Ladies and gentlemen, I am delighted to announce that Pulse is back for another year of information, communication, general shenanigans and creativity.
The fun really commences tomorrow ……………..
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Sunday arvo
Friday: I spoke as a guest at the latest Boroondara Cares meeting – mainly talking about the Narrative journey. Boroondara Cares is a very interesting beast at the current stage of proceedings – quite how big/significant it becomes is anyone’s guess right now. In 2 weeks time they will officially take over Foundation Boroondara to create one bigger, presumably better charity for the good of Boroondara. Quite where this leaves Hawthorn Community Chest remains to be seen.
On Friday I dropped off copies of Narrative with the 7 student authors – their collective response was quite marvelous – including literally jumping up and down with excitement!
Friday also saw me tough base with the chap from the Tenants Union who has been representing one of our Hamer resos. I was relieved to hear the ‘issue’ being leveled against us. There is not too much to be concerned about – but it might require a trip to VCAT to explain ourselves.
The Halls are away this weekend taking a well-deserved short break. One of their residents, a particularly troubled gentleman, vacated on Saturday morning. The good news is that one of our former favorite resos, John Whelan, a reso w previously housed for 6 years at Carrical, is returning ‘home’ and will move into Romana next week.
Ticket sales for the launch are currently sitting at 110. Connie and Cheryl and I had a planning meeting for the launch this afternoon – it is going to be terrific!
The week ahead is BIG – but it should be quite a lot of fun too.
Monday morning x 2
1. Warren, Amanda and I met with Christine from the Housing Registrar to have our Annual Review Meeting. It was a short meting, very short – which meant that everything went very well. It was highly pleasing. We were also told of several personnel changes that our in the process of occurring within the Office of the Registrar.
2. Prior to our meeting I spoke to 20 up and coming executive types at VWA as a part of their leadership program. I spoke for 50 minutes followed by 15 minutes of questions. My brief was to provide ‘a compelling personal story’ – which was probably playing to me strength. All seemed to go well and I rated myself 8 of 10. I was particularly happy with a sensory experience I took the participants thru.
Swinburne
I was really pleased today to have the opportunity to speak at the Swinburne Youth Humanitarian Festival. I spoke to about 80 switched on young people from Swinburne, Deakin and La Trobe Unis alongside many staff. I was particularly pleased with how I spoke today and the conversations afterwards were significant. The Festival had also MASSIVELY over-catered so I dropped many, many hundreds of dollars worth of Subway sandwiches to Carrical for a late lunch!!
Narrative
The Narrative news is exciting. Mike and I are intending to send all files to the printer this coming Friday arvo for proofs to be delivered next Monday. This will mean by the end of next week the printer will have the signed of files and will print early October. This week is a BIG one as we bring all the stories, photos, editing, layout, legal forms together and stitch the project together. I knew Narrative was going to be significantly better than Anthology. I am not wrong. It is starting to look really wonderful.
screens and routers
its easy to miss the many acts of generosity that keep us going. Nice to see the donation of unwanted 19″ screens for Carrical from Josh Lyon. And the installation of high end, commercial grade internet routers by Linton. Technology for tenant’s use is a key part of our high grade facilities, its really nice when we get that and even better get it set up for nothing.
Rotarians at Romana
Here is the newsletter that Rotary have published about their volunteering at Romana!
First choice. Room 7.
The first room at Romana was chosen by a resident today. Natalie chose Room 7. We are on our way!
In other Romana news Brian and I had a site meeting today with Architect Steve and Builder Jeff. Everything is on track for Project One Builders to hand the house back to us on Wednesday 23rd April. We are currently on track for taking in the first residents on Wednesday 30th April.
I am working towards a tentative Opening Ceremony type of event on Friday 16th May – with a BBQ at lunchtime.
Meeting with Housing Registrar
This arvo I met with Christine and Kai from the Housing Registrar to show the around Romana and for a general catch up in regards to all things Servants. It was a low-key, quite informal meeting; but all very positive. The meeting lasted 90 minutes so there was plenty of ground covered. And a sign of the continuing good relationship with the Registrar was perhaps best exemplified when Christine advised me that she will be putting a person from another housing group in touch with Servants in regards to a specific item ‘as Servants knows how to do these things better than anyone.’ I tried to appear humble – but what she said was true!
Fascinating article
This article, from Portland, Maine, absolutely fascinated me.
I would be interested to see what you all think of the HOME team.
http://www.pressherald.com/news/Imagine_a_Portland_without_its_HOME_Team_.html
Meeting @ Trinity
I had a terrific meeting at Trinity yesterday morning where this developing relationship went to the next level. I met with my main man there, social services coordinator Tom Delahunty, and the 2 Year 11 boys, Noah and Nick, who are working on the Narrative book. You may recall that Trinity held a fundraiser late last year in the form of a Trivia Night for Servants. The second edition of this event will be held in late October – and will apparently be a still bigger and better event. The school has also agreed to become fully involved and supportive of Team Servants ’14 – much in the style of the model adopted by Strathcona last year. I am encouraging small groups of Trinity boys to become involved in lunchtime bbqs at our houses and in Term 2 will commence focus groups with students for the proposed leadership program commencing 2015. There is something very positive at play in the Servants/Trinity relationship.
Harvard application
I submitted my scholarship application to the Harvard Club of Victoria a full 4 hours prior to the cut off time! Despite clearly not meeting all the specified criteria I was pretty happy with what I submitted. Thank you to Warren for his help in reviewing the application.
Communities in Control
I booked in today for the 3 day Communities in Control Conference at Moonee Ponds racecourse in late May. I have attended this conference on 3 or 4 occasions over the years – last year it was particularly good – and very much look forward to what new things I will hear/learn about this year.
Finance and Risk subcommittee meetings
Monday night the finance and risk subcommittees met. They were both great meetings.
Female!!
Great excitement today as I offered a Romana place to a FEMALE OF THE SPECIES! What’s more, she accepted the place! This is great news! Her name is Natalie and I think she is going to add greatly to the Romana community as it establishes.
Also of excitement today, but not quite as exciting as knowing that we will have at least one female reso from Opening Day @ Romana, was interviewing a guy, Wayne, who will also be a terrific reso once Romana commences.
CEO performance review reflections
My annual Performance Review concluded earlier this week when I met with Connie and Tim to discuss the findings. I have to say that is so pleasing that committee, staff and myself appear to be so closely aligned in our collective thinking in regards to the job that I am doing for Servants. The process we adopted this year for the review certainly worked very well from my perspective.
I was particularly pleased with the review process when considering the stories that Yarra Community Housing CEO, Rob Leslie, shared with us at last October’s committee meeting of half of his committee having the knives out for him! I believe that that our CEO/board relationship is in a terrific place at the present time and I trust that we will all work diligently to ensure that this is the case going forwards.
Hamer House Meeting
There was a Resident House Meeting at Hamer last night. In this meeting we introduced Patrick & Carly as the new live-in managers and Martin as the Day Manager. All were well received by the resos there. There will be a farewell meal for Grace, Olga and Tim at Hamer at the appropriate time.
Romana quotes
I heard from architect Steve that the tendering process/quotes are now in for Romana. Two builders quoted – one coming in just under $90,000 and the other over $20,000 cheaper. Steve will advise us of his preference later this week. All very exciting stuff and we continue to draw nearer to that day in April when our first reso will be able to call Romana ‘home.’
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.