Servants management, Hamer resos and Elder Keith from Canterbury Baps said goodbye to Hamer reso Craig today at a very fitting and dignified chapel service in Preston.
There was not one person present who was not connected to Servants.
A couple of Hamer resos spoke super well and we got to see again how the community at Hamer, whilst different to Carrical and Romana in many ways, is just that – a community that cares for its own and understands the importance of family.
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.
Finally we have installed an oven for the onsite Managers at Hamer Court. Warren has quite a nice/amusing story to do with this ……………. perhaps he would be good enough to share it?!
I head to Sydney tonight for the annual 3 days Philanthropy & Fundraising Conference. I am planning on learning much. The content of the conference looks terrific.
I spoke at Canterbury Baptist Church this morning. It was a terrific opportunity to continue to solidify the already strong Servants/CBC relationship.
Interestingly CBC see their once a month meal involvement at Hamer as a KEY element of their outreach.
Many good things came out of our 2 years in Canterbury – arguably none better than the relationship with this very faithful group of people.
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.
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.
I heard from MelbourneImpact100 on Monday that they are not interested in progressing our Buckminster Fuller idea to the second round.
I was initially very disappointed about this news – but quickly realized that the idea is still good, despite this setback, and that the idea might have been a little too radical/quirky/funky for the powers that be. I will watch with interest to see who wins the grant and how conservative, or otherwise, their proposal is.
Hamer Court reso Craig Packard passed away on-site on Tuesday. Carly discovered his body. Craig was a friendly, genial chap – and also a chronic drinker, smoker and pill-popper. Massively overweight he was a ticking time-bomb. We had housed Craig since November 2012.
I very much look forward to the time when I can manage to post daily into Pulse once more. As I seem quite incapable of such achievement at this time you will have to tolerate an occasional digest from me. Here we go ………………..
A local art/framing shop is closing. We have scored what must be thousands of dollars worth of free pictures/frames etc. Another local art shop has heard of us and is keen to donate.
Today we received a $5000 cheque from Hawthorn Community Chest towards the Narrative project. 2 other groups committed sums of $500 to us today also.
Amanda has started a well-deserved and long overdue 7 day break as of today.
RC Balwyn visited Carrical today to serve a hot dog lunch to resos.
I received 2 speaking offers today – both for October.
The filming component of Narrative commenced yesterday. It was a blazing success.
If I am not greatly mistaken Mark appears to be thoroughly enjoying his new role at Carrical!
Friday morning of this week photographer Esther and I are seeking the cover shot for Narrative. Exciting!
Esteemed local antiques dealer Sheridan Brown has presented Carrical with a beautiful, restored armchair. A very generous gesture indeed. When resident Wayne Brydon, whom some of you will know, moves into a flat at Carrical in a few weeks he will be taking possession of said chair. He will also take possession of a VERY posh Chinese dinner service that was a gift from some Chinese dignitary chap to Josh Frydenberg. Josh is unable to accept such gifts – so it came to Servants! A very nice score for Wayne!
I have been working steadily for a long period of time now to house a current inmate of Barwon prison. This process is now starting to move towards an end game – one which will see this gentleman housed by Servants.
The Halls are dealing with a difficult and unusual resident at Romana. They are doing a great job. However, please do keep them in your prayers.
The recent Trinity Trivia Night raised $900 for Servants. I speak next week at Trinity at another Chapel Service.
I am meeting with LV next week for further discussions re Schools Leadership.
I am investigating agreements/contracts/rights for the stories/photo to be used in Narrative. Eugene from Candlelight has been very helpful in steering me in the right direction.
Amanda, Warren and I are looking to hold our annual review with the Housing Registrar in early October – ahead of the October committee meeting.
Tuesday morning at Trinity Grammar I spoke at one of their house Chapel services. It was a terrific morning and I felt I spoke particularly well. A collection was taken for Servants.
In the evening Trinity held their Annual Trivia Night for Servants. The Servants team was made up of myself, the Hislops, Porters, Grace, Olga and Rhiannon. Patrick was on another table. Our team, strangely called ‘One Genuine Smart Guy,’ came 6th out of 14 – so we did Servants proud! I quickly learned who never to invite to another trivia night! I got to speak again to the attendees. It was a really good evening and we continue to solidify our relationship with Trinity.
The Narrative book launch venue and date have changed.
We are now hosting the event at The Great Hall, Xavier College, on the evening of Friday 31st October. 7.00 – 9.30pm.
We will hold our AGM on this evening – at Xavier.
The Run Melbourne event has been run and won. To date, and there is still money coming in, Team Servants ’14 has raised $15,500 in online donations and $2500 in other donations. This is a particularly pleasing result in light of the fact that our top 6 individual fundraisers from last year raised a tiny amount between them – indeed, 4 of them did not participate this year. We had 101 registered runners (65 last year) and our presence in the team tent alongside the team t-shirts worn by most team members made quite an impression. Such an impression in fact that the event organizers invited me to meet with them yesterday to let me know of the significant changes for the event from 2015 and to let me know that only 35 charities will be eligible to raise funds – rather than the current 700 charities – and we have been invited to be one of the 35. I believe this is really quite significant. It was also fascinating to see just who participated and supported our Team – people from all the different networks and relationships we have developed over the past few years – Rotary, corporates, LV, Housing Registrar, Council, schools both public and private ………. not to mention committee, management and residents!
I had some fascinating conversations on the day with people who were intrigued by our presence there.
All in all I believe Team Servants ’14 can only be considered a success – I think Team Servants ’15, should we decide to do this, will be our biggest and best year to date.
Thank you to all who participated, donated, walk, ran, organized etc ………..
Friday morning, about 9.50am.
I am sitting in Bar Ristretto in Burwood Rd, Hawthorn watching about 25 people waiting for their take-out coffees – happy in the knowledge that $2 from every coffee sold today boosts Team Servants ’14. This looks like being a profitable day!
The audit was carried out yesterday. Most things seemed to be in order with a couple of queries still to be answered. The overall feeling from the auditor being that we were more organized/in a better place than 12 months ago.
This coming Sunday sees TS ’14 hit the streets – we will look resplendent in the almost-posh TS ’14 t-shirts Tim had printed for us! The team has grown in number and donations are coming in quite nicely. I think it’s fair to say that the exposure Servants has received from various advertising/talking opps for TS ’14 has been more than significant.
Trinity Grammar will be hosting a Trivia Night on Tuesday 5th August with all proceeds coming to Servants. Their inaugural Trivia Night was staged last year and was a pretty good event – Grace, Olga and I represented Servants on the night. They raised many hundreds of bucks for us last year and this year promises to be a still bigger and better event. If you are interested in joining me on the evening please let me know. The time? 7.00 – 9.00pm. The venue? TBC. Cost: $10.
With the Hislops now back from overseas they are preparing to move into Carrical. As of time of writing this post the painting of the Manager’s flat at Carrical, a job long overdue, is nearing completion. Once this has been completed and the carpets have been steam-cleaned the Hislops will move into the flat and begin their Carrical adventure. With the painting in full flow Amanda has been ‘camping’ at Carrical the last few nights.
Warren is back in the country and resumes his role as President – a position temporarily held by Tim in the absence of both President Warren and President of Vice Connie.
Both Connie and Tim presided over their Presidential duties with great aplomb during Warren’s absence. Thank you to you both.
All houses are full. A really healthy waiting list exists for each individual house. There has been one reso exit to date this fin year – but no empty room nights. All houses appear to be running quite smoothly – there are no remarkably difficult issues to deal with at the present time. Management are reporting that overall they are happy with the progress of their houses. The demand for our housing is enormous and increasing all the time. The support we have within all the communities within which we operate is very gratifying to see/hear.
We are now 2 weeks away from Run Melbourne and the appearance of Team Servants ’14. There are some good things happening behind the scenes in regards to the Team – we have 2 schools who are seriously supporting us with sponsorship, Amcor have just given us their support and 3 local cafes (all heavily patronized by Servants) are supporting/promoting us – one of them very heavily. To date the Team has received about $6500 in donations – based on the donations of last year it will be the week before the event when the most giving will be made. I am hopeful that we will be featured by Fairfax Media in the days leading up to the event; this would not hurt the fundraising figures!
Progress on Narrative is excellent – in the week just completed the 2 new recruits – Joy and Justine from MLC – commenced their work on the book. We are absolutely on track to be ready to go to print on 18th September and work is well underway for the launch night of Friday 24th October.
The end of the financial year is also the end of the Rotary year. I recently attended the Presidential Changeover Dinner at RC North Balwyn and Servants was significantly acknowledged on the night. In addition the Rotary involvement with Romana was recently recognized with THE community services award for the year.
Plans are underway for the fundraising Carols @ Carrical event we will host at Carrical on Monday 22nd December for the benefit of Hawthorn Community Chest.
I have meetings lined up with Leadership Victoria in regards to the Schools Leadership project and I will have a proposal for committee to consider on or before the August committee meeting.
I am currently working on a grant proposal for Melbourne Impact100 that I feel particularly excited about. I have been working with Eugene from Candlelight and our own Temporary President Tim on this proposal.
Since 1st July we have entered the brave new world of managing our own maintenance at Carrical under the 6 month period we have committed to under our amended HPF lease. We are predominantly using a maintenance group based in Camberwell for our maintenance. So far, so good.
Our audit is booked in for 24th July. Matrix are continuing to do a little wok with us to ensure that all is in readiness for a successful audit.
I have many talking engagements booked in for the weeks ahead – including one Sunday morning in August at Canterbury Baptist Church.
The Hislops first night in Carrical will be Tuesday 22nd July. This of course corresponds with the end of an era as Amanda brings to a close a period of 4.5 years living in the mansion.