Roll on 7.00am next Wednesday morning. Yours truly should be onsite to take the first pics of demolition/preps occurring there. This week has seen the last few documents being signed/red tape cut thru etc in preparation for next Wednesday. How exciting that after all this time we are actually about to alter the building!

Interviews have continued this week with some more wonderful candidates appearing. The decision to make Romana an alcohol free house appears at this stage to be paying off handsomely. There are just so many prospective resos who want to live in a ‘dry’ house. I now have 10 people definitely moving in – and another half dozen whom I am considering/will invite back for further talks/might house elsewhere. 24 rooms is not enough! The word on the street from workers is that the need is becoming still more chronic. At one stage we wondered if charging $560 per fortnight was an amount that people would refuse to pay. From what I am currently seeing and hearing we could be charging significantly more than this (not that I am advocating for this at all) and people would still be lining up to be housed by us.

For the first time ever today I witnessed a worker in tears (in a good way) as her client was interviewed. Slightly disconcerting as you can imagine she later explained that Servants is unique and treats people with such respect. Good to hear. I hope that this enormously encourages all staff and committee.