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Category Archives: Uncategorized
Greenhouses!
Green houses at Romana!
Servants in the Age.
A great article highlighting our work in the Age! the article
Real Madrid. Juan. Narrative. Xavier.
The title of this Heartbeat says it all!!
James Chan from Xavier, who interviewed Carrical reso Juan for Narrative, had a spare $80 ticket last Friday for Real Madrid vs. Manchester City game at the MCG. He gave it to Juan who thoroughly enjoyed himself.
Special eh???????
Changeover
On Sunday I attended the Presidential Changeover Lunch of Rotary Club of North Balwyn – the Club I am most closely aligned with. For the first time in their 35 year they now have a female President – Jane Pennington, who just so happens to be a BIG fan of Servants. The Club remains committed to supporting us and our resos in what we do. Good news. As some of you may recall, my great friend the late Terry Gretton was a part of RC North Balwyn. His support and enthusiasm of all things Servants was clearly infectious as the Club continues to support us in a variety of ways.
Hotel California
On Saturday night we held a special Community Dinner at Hamer to farewell Ben and Al, the temporary Housekeepers in the Donohoes’ absence. The boys did a terrific job in their 4.5 months at Hamer. They will be very much missed by the resos. I reminded Ben and Al that Servants is a little like the line from The Eagles song Hotel California: ‘You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave.’ They both seemed quite happy with this indupitable fact.
C-Change
At Carey this year their Year 9’s are engaging in a year long project entitled C-change – it’s all about social issues. 4 of their students recently shot a short video about Servants involving me and 3 of our resos – Paul, Richard and Barry. This was shown at a Year 9 Carey assembly last Friday arvo and was attended by 2 of the 3 resos and me. The video is not of the quality that I would show anywhere – but I still think the work the boys did was terrific, they were certainly challenged by what they saw and heard
As soon as I can work out how to post the video clip in Heartbeat I will do so – for your viewing pleasure and edification!
In a nutshell ……………….
The Budget for 2015/16 has been struck and is now awaiting committee approval at the June meeting. Many, many thanks to Isaac for his work over many weeks in setting the template for the budget so beautifully – and equally as may thanks to Amanda and Kara this week who have spent more hours than I care to consider fine tuning and refining it. I trust that all committee members will be pleased with the final document.
Whilst on the subject of thanks ……………… Mark and Amanda, with me on the periphery, have worked thru some very difficult resident issues this week. It is fair to say that all the houses are running beautifully BUT the issues they have dealt with this such care and wisdom have doubtless been exhausting. I think one of our great organizational strengths is the absolute quality we have in Amanda and the Housekeepers and the care with which they go about their tasks of interacting with the resos.
Whilst taxing reso issues and budget tinkering have taken up most of the week I managed to talk at both Strathcona and Carey. The talk to Strathcona was especially good.
A new female reso moved into Hamer today. Good news! The Empty Room Nigh total for fin year to date is 98 – wobbling on the very precipice of 100!! I will be doing all within my significant powers to ensure the 100 Night barrier is NOT broached. Watch this space. We budgeted for 720 Empty Nights for the fin year – so I guess we’re doing ok.
Team Servants ’15 progress remains pleasing. There are currently 24 established Supporter Pages and an increasing number of enquiries about our team. Our total income to date for the Team is just inxs of $3500. Yes, still very long way to go – but good progress. Our Leaderboard, in terms of donations received, is our very own President Warren. The Pres currently has a very healthy $1100 gap between himself and The Husband of Vice-President Connie. Not that this is a competition of course, no, of course not. Next week the resos will have their Supporter Pages established. Let’s face it, who wants to be financially beaten by a homeless guy!!??
We found out today that Bunnings are giving us a shed for Hamer worth $900.
Pulse is now Heartbeat.
A rebranding has occurred! Pulse is now Heartbeat. I will be Pulsing no more. But I will Heartbeat instead!! Or should that be Heartbeating?! I can see it now – ‘as I Heartbeated a couple of weeks ago!’ Nothing quite like inventing new words!!
In My Perfect Servants World ……………..
In my perfect Servants world we would not see the mental and physical health of our resos collapse. In my perfect Servants world I would never. Ever. House somebody inappropriately – causing distress to other resos and staff. In my perfect Servants world everyone we house would value the opportunities that is given them by definition of calling a Servants house a Home. In my perfect Servants world all levels of Government would throw money at us to establish more housing, recognizing that we not only house people brilliantly but that we save the wider community hundreds of thousands of dollars annually as a result of our model. In my perfect Servants world the community would embrace and welcome the diversity that our resos bring to Hawthorn and Kew. In my perfect Servants world those who benefit from housing people in misery would be thrown in jail with the keys thrown away. In my perfect Servants world more people would look to us to see what community can really look like.
Until such a time as this utopian pipedream occurs I encourage us all – Committee, Housekeepers, Staff, Volunteers, Donors, Members, Friends – to keep fighting the good fight – bringing the respect and the dignity and the hope to those folks we have the privilege of housing, getting alongside and supporting.
Reflections: The Mansion on the Hill
The Scotch College/Servants theatre production will be showing at Scotch on 4th October at 4.00pm and 5th, 6th, 7th October at 7.00pm.
Entry is by gold coin donation.
The venue is The Cramond Studio at Scotch – the same venue where Voices: The Carrical Project first showed – and was instrumental in Servants being who we are today.
The background to this piece is that Scotch approached me asking for a theme/idea for their theatre piece – I was happy to oblige! Just for the record, this is eating up very little of my time!!
This theatre piece is not even close to the scale of our previous productions.
Conference Day 2
Communities in Control Conference today was, overall, terrific. Some wonderful talks and presentations. More good networking. All in all a pretty inspiring day.
Cold. Colder. Coldest.
The new freezer arrived today at Carrical. it cost about 3k and was paid for via a generous donation from Rotary Club of Hawthorn last year.
If I was technical enough to post an image of it here I most certainly would. As I am not you will just have to imagine a shiny, new, silver-colored, 2 door, brand, spanking, new freezer. It looks good doesn’t it?
Next time you are in Carrical please feel most welcome to visit the kitchen to pay homage to it.
Hamer Trivia.
A group of folks from St Hilary’s Church in Kew hosted a BBQ and Trivia Night at Hamer on Saturday night. It was just terrific. Residents, guests and management alike had a great time.
Wood. Trees.
Sometimes all on the front line of our work are so busy with the day to day happenings of keeping the show on the road that we don’t take enough time to value the very special things we all witness on a day to day basis.
Sure, housing people well and ensuring people are well cared for is a wonderful thing in itself – but it’s the acts of kindness and generosity that we constantly see from residents that is just so very special to witness. I often talk about the ‘rare air’ that is breathed by all involved with Servants – and oft times this refers to some of the painful, the crazy and the quite frankly mind-bending things we witness and cope with.
Therefore, this is a post of encouragement to remind us all – committee members, those in the engine room of accounts, staff, Housekeepers and Amanda and me – all of us – our work, energies and passion are fundamental in allowing relationships and friendships to form, to provide people with a healthy framework in which they can recover from trauma and addictions, to be able to face looking themselves in the mirror once more, to have family relationships restored. What we do matters. It really does. Let’s not forget this.
Matt.
AFL
I successfully applied to the AFL for 30 free tickets to an upcoming match at the MCG – Richmond versus someone I forget. 10 free tickets for each house. I am glad the Housekeepers will be sorting out who these tickets go to!!
Spectrum Article
Last Saturday’s Spectrum pages in The Age contained an interesting article re outspoken author Peter SInger and his new book The Most Good You Can Do. I purchased this book a few weeks ago and it looks quite fascinating. The Age article has certainly made me think about donors/Servants/how we go about things. I will be happy to lend the book to any interested parties within the Servants family once I am done with it.
The $160,000 Man
I had my annual mid-year meeting with our biggest individual donor of each of the past 6 years this morning. The good news is that he remains as impressed as ever with what Servants is up to.
London buses.
The similarity between London buses and vacancies at Hamer is strong.
You wait and wait and wait – and then they all come at once! In the past 4 weeks we have seen one female reso transfer to Romana (good move), one male move to aged care (good move) one male move to palliative care (good move) one former male reso move in and move out within a couple of weeks (just sad) and one male purchase a one-way ticket to his homeland of India (sad and potentially quite catastrophic move)
5 resos out of 28 moving on (mostly for excellent reasons) is a big number by anyone’s standards – and especially be ours. Of course, we have filled the vacancies very quickly and the empty room night total for Hamer for year to date is only 27.
Manse In Camberwell?
Last weekend Matt and I looked over a disused manse at Camberwell junction. Its needing some TLC in a great spot with lots of land. It has enough accommodation for about 6 residents and a live in housekeeper. Not quite what we are used to … but we expect to bring some kind of report on the place to our June meeting. The fact that we found out about this at all is a testament to our close relationship with Boroondara council who recommended us to St John’s church.