I have been MIA of late in terms of Pulse posts. In an attempt to rectify this a little ahead of Monday’s committee meeting I give to you the following digest, in no particular order:

I went to Sydney yesterday for a one day Funding & Philanthropy conference on ‘The Big Ask.’ I rated the day 7.5/10. Some of the speakers were memorable – especially the CEO of The Starlight Foundation  and a ‘Parkinson style’ interview with 2 philanthropists who had both recently give away more than 20 million to Sydney Uni and arts projects in Sydney.

A couple of things are happening next Monday – we have our Annual Review Meeting with the Registrar – and prior to this I have been invited by Workcover to talk to a group of their emerging leaders about servant leadership.

I have my developing ‘half day with corporate types’ arranged for employees of Deloitte for later in the year and have just starting planning a similar event with Amcor. I have just commenced talking with Tim Davey in regards to the success of these occasions to date and how to develop them further. In late October we will be hosting our 4th LV nigh for the year – this time with a group of employees from the City of Boroondara.

The houses are 88/89 full. Romana recently saw one of the original female resos make a move across to Hamer. Another female moves in on Monday. This is important as it keeps the balance of 4 female resos in the house.

Connie and I are working on plans for the Narrative launch. Ticket ‘sales’ are more than encouraging at the present time. A smaller launch event will happen in the morning of 31st October at Bar Ristretto café in Burwood Rd, Hawthorn – the guv’nor there, Andy, already a HUGE fan of SCH is encouraging his patrons to consider donating for copies of the book. A couple of weeks ago I took a bus load of resos to see the book being printed – it was an amazing experience. We take delivery of the books this coming Thursday. I encourage us all to invite people to the launch night who are ‘newbies’ to SCH. Xavier, the venue for the launch, have been quite marvelous in helping us to arrange the launch night – to say they have been helpful would be an enormous understatement.

An additional art/framing shop has jumped on board and is about to deliver to us a great quantity of unwanted, yet still pretty special, stock.

We have now signed the Option 2 HPF lease; it becomes live for us on 26th October.

Schools continue to talk with me in regards to the Schools Leadership project (postponed now until at least 2016)

I have been working over the last 6 months to house a gentleman who has been relaxing at the request of Her Majesty for the past 14 years. An enormous, occasionally head-scratching, learning curve reaches its conclusion in the week ahead as the gentleman in question finally moves in to one of our houses.

Amanda and I are busying ourselves working out the management of Hamer for early next year when the Donohoes will be absent for a few months. Happily, we are not short of options to consider.

One of the flats at Carrical is currently nearing the end of a quite enormous face-lift. Fortunately all the work for this is occurring prior to us taking on the Option 2 maintenance requirements – it’s all free and is starting to look wonderful. Some of you will know Wayne from the rooms at Carrical – he will shortly be calling this flat home.

There you go – I hope you found this informative! Matt.