So… I took a turn into Community Ops

I wasn’t sure how to start writing this so I imagined that I bumped into one of you here and I had to answer ‘What have you been up to?’

I’ve been somewhere between being a toddler mom, landing a new role and pivoting. It’s been a stretch but it’s been a great one.

I paused this newsletter mostly because I didn’t know how to bring you along for the ride when I didn’t fully know where I was going myself. But here I am now!

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Landing a Part-time Role

Towards the ending of October, a recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn for a part-time role with an NGO in the UK. I went through the two stages of interview, got the role and it felt so good to be back on a job again. It’s my first time working with an NGO and a gender focused community and the experience has been amazing. It’s been 7 months now and so much have happened that I am very proud of and hope to share some of that with you here. For one, the most compliment I’ve received is "Martha is so efficient". Yes, I am 😃

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Pivoting into Community Operations

Well, one thing is certain, we all handle operations as community professionals- the planning, organizing, keeping the team on track, managing resources, etc. But I believe we all have our strongest suit and for me it turns out to be operations.

In life generally, I’m that lady who watches a football match and I’m fantasizing the process that goes into make everything come together. So, it wasn’t any surprise that I loved Ops more. meanwhile, Manchester is blueee 🩵

Finally made the decision to focus more on operations and that kickstarted in December 2024. I took the Google Project Management Certificate course, Asana Workflow Specialist course and Community Operations Fundamentals by Community Strategy Academy- all between December and April.

Thankfully, I am in a role where operations takes the spotlight over daily engagement tasks. It’s been such a good fit and I’m loving every bit of it.

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What’s Next

Right now, I’m still learning, doing and just figuring things out as I go.

I’m still in community but it is less “host the party,” and more “make sure the lights work and the playlist loops properly.”

Since I work with a small team right now, I’m technically doing all things Community and my days can look like:

• keeping rituals within the community going

• setting up systems that help programs run better

• keeping track of tasks, timelines, and ideas

• managing the Ops side of communication and events

• and sometimes nothing all day 😅

So this is me right now; learning as I go and building with more clarity (even if I still don’t have a 5 year plan just yet).

If you’re also in a season of pivoting or redefining what your work looks like, I’m rooting for you. We can always swap notes and hype each other along the way.

I’ll be sharing more from this side of operations as much as I can get down to put something together when my toddler naps 😅

Thanks for being here.
I missed this. I missed you.

Talk soon!