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?!!
The 2014 Servants AGM and the launch party for the Narrative book will both be held on the evening of Friday 24th October at Hawthorn Town Hall.
The AGM will commence at 6.30pm with the book launch scheduled for a 7.30pm start.
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!
The first mail of the year at Servants saw the usual kind of mail delivered – alongside a donation cheque of $500. A nice start to the new year.
Not all committee members live in Boroondara/Kooyong.
Josh Frydenberg sent an email to folks within his Kooyong electorate today wishing folks a Merry Christmas. Alongside this he thanked all who gave to his Giving Tree appeal – which we of course were the beneficiaries of.
It has to be a good thing to have Josh F on board.
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.
A one-off $250 donation was received today – courtesy of the insurance agency that one of our supporters works for.
The major Christmas meal was celebrated at both Hamer and Carrical today – as is tradition. Hamer held a lunch and Carrical the evening meal. Both meals were a great success – great food and equally good atmospheres. There were lots of volunteers at Hamer. Polly Maudlin provided some singing entertainment at both houses – encouraging resos to join in with Silent Night and Joy to the World. The Hamer crew won this contest hands down!
During the now traditional Hamer Christmas Eve luncheon today (which was a mighty, mighty success) one of the resos took a photo of Paul Voutier and a fellow reso. Paul says that the reso then said ‘I have had nothing worth photographing the past 20 years at Christmas time.’ Seems to me that so often we hear tremendously bitter-sweet comments ………….. and we always seem to be the ‘sweet’ end of these comments.
Sarah from Moores informed me today that the lease for Romana has now been signed, sealed and delivered. Hurrah! A nice little piece of news leading into Christmas!
From The Age in early November:
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.
Saturday was a terrific day for resos of both houses. The regular BBQ folks from Kew Baps and Christ Church joined forces to provide a stunning lunch time meal for Carrical resos and the folks from Canterbury Baps provided an evening meal and held a carol ‘service’ for Hamer resos. A handful of Carrical resos have gone to the Hawthorn Rotary/Foundation Boroondara Lunch today. To quote a former, esteemed Servants Chairperson: ‘Everyone loves a homeless person at Christmas!’ True. And I will milk it, on behalf of the resos, for all it’s worth!!
Christmas Eve and Christmas Days at the houses are looming large as days of great merriment and feasting.
Yesterday we received a letter saying our revised rules are now in line with the registrar’s requirements.
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!!
I met with Kate and Tony from LV this morning to further the schools leadership program concept and establish the next steps. A very positive meeting it was too. By the February Servants committee meeting LV are hopeful of having the proposal thru the LV committee – we will also have draft financials available by this time. So far, so good. It is fair to say that LV are as excited by the potential of this project as I am.
The other piece of news from this meeting is that LV will be running for Team Servants ’14 next year and advertising this fundraiser thru their extensive mailouts to their members.
As you might remember Carrical recently hosted a group from Medibank’s Leadership training program. It was a spectacular day that saw 18 emerging Medibank leaders being taken out of their comfort zone by being placed into Carrical for half a day to learn about a different aspect of society. The day concluded with Amanda and me talking to the group at length.
The feedback from the day is worth sharing with you all – 5 major points:
1. Servants clearly does what it says on the tin.
2. They admired our creative view on solving problems/raising awareness for issues close to our hearts.
3. Our bad days our worse than theirs, apparently! They will never moan again, apparently, having heard some of our stories!
4. They were astonished that we ordered a review of our difficult time at Canterbury. In their experience it was far more common to excuse themselves from cock-ups and sweep problems under the carpet rather then learning from your mistakes.
5. The belief we have in educating young people to make decisions as to how the vulnerable of our society will be cared for in the future; it was the element of ‘seed sowing’ that really impressed them.
We have since entertained 7 folks from Medibank for their Volunteer Day. This day was also a raging success as we looked to see where Servants and Medibank could work collaboratively together.
For those of you residing in Boroondara there is a nifty little mention of Servants on page 13 of today’s Leader. Josh F is visiting Carrical this Thursday morning for the handing over of the Christmas goodies/cash.
As we all know we budget for 365 empty room night per annum per house – a total of 730 nights. To this point in the financial year we have amassed a total of 17 empty nights. That’s right ……. 17.
There have been 4 exits in the same period of time; 1 death, 1 eviction, 1 reso moving to higher care and 1 reso making a ridiculously bad decision to leave Hamer to live in an old folks place. Christmas is an unsettling time for resos as a rule and we normally see one or two seek their fortunes elsewhere at this time. Still, the stats are great and are backed up by the fact that almost no rent is being missed at this time. It is a healthy position to be in and one we will continue to work hard at maintaining – especially as the task of filling Romana looms.
I had a meeting this morning with Zoe Bradley – the editor for Narrative. Progress is good to date. There is considerable interest from schools in the publication. We have set all the key dates in place now for the project. All quite exciting!