I've been involved in school governance as a governor and as a member of an educational trust for at least 17 years, so long I can't remember.
I've been a vice chair of governors in a primary school.
I've been a finance governor in a secondary school.
I've been a chair of governors in an alternative provision school, and I'm a member of the East Midlands Education Trust (the ultimate governance level of a school trust worth hundreds of millions of pounds).
It's boring governance, really, really boring.
I have spent dark winter evenings sitting on Children's plastic chairs in classrooms at governor's meetings.
I have gone to governors' meetings, exhausted after terrible days at work.
I look at the governor's meetings in my diary at the time and think, 'Why am I still doing this when I could be doing something else – riding my bike, eating chocolate, going to the cinema, whatever?'.
I know instinctively, though, that the things that I've done in governance have fundamentally and crucially impacted my knowledge of how to run a business and how to run a life.
Governance is the most boring of subjects, and as such, governance is the most important subject.
Governance is the routine, the rhythm, the cadence, the doing things regularly that reduce the risks of a catastrophe, it's looking after the finances properly, it's making sure your people are looked after properly, it's making sure that your values are intact and that the message that you send to the outside world is always consistent with what you believe.
So, last Friday, I had my six-monthly meeting with our IFA, Kevin Holleron, and my accountant, Steve Martin.
Kevin and Steve have effectively become part of our team; they're absolutely part of team Campbell. Kevin has been there for at least 25 years now.
Kevin and Steve understand my circumstances and situation deeply and instinctively. We meet every six months, and we report in to see what the situation is with Team Campbell, Team Campbell Clinic Group, what we should have done, or what we should do next. Then, we re-book for the next six months.
I prepare an agenda, I sort out notes after the meeting and in the January meeting that we have we go for dinner afterwards because Kevin and Steve are also trustees for my will.
This is, as I've said before, extraordinarily boring.
But in the meeting on Friday, I realised to see, ultimately and fundamentally know that we are safe.
We are safe from where we were in 2020 after having been entirely safe in 2017 before we bought the land.
It means now that we can make all our decisions entirely from a position of safety.
And so that does not make me want to protect what we have, it makes me want to push faster and harder and stronger and more bravely in a direction for what comes next for us.
Phase two is Project Campus (I love a code word). Phase three is Project Wonka Vision (finalised by Louise G). Phase four is Sheffield, and Phase Five is Leeds.
It's almost certain that I will not make it to phase five and probably will only make it to halfway through phase four if I live long enough, but the joy of setting up governance like this is that it gives you the best chance to have the thing that goes for 100 years, as we said before.
Blog Post Number - 3838
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