Mayday and Platfform logos with an image that reads 'come together'

A Message from Mayday and Platfform

In the New Year, the Mayday mission, work and team will fully integrate into the Platfform team as we finalise our merger.

Platfform is committed to taking forward the Mayday Trust mission for positive and lasting change in our public services and charities. This means that we will attempt to be led by the people we aim to serve, that we will fight for social justice, and that we acknowledge that we have much work to do ourselves to become organisations that live our values and work towards becoming equitable, diverse and anti-racist.

We have a huge amount of work to do, much to learn from the people and communities we serve, and a vital mission in difficult times. We look forward to working with you in 2024.

 

Wisdom 7 of 7 – A good life means having something to feel hopeful about

“Without hope, you are just breathing. You don’t live.”

Ultimately, many people clearly expressed that a good life is one with hope. This means having the freedom to make decisions about their lives, to be free from worry about their own safety and security and that of their friends and family. And, to feel that there was a path out of the difficult circumstances they were in.

“I think always positive. To live life. I’m never alone, because God is with me. There are struggles, but we have to be patient and hope that a good life would come.”

“Without hope, you don’t have anything.”

Farewell from Mayday CEO, Alex Fox OBE

As you may be aware, this year I alongside the Board of Trustees, led Mayday Trust into a merger with a brilliant and radical mental health charity called Platfform.

We share a mission to change how public services and charities think and behave, and for several years we’ve been collaborating on developing strengths-based and trauma-informed approaches to working with people and being led by them, challenging what isn’t working in public service systems. Mayday is now a subsidiary of Platfform and over the coming period the Mayday team and work will transfer across to Platfform.

This has put Mayday on a stable financial footing and will in time enable the organisations’ work to be scaled sustainably in England and Wales, at a time which has never been harder to sustain charities. As a result of these changes, my role with Mayday will finish at the end of 2023 and I will be moving on.

I joined Mayday because it is a rare example of a charity that was able to hear the people it sought to support saying, “This isn’t working for us” and then to change everything it did as a result, building a model of working that I’ve heard countless people and organisations describe as a beacon of hope and possibility in tough times.

I want to say how grateful I’ve been to work, even if only for a short time, with a truly unique charity, and a brilliant team of radicals. I want to thank the Mayday team and Board for everything they’ve done to keep the mission alive during an exceptionally difficult year. I wish them and the wider Platfform team all the best in their continuing mission for a better, more human way to walk alongside people during their toughest times.