Ask Yourself - What’s the Best that can Happen?
We sat down for a chat with business consultant and CIC volunteer Jamie Moakes to hear about how he’s using his skills to make a social impact, and his experience working with Plateful Cafe.
Jamie Moakes, Business Consultant
CIC: Jamie, thanks for making the time to chat to us today! Could you start by just telling us a bit about you and your background?
Jamie: Sure - so my name’s Jamie Moakes! I run a company called Board of One, which essentially works with companies and freelancers to help them with their accountability, business planning – whatever their needs are, really – by talking through what their challenges are and putting things in place to fix them, one thing at a time.
“I WOULD THOROUGHLY RECOMMEND THAT ANYONE BE OPEN TO ABSOLUTELY ANYTHING THROUGH CREATIVE IMPACT CLUB! JUST SAY YES. WHY NOT? ASK YOURSELF – WHAT’S THE BEST THAT CAN HAPPEN?”
CIC: You’ve been doing some brilliant work with Plateful Cafe, which we’ll get to in a minute, but have you ever had a chance to work on projects with social impact in the past? If not, why do you think that is?
Jamie: I haven't! My business is quite new, so I haven't had the opportunity before to directly work on something with social impact and charities, but it’s something I’m really open to, which is why having this has been really helpful. What’s nice about the introduction I’ve had in order to be able to get to this is it's a very safe space, and very interesting projects that I'm being invited to work on, which is incredibly helpful. I sort of know what I'm getting into and how much rein and trust there is. So yeah, it's sort of opened up a whole new market and the desire to work on more projects like this, because it's got great synergy with my values.
CIC: How did you hear about Creative Impact Club, and what has your experience working with CIC been like?
Jamie: So my partner went to university with Avalyn, and she was like, oh, this is a cool thing, you should join this! And me being me, I sort of dipped my toe in but not much – but then I introduced it to someone I was working with and they did amazing things out of it. So when I went self-employed I thought ‘ok, I want to do this and I want to actually get involved more’, and I was at the stage of being way more open, so I went for it! And it was really good – said yes, got involved, got involved more and more and more. I know I’ve said it several times, but it was kind of the best thing I did!
CIC: Amazing! Can you tell us a bit about some of the impact work you’ve been doing through CIC?
Jamie: So I've been working with Plateful Cafe, a really lovely cafe which, as you know, is working with refugees, basically giving them hospitality training and hopefully moving them on towards different positions. How I was helping them originally was through, you know, a business plan, coaching, quite strategic – and then, as is often the way with things like this, other things reveal themselves that become priorities, and they’ve got a few roadblocks, or things they need to tackle. So it became more of a framework for giving positivity – a way of problem-solving, of dreaming bigger and reinvesting the passion.
CIC: And how was that experience?
Jamie: My experience working with Plateful Cafe has been really interesting [laughs] – I hate that word, it’s a wibbly wobbly word – but it’s been great! I really loved the project. The beauty of what I do now is getting to pick who I work with. I love creating impact and value with people I love; people that I feel are doing genuine good in the world. And, you know, to be able to help on a project that’s doing good, contributing to that by doing what I’m doing, is just great.
CIC: Fantastic. And lastly, would you recommend Creative Impact Club to other professionals and creatives?
Jamie: I would thoroughly, thoroughly, thoroughly recommend that anyone be open to absolutely anything through Creative Impact Club. Just say yes. Why not? Ask yourself – what's the best that can happen?
JAMIE MOAKES, Business Consultant
Jamie worked with Plateful Cafe on developing their business plan, helping them to build a sustainable business model that will enable them to further their support for refugees and asylum seekers.