Category Archives: General

Advocacy, Carrical, General, Giving, Donations, Fundraising, Houses

Hostile and mud sticks

2 Comments

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.’

General

RC Hawthorn

The Rotary Club of Hawthorn has informed me that they have chosen Servants as their charity of choice for community projects for the coming year. Good timing as I have a few things they might want to consider contributing to one way or another!

It is so nice to have our work both appreciated and supported.

Advocacy, Carrical, General, Houses

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.

General

Death at Ivy Grange

As you may well have seen in the media today a resident of Ivy Grange rooming house was murdered at Ivy by a fellow resident in the early hours of Sunday morning. Clearly a terribly sad story this should act as a great reminder to all at Servants that we continue to house a very fragile community of people. Let’s remember that some of our very best resos have come to us from Ivy – yes, we have far greater control of who comes into our houses and our model works wonderfully well – but the guys at Ivy and the guys we house, well, they’re really not a million miles apart. And of course, on rare occasions we have mistakenly housed some violent people who have caused us all sorts of problems. It will be fascinating to see what happens at Ivy from here on in – we already have 2 guys from Ivy ready to move across he road to Romana on Opening Day.

Advocacy, Finances, General, Giving, Donations, Fundraising

Thoughts sought ………

1 Comment

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!

Advocacy, General, Houses

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.

Carrical, General, Houses

Carrical welcomes Phil

I Pulsed last week that Bart Majoor left Carrical – he was replaced today by Phil. Phil has been at Ozanam House in North Melbourne for many months awaiting a vacancy at Carrical. Hopefully he will make the very best of this opportunity. Amongst other things Phil is a Big Issue seller.

Ozanam House continue to be a wonderful connection for us in terms of finding resos; this relationship was established during our early days in Canterbury.

Carrical, Finances, General

Bart

Bart Majoor, brother of Conrad and reasonably long-term Canterbury and Carrical reso moved out on Tuesday of this week. His intended replacement made a last minute decision not to move in. A new reso replaces Bart next Monday. A rarity occurs here with several empty room nights being accumulated.

General

One year on …………..

Carlos passed away on 30th January 2013. Last night Amanda, myself and 10 residents spent a few minutes after dinner reflecting on the life and loss of Carlos. It was a very special time and some equally special thoughts were expressed.

I rang Cathy and Mr. Mascaro Snr last night to let them know that they are, and will always be, in the thoughts of Servants.

Advocacy, General

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 …………………

General, Uncategorized

Latest reading

I’m currently reading Brene Brown’s bestseller ‘Daring Greatly.’ Brown has some of the most watched TED talks ever and an overview of this book can be found on TED.

An extract from the book is Theodore Roosevelt’s speech delivered at the Sorbonne in 1910:

‘It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done better.

The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there  is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly.’

This quote resonates with me in many ways. I love being in the ‘arena’ of Servants. As 2014 develops I look forward to embracing the ‘dust and sweat and blood’ of the tasks at hand. I trust too that this year in Servants will prove to be full of value and satisfaction for all involved.

Advocacy, Development projects, General

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 …………………………..

Carrical, General

Vacancy!!

Shock and horror! We have a vacancy about to occur. A resident is leaving Carrical to move into a transitional housing opportunity. Hopefully this will be a good move for him. We would be more than happy to house him again in the future if the need arose. The next resident to move in has been waiting since May 2013 to be housed by us.

General

Any takers?

2 Comments

I am having a ball using this blog. I love having the opportunity to inform you all of our latest developments.

I am hoping that it is proving informative? I believe it to be a great tool for Servants to use.

But ………………………. is there anyone out there actually reading it?!!

Carrical, Finances, General, Giving, Donations, Fundraising, Houses

Flowers

Servants received many wonderful gifts over the Christmas period. One of the best were bunches of magnifique flowers. Now, don’t even think about asking me what they were as I have not the slightest idea, but they are beautiful and have made a fantastic contribution to helping Carrical look and smell amazing. I suggest we keep all of our houses in fresh flowers 100% of the time. If anyone would like to suggest how we might fund such a venture please let me know!

General

Touched.

I was very moved at the Carrical Christmas Eve meal as the residents presented me with a wonderful photograph in recognition of my 15 year anniversary at Servants. Amanda, and perhaps 7 or 8 resos, all spoke with great generosity. it was a very special time; one of many, many highlights across the journey.

General

Books

I have just finished reading a terrific book by Kevin Murray entitled The Language of Leaders. Much food for thought to be found within this book; many ideas and concepts of which I have begun to incorporate into my day to day Servants existence.

The latest offering I am digesting is ‘Inside the Box’ by Boyd and Goldenberg – a challenging little number that encourages and teaches one to utilize Systematic Inventive Thinking (SIT) as a means to innovation. Not half way thru the book as yet but already starting to see benefits for Servants of applying their methodology.

General, Giving, Donations, Fundraising

Giving Tree, lunch, Peter, more lunch, Gretto and the ongoing saga of Matt’s laptop.

Today Josh Frydenberg (the self proclaimed Jewish Father Christmas!) arrived at Carrical to drop off all the goodies from his Giving Tree appeal. There was $4650 in cheques to Servants from local businesses and individuals. There were quality blankets, amazing foods and Coles vouchers galore. In all there was probably about $10,000 worth of cheques and stuff. A pretty staggering outcome really!

In other news today there was a Narrative book lunch at Carrical which gave our editor, Zoe, a great opportunity to meet many of the resos. It was lovely to eat in the beautifully air conditioned dining room!! Narrative is going to be an enormous success.

One or two of you will know of our resident Peter Dewhurst and some of the very serious physical health conditions he has been struggling with of late. He is currently back in hospital – I encourage you to keep Peter in your prayers.

Hawthorn Rotary has invited our resos to what I understand will be a pretty posh lunch this Sunday.

Yesterday was the first anniversary of the passing of Terry Gretton. Both personally and professionally I feel very blessed to have known Terry – even for all the all too short time as it transpired.

My laptop has been sick 3 times in the past 5 weeks. The friendly chaps at BusinessWorks in Camby showed it some TLC this morning and brought it back to full health. Insignificant? No, HUGELY significant!!