Why We Care So Much About Community (And How It Shapes Our Work)

We love walking next to the estuary. The water is calming in that quiet, ancient way and yes, we even love the mud. Well, Liv does. Nick is far too organised for mud.

We love the woods, and the high street, and the fish pond by the toilets. We love it all.

We couldn’t tell you exactly why we love Manningtree so much. We just do. Some places get under your skin like that.

“Community” is one of those words that gets thrown around so much it starts to lose meaning. It becomes a buzzword. Corporate and nothingy. But the word comes alive when you put actual people into it. Without connection, community is just noise.

That’s part of the reason we love living here. We love bumping into people on the high street. We love the chats at the beach while Jim’s running feral and the kids are up to their knees in mud that won’t come off for a week. We love that you can’t walk far without seeing someone you know or someone you’ll probably know soon.

And that’s exactly why people sit at the heart of what we do at Middlebrook Accountancy.

Yes, we’re accountants. Yes, numbers matter. But the reason we care so much about the numbers is because they belong to people. People who are building something, risking something, dreaming about something. Local businesses aren’t just clients to us. They’re neighbours, friends, familiar faces in the Co-op queue.

We want local businesses to succeed because when you thrive, the whole area thrives. Your business is our business. We want you to be the best version of yourself. The tall, very leafy, bushy version (terrible metaphor, but you know exactly what I mean). And if one day you grow so big and leafy that you need a different kind of support, we’ll be the first to cheer you on and point you in the right direction. That’s what community looks like. No ego. No gatekeeping. Just wanting good things for each other.

So why do we care about community? Because accountancy might sound like it’s all about numbers, but a huge part of it is about connection. It’s about understanding the story behind a business, the people behind the decisions, the hopes behind the spreadsheets. It’s about helping you build something that feels solid, sustainable, and true to who you are.

Community isn’t a buzzword for us. It’s the reason we love what we do.