Enough talk, time to do.

A great week of great conversations - now its time to start putting everything in into action

So…I’m very late to this blog…last week was a big week….

Sydney - Monday and Tuesday

I met with Tim Dixon - one of the founders of More in Common in Sydney on Monday.

For me this was a great chat. Over two hours we covered some of the journey MiC has taken over the last 10 years, where they are now (delivering work in over 8 countries) and how I might work with them.

The big lesson - its hard. I mean, that’s not news - but it does reinforce the need to test the reality of this in the market place as soon as possible.

And in particular raising the money to deliver these sorts of projects is a constant challenge - even more so in smaller countries like New Zealand.

Tim was hugely generous with his time and his support and I can’t thank him enough.

We’ve agreed he will link me up with one of his smaller jurisdictions to learn more detailed lessons, and that I will be able to use their methodology here in New Zealand. He’s even going to see if a researcher currently taking a gap year is interested in doing some work her in NZ later in the year.

So I effectively get to operate as an arms length self funded More in Common start-up here in New Zealand - under my own brand.

What was also clear from the conversation with More in Common - was the criticality of having a governance structure that is structured from the very beginning to be non-partisan and broad based. Without those checks and balances on partiality at the top table - everything else becomes meaningless. So that pretty much clinched it for me in terms of figuring out what governance structure we will need for Our Tomorrow. A charitable Trust - with a rigorously structured board that is representative of communities, political traditions and professional competencies needed seems to be the only structure that can guarantee that. So decision made.

For me this is fantastic news - and a real spur to move into delivery mode - from the conversations and planning I’ve been having over the last month.

Wellington - Wednesday to Friday

Wednesday was a bit of a personal day out and admin catchup. My pooch - an oodle - had an operation repairing the torn ligaments on BOTH her ‘knees’. So a pretty emotional and stressy day but it all went super well and 5 days later she’s already starting to wobble about on her new ones. I also managed to lock in some meetings next week and prep for on Thursday - and the distraction was good.

Thursday was super busy.

First, I met with one of the big four consultancy firms to see whether they may be able to assist me as past of their Corporate Social Responsibility programme. I was thinking mainly in terms of the support they often offer to charityies and startups in terms of strategy and planning - as this is something they often do - sharing the expertise of their staff to help new community centric organisations to get off to a good start.

But they surprised me. They actually asked whether they might be able to assist with the technology build out. I was amazed - and am super excited about this potential offer. More water to go under the bridge of course, bids and approvals and the like, but for me it demonstrated the potential for getting others involved in building this community owned pollster - and the willingness of firms and people to help where they can.

So fingers crossed and I’m hopefull this can be both hugely helpful and a key part of keeping our initial costs lower as we get going.

Secondly, I also caught up with and introduced my two volunteers - Daniel and Phillipa. They’re helping me with the governance piece (getting registered as a Charitable Trust etc) and the planning piece (mapping out in detail what needs to be done before the end of the year). The certainty of the More in Common support and the potential from the Big Four offer - have helped us start to shape up our plans a bit more solidly. These two have been great - not just for their help but also the psychological boost of not thinking I am doing this all on my own.

If you have time and skills to help get Our Tomorrow off the ground - please do reach out to me at paul.comer@ourtomorrow.nz - I can’t tell you the difference your time and skills could make to the project at this early stage.

Finally for Wednesday, I met Professor Jack Vowles, who has led the New Zealand Election Study since 1996 (it started in 1990 before the change to our current Mixed Member Proportional system.

Again, great to connect with a fellow voting nerd, and the person responsible for collecting the data that sat behind the 5 Tribes of Aotearoa that Danyl McLaughlin posted in the Listener last week.

Prof Vowles has generously suggested that I work in a more formalised way with them - and i am super excited to do just that. Again, some conversations needed at his end first - but for me this brings the opportunity to make sure everything we do at Our Tomorrow is scrutinised in a rigourous academic and impartial manner. This sort of partnership will be critical for our long terms success.

Think Tank Friday

I’ve found the think tank community here in New Zealand incredibly generous with their support and time - and Friday’s meetings were no exception.

First up was a chat with Koi Tū Centre for Informed Futures. They have many points of contact with what I am building with Our Tomorrow, and were set up by Sir Peter Gluckman when he completed his time as Government Chief Scientist. I now have another conversation with them early next month where we can explore how we might support what each other is trying to do.

Second, a chat with The Helen Clarke Foundation. Again lots of areas on common interest - especially around the long term challenges facing New Zealand -and again another meeting in April to see where opportunities to coordinate lie.

Later this week, I’m hoping to catch up with the New Zealand Initiative as well. Like the Helen Clarke Foundation - the NZ Initiative is strictly non-partisan in their work. But each also bring the perspectives of different political traditions to their work. It will be incredibly important for me to work with both closely in order to make sure Our Tomorrow is respected as impartial across political traditions but does that in a way that reflects those differences rather than ignoring them.

So fantastic to start those relationships off to a good start with such constructive conversations

This week - getting cracking on the $$$

One thing that came across strongly in all these conversations is the difficulty our think tanks here in New Zealand have with raising critical funding. That’s not a surprise in a small country, and one with relatively new institutions in general.

But it does mean that this is a big issue for the future of Our Tomorrow - and one that I need to tackle as soon as I possibly can to get Our Tomorrow into a GO or NO position sooner rather than later.

So this week- a big focus for me is getting that (already much mentioned) pitchdeck into shape - and ready to get to our target funders.

But first - this morning - catch up on the tasks I promised I’d get done for my volunteers - and enable them to crack on into their bits

On y va