Narrative book progress this week has been nothing short of spectacular! 2 stunning interviews occurred – credit to the students for coming to the houses during their holidays to push on with the project. I met with Printer Chris yesterday and everything is on track from the printing end of things. I am hopeful that he next 2 weeks will start to bring in some significant dollars for the project.
Category Archives: Advocacy
Printer
Following the financial/Narrative book quantity decisions taken at last night’s extraordinary committee meeting I talked to Printer Chris from Southern Color this morning. He remains excited about the job/publication and is now working on figures etc to make things work. All good. In many ways little changes from my end – I still intend to hunt each and every dollar down for the project so that we are not out of pocket and the Yajilarra money can live to seed still more adventures for us.
Carey. Morning #3
This morning was my third talk to a Carey Chapel Service in the past few weeks. This was the best talk of the 3 – and we clearly have another 10% of the Carey community well on board, and well intrigued too, with what we are on about. I have not heard to date how many $$$ were raised from sending round the plate – but I do look forward to hearing this information! The staff of this particular house, Fullard, seemed particularly keen to visit our houses to fully understand what we do and to see where there might be some student input.
Mount Evelyn Christian School
Last Monday evening I had the privilege of talking to the Year 9 cohort of MECS about the work of Servants. This was as a part of the students ‘City Camp.’ It was a terrific evening and quite clearly the basis of a very sound relationship between Servants and MECS has been formed. The students were really engaged with what I had to tell them about Servants/community/making a difference/the folks we house etc. They were particularly engrossed with some of the ‘horror’ stories I was willing to share with them! It was wonderful at the end when a student prayed for all of us involved with the work of Servants.
Can’t get enough …………
The interest in our work from Carey continues to grow. Having been chosen by 2 of their 10 houses as the charity of choice for 2014 I was approached by a 3rd house a couple of days ago to talk at their upcoming chapel service. And why not?! Seems the Carey theme this year of ‘making a difference’ means that we are loved! I speak there again a week on Tuesday. I have been informed that on average each house raises $6000 per annum for their chosen charity. This should put us somewhere in the 18k minimum bracket over the course of the year – and probably significantly more.
Carey morning #2
Amanda and I visited Carey this morning to speak at the Hickman House Chapel Service. It was a terrific morning. There were many more people present than at the service we attended last Tuesday. It will be fascinating to see how the Servants/Carey relationship progresses in the months ahead.
Carey. Morning #1
This morning Amanda and I visited Carey to speak at the Chapel service of one of their 10 houses. It was an excellent morning. What I had to say was very well received. One of the Chaplains has already asked me to speak to some of his younger students at a later date. An offering was held – raising over $1000 for Servants.
We visit another of the houses this coming Sunday morning for a repeat performance.
Both of these houses have chosen Servants as their charity of choice for 2014. There will be several house events throughout the year that will raise funds for Servants.
Hostile and mud sticks
Last Friday I met with a teacher at Carey who expressed concern with the fact that 2 of her students are going to be involved in our new book project. The upshot of this conversation was that I satisfied her questions and she will be visiting Carrical in the very near future to have a look for herself. I write this to let you all know that although we are more often than not met with generosity and open mindedness we are still, in many ways fighting an uphill battle. The teacher concerned was an ex-cop and had prejudices against rooming houses, the mentally ill and those without jobs in spades. Indeed, if the aforementioned were Olympic disciplines she would have won a swag of gold. Appreciating fully that she does of course have a duty of care to her students her manner and questioning of me/Servants was appalling – not to mention ignorant. Originally I was not intending to Pulse this story – however, Warren, quite rightly I believe, encouraged me to do so. I am happy to talk with individuals about this meeting if so desired. In general life is pretty tough for those we house – made all the more difficult when community opinion is as dreadful as I encountered recently. The positive? This makes me still more determined to represent well and care for those housed by Servants and also that I feel Servants can questioned/challenged and we do have terrific answers and anecdotal stories to respond with.
Somehow this reminds me of one of my all time fave quotes. The legendary John Wayne once said ‘Life’s pretty tough ……………….. it’s even tougher if you’re stupid.’
Speaking at Carey
In the week ahead I have 2 speaking engagements at Carey chapel services. On both Tuesday and Sunday mornings I will be introducing the work of Servants to Carey. I have been given the theme of ‘making a difference’ to talk to. Nice!! These speaking engagements are significant as I see a very important Servants/Carey relationship about to commence.
Surrender
Amanda and I will be attending the Surrender Conference at Belgrave Heights between 14th and 16th March. We will have a Servants stand there and are hopeful of meeting folks from many church groups who will want to know more about our work. This is something of a first for Servants – it will be good to see what good things come out of it!
http://surrender.org.au/about-the-conference/
LV/Boroondara Council
Servants had a stunning night on Tuesday hosting Leadership Victoria at Carrical with the 15 team leaders from Boroondara Council they are currently taking thru a leadership program. In many ways it was a moving evening and, if nothing else, there are now considerably more people working for Council who know about our work. One resident spoke to the group about parts of his life journey and, in particular, his housing journey of late. A great night.
Thoughts sought ………
Our initial print run of Anthology was 5300. We then has another 5000 copies printed. There are about 3000 copies currently remaining.
I am looking for input into how many copies of Narrative we should look to produce when the time comes. I am thinking a minimum of 10,000 copies – possibly stretching to 15,000 – remembering that the price per unit decreases significantly with the more copies we print.
Your input would be appreciated!
Winning over the ignorant
I received a call last week from an alleged psychologist from the Salvos. She was unfamiliar with our work and was looking to place someone in housing with us. I was told in no uncertain terms that the rent we were charging was outrageous! It took me about 5 minutes but she came to see pretty quickly that what we offer is incredible value for money in stark comparison to what the majority of folks in rooming houses pay. She was so impressed that she now wants to visit to see for herself! Servants 1 Alleged Psychologist 0.
Narrative
I have been in touch with Southern Colour – the mob who printed both editions of Anthology – and that have provided me with various quotes for various quantities of the new book. My initial idea is that we should print between 10,000 and 20,000 copies.
I had a very productive meeting with Balwyn Rotary yesterday morning and they will explore within their Club the idea of sponsoring all costs associated with the publishing of the book. Watch this space …………………
Press release
A couple of weeks ago, with the help of a journalist contact of Amanda’s, I wrote my first press release. I talked about Servants and our model of housing – especially in light of the recent stabbing death of homeless man, ‘Mousey,’ in the city. Sadly, there were no takers on this occasion. Still, nothing ventured, nothing gained and all that jazz …………………
Narrative book launch
So, we don’t as yet have a new book (this will come together nicely thru the first half of the year)But we do have a launch date, launch venue (Friday 24th October at Hawthorn Town Hall) and we also have Josh Frydenberg and the Boroondara Mayor, Coral Ross, to help us launch this latest production.
Now, all I need to do is produce a book …………………………..
Diary dates – AGM and book launch date
The 2014 Servants AGM and the launch party for the Narrative book will both be held on the evening of Friday 24th October at Hawthorn Town Hall.
The AGM will commence at 6.30pm with the book launch scheduled for a 7.30pm start.
Christmas Eve. Part 2.
The major Christmas meal was celebrated at both Hamer and Carrical today – as is tradition. Hamer held a lunch and Carrical the evening meal. Both meals were a great success – great food and equally good atmospheres. There were lots of volunteers at Hamer. Polly Maudlin provided some singing entertainment at both houses – encouraging resos to join in with Silent Night and Joy to the World. The Hamer crew won this contest hands down!
Christmas Eve. Part 1.
During the now traditional Hamer Christmas Eve luncheon today (which was a mighty, mighty success) one of the resos took a photo of Paul Voutier and a fellow reso. Paul says that the reso then said ‘I have had nothing worth photographing the past 20 years at Christmas time.’ Seems to me that so often we hear tremendously bitter-sweet comments ………….. and we always seem to be the ‘sweet’ end of these comments.
LV/SCH project
Thanks to all who have provided me with feedback to date of the draft document I circulated earlier this week re the LV/Servants leadership project overview. Feedback from the school teachers I have been liaising with has been enormously encouraging. I meet with LV next week to progress talks/visioning. Please keep your feedback/comments coming in.