Constant Ch-ch-ch-changes…

With all the changes and upheaval that Team Curative have undergone over the last couple of months, David Bowie would have been telling us to ‘turn and face the strain’. And we’d be fibbing if we didn’t concede that there has been extra pressure on us all. But, for the most part, it’s been an amazingly unifying and uplifting time as we’ve moved into our new home, and grown our family.

Moving into the new Curative HQ studio was a pretty natural change. After 18 months of co-working, first at The Kitchen, then a brief stint at Movers & Shakers, it was definitely time for us to cultivate the Curative culture, and find our own space.

So on Friday 30 August, we once again loaded up the cars with all of our belongings, and this time trekked off to our new and permanent home at the foot of Mt Eden.

The chaos and elation of unloading boxes, unwrapping all of our new goodies, and placing all of our furniture in just the right spot, was all consuming on moving day. But as we arrived for our first working day, and settled in our new desks, it finally dawned on us - we were all alone.

While we’re now sharing our new spot with with our pals at Innovate Change and Core Education, for the first few days, it was just us. It was a strange realisation. And we felt a bit lonely. Having cohabited with dozens of others in our previous homes, we found ourselves missing the unpredictable comings and goings that we’d become so accustomed to.

Turns out, we are people people. We thrive when we’re surrounded by others. We like noise. We like the energy of new ideas, and interesting conversations. But, we also really, really need some quiet and some focus to be able to get things done and invest in supporting our own team.

Thankfully, we have the best of both worlds now that we have a few extra bodies from Innovate Change and Core Education sharing the space with us. It’s a pretty harmonious collective, each with different organisational strengths, but with similar values.

• We all value people first. We like to learn something new each day.
• We believe in growing young people.
• And we like to have fun while we change the world.

It was the most humbling moment as the Karanga echoed to call us into our new home. As Core-Education’s Kaumatua walked us through our sun-kissed space, blessing each nook. As we shared a cup of tea and our hopes for our new shared office.

Yes, there were a few tears. Happy little droplets trickled down my cheeks as I reflected on on where we’d been to get to this place - our own studio. Months of Jade and I working from our homes when we first began, to our team bringing in their own equipment at The Kitchen, to us all dossing in an unheated office at Movers & Shakers through the coldest months of winter. We were finally here. In our new spot. With hot water, a dishwasher and our own things. It was pretty special. And I can promise that we won’t be taking our new home for granted. We’ve worked hard to get here. And we’re loving furnishing and filling it with all the comforts, fittings and fixtures that make it us.

And it’s not just new things in our new home. We have a new person too!

We were pretty overwhelmed with the response to the ad that we put out in August, which started our hunt for some awesome person to join the team. For some reason, we had thought that we would know everyone who would apply. But we were flooded with interesting, creative, caring individuals, who found us in lots of different ways.

And after an interview process, which of course involved preparing a meal with our team, we’re thrilled to welcome ‘the other Eddy’ into our little family. One week new, and he’s already fitting right in. Alternate suggestions for what we should call him around the office are appreciated. Jade suggested we just call him ‘Sue’ - but that doesn’t seem to be catching on. So Edward it is for now.

Someone really wise once said that ‘change is the only constant in your life’. A new person, and a new place were our big changes this month. But the change we’re most excited to be part of is taking the Complex Care Group online for the first time.

This group of amazing parents and families of young people with highly complex needs have been supporting one-another without any digital presence, aside from email, for the last 10 years.

So we are thrilled to have worked with them to produce an online resource that will help support, connect and give a voice to this incredible group, who are so selfless and tireless with the energy and love that they give. It was our absolute pleasure to launch the site together, just today, and we hope that it makes their lives just a little bit easier, and helps others understand just how much they do.

They say that change is as good as a holiday. But we think it’s even better. Change is full of energy, invigoration and a revived sense of direction. If things aren’t changing, then you’re just standing still. And we’re not the sort of people who like to stand still for very long.

Jade & Eddy.

P.S - If you’d like to hear from and hang out with some other interesting change-makers, you can register to join us at the Tall Poppy event, which is being hosted by ZEAL on Saturday 19 October 2013.

P.S.S - And, if you love a bit of exercise to start your day, we have a wonderful Yoga teacher that comes into Curative HQ to take a class every Thursday morning, 7:30am ($12 per class) - Tweet @Curative_NZ  if you’re keen to join us for #Yoga!

How much change can you make for $2.25?

A lot more when you pool your resources and work together.

How big a part does food play in your life? It’s not something we think about too much, since we have such easy access to it. But last week we came to appreciate how much food is built into our daily schedules.

Catch up with a friend? Grab lunch at a local cafe. Client meeting? Coffee and Tea please. Struggling to get through the mid-afternoon doldrums? Sugary snack to jumpstart the brain. Need to wind down after work? Glass of red.

Take those away and life start to get a little less fun. Then drastically cut your daily food intake and your ability to function becomes severely impaired. How do we know this? Well we, alongside 1400 other Kiwis, were Living Below the Line for a week, in an effort to raise awareness and funds around the global problem of extreme poverty.

Our involvement with the campaign started back in June when we helped Will and Patrick from the Global Poverty Project launch this years New Zealand Live Below the Line challenge; a campaign that has managed to get eight of the major aid organisations within New Zealand to collaborate, no mean feat.

After being immersed in the cause at the time of launch, we knew that we had to take the challenge ourselves, and live below the international extreme poverty line, on just $2.25 a day, for 5 days.  

Living on such a small amount is all but inconceivable for those of us lucky enough to be born in the Western world, but for 1.4 Billion people around the world it’s their reality. They have to survive on that tiny budget, using it to pay for not just their food but also clean water, healthcare, education, shelter, everything! The aim of the campaign is to bring an end to this extreme poverty within a generation, to help those most in need to break out of the cycle that they’ve been born into.

Now lets be clear, this challenge in no way comes close to replicating the realities of those living below the poverty line, but it did give us valuable insight into some of the day to day struggles.  

We knew it was going to be hard; that it was very likely that we would be hungry, grumpy, and sluggish. But we also knew as a team of three we could pool our resources, and lean on each for support (something that proved invaluable as we made our way through the week).

We created a very detailed daily plan for our meals, and tried to make sure that each meal was as filling as possible. We were never in danger of starving, but our struggles would be mental. Eating had to become more about survival, rather than enjoyment. Our meals, while in no way unpleasant, wouldn’t be particularly inspiring, but they would give us what we needed. We would have to deal with the fact we couldn’t just grab a snack when our stomachs rumbled, or sip a cup of tea for refreshment.

But we had no idea of the toll it would take on our workloads. The smaller portions paired with lack of sugar, coffee, and tea clouded our thoughts, slowed our responses and gave us splitting headaches.

Food also took up a whole lot more headspace than we expected. With such a strict budget, we couldn’t just grab something as we ran out the door. We had to make time to prepare and eat each of the three meals everyday. And much of the week was occupied just thinking about food too. Despite realising early on, talking about things we couldn’t have was tortuous, we couldn’t seem to help ourselves, and many of our conversations centered around that which we could not have.

As much as we complained last week, we were always brought back to reality by the fact that this is just a small taste of what life is like for a large portion of the worlds population. It’s a sobering perspective.

We finished the week with a renewed appreciation for the amount of choice we have when it comes to food, the ease of access to it, and how much we depend on it to help us get through the day.

And the challenge has proven to us once again how valuable it is to have a supportive network around you, to push you forward, help you out and bolster your efforts. Last week 1400 New Zealanders came together to let people know extreme poverty is something we can bring to an end, raising over $300,000 while we were at it.

There’s strength in numbers, and by simply working together and sharing resources, seemingly insurmountable challenges can become a lot more manageable, whether it be surviving on a tiny budget, or bringing an end to a global crisis.

The animated video that Curative’s lead crafter Kaan, produced to tell the story of Live Below The Line.

Two weeks new, and already it feels like we’ve achieved so much. But there is still (and always will be) so much more to do.

• Talk with lawyers
• Set up bank account
• Create incorporated business with accountant
• Sign paperwork
• Design brand
• Clarify mission/vision/values
• Buy stationery
  
• Write five-year plan

The list really, truly does go on. And that’s without even touching on the work in progress with our community minded clients.

With an ever growing list of things we need to get done, it’s easy to feel a little overwhelmed by the process.

So, to avoid going to that debilitating place where you simply don’t know where to begin and become paralysed by in-action, we’re champions of the daily to-do list, and relish crossing off every task as we complete it.

The trick for us is arranging our to-do list at the beginning of the week, breaking projects into achievable pieces assigned to each day, to make sure that we meet all of our deadlines, whether they are self-set or imposed by others. We know that we can’t plan for everything, but this way at least we can work around the big tasks in our week.

We’ve used lots of task management tools in the past including Remember the Milk, Basecamp, Teux Deux and Outlook Tasks; and they each have their pro’s and con’s. But right now we’re using a shared google doc, striking through the tasks as they’re done. And even though it’s only one step up from a pen and paper, we love how easy it is to use and share.

I’m sure there are many more tricks to keeping on top of things, and we’ll learn more as we go along. But for now, as simple as it seems writing a to-do list really is what you need to do.

Curative NZ Ltd Certificate of Incorporation - One big task ticked off our list!