I had some feedback this week from Melbourne100Impact as to why our TBFP did not get thru to the second and subsequent round of the competition. I was told that our idea was deemed to be brilliant (no surprises there) but that it was just ‘too radical’ for the group of donors. I have since discovered that one of the finalists is creating a ‘drop in center’ in a suburb near Lilydale. Although I am sure this will serve people well I cannot help but think that this is a tremendously safe option – NOT one which will really change the world.

I have scored myself a free ticket to the Awards Evening in November and I intend to network my little cotton socks off to find the people who saw the magic within TBFP idea.

Last Friday I was invited to speak at a rooming house conference in Dandenong about the success of the Servants model of housing. Speaking to about 70 housing/social workers many people were, to put it mildly, impressed with what I had to say about our model. I believe this was the most significant sector speech I have delivered about our model.

The downside of the day was driving thru Dandenong on many occasions before finding the venue. What I now understand re Dandenong is that 2 out of every 3 shops are Cash Converters or equivalent – a pretty sad place I thought.

I had lunch with Michael Short form The Age today. One of the lovely things on a personal level tat has occurred for me since my ‘The Zone’ article in The Age in 2011 has been the development of the friendship between Michael and me. Following lunch with he put me in touch, via an email, with a major Melbourne based philanthropist. I now have to decide how to progress a conversation with this gentleman. Answers on a postcard please!!

Ticket booking for the launch currently sit at 161. We are going to be hosting quite an event folks! I met with Connie this arvo and we continued to plot and plan the launch event – it really is stating to take great shape.

I sent time this morning at Queen Vic ordering various foodstuffs for the launch – the vendors were more than generous in their pricing.

Tomorrow I am speaking at a day long rooming house forum in Dandenong, which is being run by our friend Andre Van Emryn, and running some kind of session there  in the afternoon.

These were the words uttered by John, a beloved Carrical reso who left us 6 years ago, when he took possession of his key today as his new tenancy at Romana commenced. Good news!!

We currently have 1 vacancy – to be filled on Monday.

Today we have broken the 150 ticket barrier for the Narrative launch. 9 days out from the event this is a BIG number!

Servants is a busy place to be around. The following is a snapshot of my day – imagine how this would look if Amanda, the Hislops, the Halls, Martin, The Donohoes Jnr, Nicole, Warren and the committee and the cooking staff added their account of the day as well!

My day started early, early at Bar Ristretto as Andy, the boss there, and I continue to plan the Ristretto Narrative launch. I worked with Martin at Hamer as we had the workout to end all workouts as we took delivery and stored away 10,000 copies of Narrative. A quick catch up with Editor Zoe saw us receive a donation for Servants from a lady, who seeing our excitement at book asked to have a look and was amazed at the quality of the book. I had a meeting at Scotch with my main contact there, Ophelia, to start talking about a possible adventure or two for next year. An email from a supporter informed me that her business had been collecting for SCH throughout the year and that they were about to send us an $800 cheque. I had a surprise phone call from a respected social worker, who I did not know was a believer, who wanted to pray for me over the phone – and did. I had a less than welcome call from the Tenants Unions (all calls from these guys are less than welcome – my disdain for the TU remains super high, despite not having dealt with them for many years – mostly as a result of their representing errant characters in the past and costing us heaps of money, time an energy) but I will have to wait until tomorrow to get the low-down on what they are wanting to discuss. A productive House Meeting at Romana rounded out the day.

Amanda and I met with a consultant from Jobs Australia this morning to look at awards/wages etc for our staff – it was an excellent meeting. The consultant will now go away and make a recommendation to us as to a way forward. We have certainly given her a challenge! As with most things Servants we do not fit easily into the standard categories!

I met with the boss of Orsino this morning to talk, from a creative viewpoint, as to how we will progress the Voices from Carrical doco. I walked away from a very good meeting confident we have a good way forward from here.

Peter Allen from Boroondara Cares has asked me to enliven a predictably dull meeting of BC this coming Friday by presenting on the Narrative project. He told me I am the Brad Pitt of BC. I have been called many things in my Servants career – from ‘vile,’ ‘a Nazi’ and things I cannot share with you genteel reader thru to ‘Mother Teresa’ and ‘Savior.’ I am not quite sure how to view this Brad Pitt comment ………………

I am very proud to say that Servants now have 2 books! I received the first few copies of Narrative today. It looks terrific! Tomorrow I take possession of another 10,000 copies. The Carrical resos in the book saw it today and loved it immediately. It is 30% bigger than Anthology in terms of numbers of pages – and probably 30% better in terms of quality of the finished product.

Interviews with females for our accommodation are few and far between. And then, just like London buses, 2 come at once! One is about to move into Romana and the other I will have to wait a few days to interview as, like a London bus, she has proved to be a little less then reliable with her timing!

Today’s highlights included a quick trip into the City to drop off 100 copies of Anthology and adverts for Narrative for inclusion in the Urban Seed show bags for their upcoming conference. I am delighted to say that the inclusion of these items has improved their show bags quite significantly.

Whilst on the topic of Anthology I continue be pleased with just how in demand it remains. I envision a time in 2015 when we will consider whether a 2nd reprint is appropriate.

And from Anthology to Narrative. Wednesday 2.00pm sees us take possession of the first few copies of the book. The remaining 9,995 copies then arrive with us on Thursday.

Amanda has been battling Telstra today with internet connectivity issues at the office. I am sure we can all sympathize?

Our Annual Fundraising return to Consumer Affairs Victoria was completed this afternoon and will be submitted tomorrow.

Our signed HPF Option 2 lease has arrived – all in good time for October 26th!

There are 2 small business ideas I am currently exploring/entertaining as projects that could provide some work/skills/activity/income for some of our residents.

1. Plant propagation. 2. Tautliner wallets.

I look forward to developing these ideas with committee as time progresses.

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.

The last week has been busy – no surprises there I guess! The overview is here:

There was a staff brekkie at Niche on Bridge last Saturday, a terrific gathering 16-18 people; I spoke at Swinburne’s Humanitarian Festival last Sunday – the feedback that has come from this has already been impactful; much attention this week has gone into getting Narrative ready for printing – I will be able to sign off on all files in the week ahead; the Dept informed me this week that our documentation to be moved to Option 2 of the HPF Lease has been approved and we start this brave new world on 26th October; our CCB figures for 13/14 and CCB Budget for 14/15 have all been approved by the Dept – all CCB, with the exception of $15,000 being put towards Narrative, will be used to build us a financial war-chest for maintenance costs moving forward; I was invited this week to speak about leadership as a part of VWA program for aspiring leaders in October; a $1000 donation was received this week; Warren and I had lunch with our friend John Enticott from St Kilda Community Housing this week – as usual, John was full of controversy, wisdom and fight; 2/3 of the way thru September an our empty room nights for the year at sitting at the grand total of 2; residents from Hamer and Carrical have slowly been responding to the ‘alcohol survey. we sent out – the responses have been ………………. varied!!

Have had a tremendous first day, of three, at the annual conference in Sydney. For 4 hours I had the privilege of hearing a quite wonderful presenter talk on the subject of ‘Donor Acquisition and Retention.’ If the next 2 days are completely worthless it will matter not – as today has already made the trip worthwhile. Today provided me with much food for thought – especially in light of our upcoming Narrative book launch and Team Servants ’15. Oh, almost forgot, at the conference today I also scored an invitation to talk/preach at Crossway church in Melbourne.

I spoke at the Roberts Chapel Service of Trinity Grammar on Tuesday morning. My talk went down super well and we continue to develop a significant relationship with Trinity. Over breakfast before the Chapel Service I took advantage of beg seated next to the new headmaster, Dr. Davies, to consider how the school and Servants can work together. We received an $1100 cheque from Trinity last week – the proceeds from their recently held Trivia Night.