Fantastic Journeys is a Community Interest Company that exists to support people with Additional Needs to take part in the creative arts. The CIC delivers creative arts sessions through its own clubs and also with a number of partners including schools, play services, museum and library services and other charities.
Peter Burgess from Fantastic Journeys shares his experience of Pilotlight Direction.
What motivated you to apply for the Pilotlight Direction programme run in partnership with Barclays?
The challenge we faced was that the CIC had developed organically and quite quickly since starting three years ago. The work was going well, but we didn’t have a formal mission and vision statement. This was something that we felt we needed in order to develop longer-term plans and think about future funding. We wanted to use Pilotlight Direction to develop a mission and vision statement.
How did the project go?
The project went really well.
The Barclays Pilotlighters were lovely and went beyond their remit and suggested lots of other things that we could try out. They also provided us with a clear pathway and plan for developing a mission and vision statement. It has been wonderful to tap into this resource and work with the Pilotlighters at Barclays to improve and develop my organisation.
What have been the results/implementation after the project?
We are in the process of developing our mission and vision statement. We have some consultation events planned for later this year and early 2025. At these events stakeholders holders will be able to have input into the mission and vision statement formation process.
My top takeaway from Pilotlight Direction is that it is important to really think through what you need from the programme. After some discussion, the project was tweaked slightly by me and the Pilotlighters. This helped to make the project a success.
It is also important to be open to other ways in which Pilotlighters might be able to help charities and social enterprises. The Pilotlighters made a number of useful suggestions in areas other than the main focus of the project. I have followed up these suggestions and they have improved and developed my organisation. This “value added” aspect of the programme is really important too.