On Wednesday I trekked down to Eden and back on the train. Tim Smit the charismatic, cigar smoking and expletive laden Founder of Eden was at the meeting.

Afterwards we were taken on a whistle-stop tour, the weather was truly atrocious and we were confronted by 10,000 bedraggled tourists seeking refuge in the huge domes and making various dens and castaway homes in an enormous marquee at the centre of the site.

I think that what Tim has created is truly remarkable. With vision, stubbornness and relentless energy he has created an attraction which is incredibly popular, provides over 400 jobs and remains true to sound environmental principles. For example the team I met were talking enthusiastically about plans for a new geo-thermal energy source.

It will be intriguing to see where Tim's energy now takes Eden. They were recently involved in the Big Lunch and were the key partner for Team Green Britain. How these two things link with the visitor centre is uncertain and I think that they will need to provide a more coherent narrative for the public to understand exactly what they are trying to achieve.

Green jobs

This week the Government announced the first round of winners in its new Future Jobs fund. In response to the recession they have set aside £1 billion to create jobs that will either become permanent or that will give people new skills. They have explicitly highlighted that 10,000 of these should be ‘green jobs'.

We are hearing increasingly from companies that they are struggling to find people with the skills that will be required in the new low carbon economy.  We have been wondering whether we can use the new fund to help partly fill this gap. 

Currently we are uncertain. As with all Government schemes there are a huge number of rules and a heavy level of bureaucracy, we have to decide whether we can effectively work within these to truly create new jobs and give people valid skills - rather than simply taking them off the unemployment list for a short period of time in order to meet political needs. 

What if?

I think it is fairly safe to say that I am a cynical, cocky and grumpy git. My poor staff usually have to suffer me returning from events or meetings moaning that I learnt nothing new and that the person talking knew jack all. This all changed on Friday when I went to Sky and was taught a whole new range of techniques for developing innovative projects created by a company called What If.

Global Action Plan's past has been littered with ideas which are brilliant in theory but don't always translate so well into reality - just like Newcastle Utd. The processes developed by What If help to ensure that new ideas are properly scrutinised and fully thought through. This is not done through the normal turgid project management spreadsheet but by a series of playful games. It was all incredibly enlightening and set my mind running as to how we can bring them into our work.

Once again, the meeting brought home to me the importance of our relationship with Sky. It does bring into the organisation different thinking and new challenges. The more this could happen in the charity sector the better.