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Fantastic news! We've just been notified that we have received two grants, one from Coalfield Regeneration and another from the CO-OP. These will help to secure our future for some time yet. Being an emerging social enterprise we are still somewhat reliant upon grants. This year it's been very slim pickings, so to speak.

Our staff, myself included, have all been on redundancy notice. I've now been able to retract this. Luckily none of the team have chosen to move on, so I've managed to retain the skills and experience that we've been building. Its always a risk when you give redundancy notices that people will move to more secure jobs - and who can blame them. I suppose being in this sector we are more used to job uncertainty than most.

What with it being the summer holidays our childcare service is fairly busy, but numbers are slightly down from last year. I think the credit crunch is starting to bite; one of our biggest local employers, a call centre, has just laid off about a third of its staff and that is affecting our local economy. Family-friendly working practice is also affecting our service offer. In the beginning most families wanted full day care during the holidays. Now most parents are working part time. This is reducing the amount of full day places needed, but parents are still requiring a part day service. This makes staffing more difficult as OFSTED are very strict about keeping the adult to child ratio correct.

We have just had notice from our landlord that the proposed rent increase for this year is going to be over 300%! As our landlord is the local authority I am appealing to them to reassess their proposal but I suppose, like everyone else, the council is short of money too. I have requested that we start negotiations to see if we can come to a mutual agreement; without that all my financial projects are very wrong and I have to find a way to either earn more money or make savings...again! I suppose the third option is to look for new premises but, in this sort of business, location is essential.

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