brilliant facilitations delivered, and the climate March in Dublin. We also had an actual storm that pulled down a tree and cables around the corner from our home, blocking roads and flooding. The downed tree has been removed and cables put back up above the land, but those internet cables are not functioning, yet!
It’s rained continuously for days now. The physical effects on the landscape are visible, soggy. Along the coast: stones and seaweed strewn in the fields and pathways, river catchments swollen. Flooded land in evidence… where you see flooding this may become land loss over the next 20 years as sea levels rise.
Friday Jennifer Brandesberg-Engleman and I finalised our Rethinking Ireland’s Economics Senior Cycle Curriculum: Five Transformative Shifts, co-authored positioning paper. Let me know if you’d like to read it. Emails, signal and whatsapp networks and groups have been sharing this information. I hope you have considered a submission?
I cancelled traveling to Dublin for an associates meeting Friday due to the orange weather warning. We moved the meeting digital but it was challenging. That tree came down in the middle of it causing sketchy connection even with phone hot spotting.
The impacts of human induced climate change are real and we are experiencing it now.
So how do we take action?
I’ve put something out here locally to begin with a mend or make action. More on that the week after next.
Saturday was all out the reality of Climate Change. Would I be able to travel for work? Would the roads be blocked by trees or flooding? The tree that came down around the corner is an old pine its root system made unstable by flooding and strong winds. We notice this type of tree is lost the most in storms locally possibly to shallower spread root systems.
Well done to our emergency response teams in County Wexford they responded quickly, thank you.
Driving into Dun Laoghaire Saturday morning the sea was so dramatic, curned, angry and curling at the pier wall with massive waves. Its colour a murky undefined swell topped with white horses racing to smash the nearest hard object. I’d never seen the sea like that there, I lived and worked in that area during the early ‘ 90’s, my first home places away from home during that decade in big tech.
Later I wondered about the large vessel we could see from the Lexicon, like a platform on the horizon – what were the working conditions at sea?
The Lexicon is the iconic library in that area where I delivered a Sustainability Literacy workshop on the Economy to Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Creatives and Artist.
Eimear McNally and I have collaborated on this series for the DLR Arts Office. It is always great to work with Eimear.
The Sustainability Literacy for Creatives and Artists is a four part series of 2 hour sessions on ecology, economics, society and futures.
The session on Economic Literacy focused on
- what is our economy in service to?
- how to think like a 21st century economist
- doughnut economics for creatives, placemaking and the embedded economy
- what is degrowth & sufficiency
DLR Arts shared this story on Instagram:
This was a beautiful full circle moment for me as Eimear did the graphic recording of the co-keynote of Environ 2021 with Kate Raworth and myself. Her work from that event is in IDEN posters. My own work features in the wild grasses and flower doughnut I created as a strong visual for that talk. Translating the words into Irish and Ogham.
For my slides I re-centred that creative work.
“What is our economy in service to?“
Roisin Markham
This series is different to the business education sustainable and enviromental sessions I’ve designed and delivered.
But in the context of economic literacy it builds on the work through doughnut economic sessions I’ve been delivering since 2020.
I really appreciated Olivia Freeman sharing her slides with me from the Global Doughnut Train the Trainer event, speeding up my preparation.
The disaster of last week has to be attended to next week – my research for the Social Farmers Ireland project was flawed. Having made errors in early analysis with gender, it’s skewed all my analyse and synthesis. I must have altered the data somehow and subsequently my research. Not good but fixable, I am working to rectify it. On my initial analysis to the miro board the errors are there. What happened? I should have checked my numbers before the final draft of the report.
feck it., I’d like to say I’m human and make mistakes but this is an unacceptable error for me.
On Thursday I got to facilitate parts of the first Case Practice Workshops in the IPA with award winners and nominees from inspiring projects from this year’s Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards. It was such a treat to be in the company of such hard working, dedicated, tenacious and committed people. A great way for people to learn more about projects all across our public sector. The three project in my stream, social and workforce were fascinating and resonated with some of my own work – micro credentials, learning, professionalising sector knowledge, strategic PMO and co-design.
Really being self employed and running a micro business is challenging. But maybe that’s the point. Parts of it give you flexibility and freedom well that’s the narrative I’ve been telling myself. But is it true? I’ve been testing that for a few years and now sway like a kinetic pendulum.
but the challenging bits can be stressful and draining. It really is a matter of where you put and spend your energy. I’ve reached distinct conclusions about this.
Insights
Over the last few weeks I’ve been really thinking about how I work and what’s next for me. This is what I want more of:
Being out away from my desk 2 days on site with clients really suits me.
I really enjoy working with and in teams.
Early mornings suit me better than late evening work but during the winter my rhythm of work also adapts to daylight hours shrinking.
I love working with brilliant passionate dedicated kind people.
Let’s see what 2026 brings.
We need to face the facts that our lifestyles and economy are accelerating climate chaos. There are countries suffering that impact already and for years: more frequent and more violent weather events, land loss, people dead, animal extinction and suffering, biodiversity loss. When will we wake up and do things differently. The fact that there are more Fossil Fuel Lobbyists at COP 30 than country delegates is shocking.
The working I am doing in TCD is linked to the EU LEVERS project a significant insight of that work is – action begets action.
A question for you
What ways do like to work?
Resources
NCCA Senior Cycle Economic Curriculum Review closing date November 17, please consider making a submission.
Fibershed Ireland Symposium 2025, Many hands make a strong rope.
The body keeps the score – have you read this book? I keep coming back to it.
Megan Devine, refuge in grief
Doughnut 3.0 Doughnut Economics Action Lab, DEAL
A view to the week ahead
TCD Thursday all day facilitation, finalise playbook and prep the team. I also need to design the worksheet for the afternoon.
I will be reanalysing the data and rewriting my conclusions for SFI.
I’ve an interview this week.
Also working on a tender with some associates.
I need to update the Fredrick Douglas Festival website.
Past this week I have nothing booked in my diary work wise, plenty of asks for unpaid labour but no client work as of yet. I am open to opportunities!
Roisin Markham 
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