I should have mentioned in my email that the Installation of Hope launch is at Scotch College on Tuesday 14th June between 5.00 and 6.00pm.
Week in review
Ok, a little longer than a week – 8 or 9 days then.
- 30th Party. Great!! Resos LOVED it. Connie, Madeline and I have spent a little time reviewing the event – picking out the good, the bad and the ugly. Overall it was an enormous success.
- Josh F and Julie B @ Romana. Regardless of the result of the upcoming election this was something of a red letter day in our history (someone reading this please enlighten us all to the meaning of ‘red letter day’) To be able to have Josh introduce several of our resos BY NAME to Julie was quite something. I learned much from the occasion. Again, the resos were pretty excited by the visit.
- I presented about the work of Servants twice this week – once to Strathcona Year 9 campus, Tay Cragen (ok, spelling error to be sure) and once to the Victorian Quilter’s Guild. The talk to TC was good, the talk to VQG was nothing short of spectacular.
- Housing Blitz. This is the name that has been given by the Dept to their desire to give millions of bucks away to Housing Associations and Providers to help them put additional housing on the ground for women at risk of family violence. Amanda and I will be inspecting a property in the early part of the week ahead to see if it might be possible for us to house women at the site. Doubtless there will be significantly more details to follow here should we deem the site appropriate for our use.
- $5000. One of our supporters is the former CEO of a big Australian corporate. He looks after us by dropping money into our account on occasions. A few days days was the occasion of him depositing 5k into our account. Nice!! In other money news Hawthorn Community Chest informed me they will be providing us with 3k towards our Romana solar installation project. Oh yes, the Dept informed me that our application to them for $$$ for the solar installation has been approved.
- Budget. Warren, Isaac, Madeline, Amanda and I have now finalized the budget figures for 16/17. All will be revealed very shortly.
- Most of the above named people have been hammering away at the Business plan for 16/17 too.
- Low turnover at all the houses. Almost to the point of non-existence in fact!
- People are now starting to show significant interest in Team Servants ’16. The event is Sunday 24th July.
- Work on the roof/guttering at Carrical continues.
Even by our own standards this has been quite a few days ………………..
Romana announcement
The announcement at Romana on Tuesday will occur at 3.45pm. All welcome.
30th
Our Birthday party is now over – but the effects and outcomes of it will be seen long into the future. From my position as CEO I thought it was a stunning success. The feedback to date has been wonderful – most importantly of all the residents LOVED the occasion. We have yet to do an official count but it appears that slightly inxs of 1 in 3 current SCH resos attended the party. Ace!!
Connie, Madeline and I will be reviewing the occasion later this week.
Just over 800 bucks was donated to Servants on the night itself – not of course that it was about donations – but I guess all gifts help with the costs.
Thank you so much to all committee members and staff who contributed to making it such a special, celebratory evening. I would be really pleased to hear others reflections on the night – especially highlights.
The week’s happenings
There have been a few happenings this week – I mean, there always are of course ……… but here is a little for your edification.
- I attended a Philanthropy conference earlier this week. It was the first of this type I have attended in Melbourne, rather than Sydney. The content made me yawn. The networking was particularly good and I expect something of benefit to come forth as a result of this.
- Josh F and the $300K election promise – you all know about this already. We are all systems go for the official announcement next Tuesday arvo at Romana.
- Al, Ben and James – our new Housekeepers @ Romana – aka ‘The Boys’ – appear to be settling in to their new roles particularly well. It is very encouraging to see them in action.
- Amanda and I attended the Housing Registrar’s Forum today. Held twice annually it is normally spectacularly boring alongside being a chest-beating exercise for the Registrar. Today’s session was better than usual. My personal highlight was answering one of the questions correctly in the Registrar’s Quiz (Q. Which band wrote ‘Whiskey in The Jar?) Amanda and I used the post Forum session to talk with our regulator, Christine, re a couple of issues.
- As I think Warren might have informed you my wife, Isabel, is currently very unwell and in St. Vincent’s. Thank you to those committee members and staff who have supported me and my family to date thru this difficult time.
- I hear there is a small gathering to celebrate a significant birthday on Saturday night!! I hope it is a spectacular success!!
Josh F
Josh Frydenberg has been talking with me of late about our idea of creating a women’s only house. Much earlier in the year he inquired of the St John’s, Camberwell folk in regards to the potential use of their Old Vicarage for community housing purposes – like us he received a big, fat ‘not interested’ as the answer!
Josh called me late last week to ask if Servants would be happy for him to try to get some money to Servants for purposes of setting up some women’s only housing – a pre-election promise kind of arrangement. We talked it through a bit, I wrote his office a simple letter requesting some financial help to assist us in getting this project off the ground …………. and much to my surprise he phoned me today saying he had been approved to get $300,000 to Servants for this purpose ……… and he would like to have a media opportunity at Romana next Tuesday to announce this news alongside Julie Bishop – apparently she holds a fairly significant position, but I don’t know a lot about these things.
I confess to feeling more than a little out of my depth on this issue of politicians and $$$$. Warren and I have been talking through the scenario of receiving said money from Josh and we believe it to be an appropriate course of action.
I appreciate that there will be many questions that will require answering at committee level.
In the meantime Josh has asked that Servants keeps this info to ourselves for the time-being, and I think we should honor this request.
Visions
Some of you will know Visions Gym in Burwood Rd, Hawthorn (shameless plug here – it is such a well-priced gym and is almost completely devoid of the kind of morons one typically finds in most gyms) Visions has been very good to Servants over a number of years – providing us with free or as good as free exercise bikes and treadmills for the houses. They also sponsored our team shirt at last year’s Run Melbourne event. Over the past 12 months a handful of our resos have been given free memberships by Visions – one reso has particularly established a regime as a gym bunny. In the week just past 2 Carrical resos entered the hallowed, sweaty halls of the gym for the first time for their induction session. Both were thrilled to have been provided with such an opportunity (one had not done any gym work since he last holidayed at the pleasure of Her Majesty a few years back!!) As they both puffed on their after-gym-session cigarettes (well earned I’m sure!!) it was a delight to hear them talk about just having the opportunity to do something as simple as visit a gym because Servants can make it happen. I am sure many more resos will enter Visions in the coming months to work out. I see this as a small yet very significant example of the tangible add-ons we can bring into the lives our 89.
Roof
Exciting news from Carrical is that after MUCH delay the scaffold has been erected and maintenance on the roof/gutters etc will commence next Monday. Great news!!
Sunshine
I met with one of the Trustees from The Sunshine Foundation yesterday. I initially met this chap when he was a part of the LV WCLP last year. At that stage he encouraged Servants to apply to Sunshine for a small amount of funding – we asked for 6k for a new freezer for Romana – and they gave us 10k!!
I requested the meeting yesterday to talk about the Sunshine/Servants relationship moving forward. It was all very positive and we are certainly one of the charities that they are keen to support over the next few years. The chap was very interested in hearing more about to establish a women’s only house – and also agreed to help us with the ‘matching’ monies for the solar project at Romana.
Council types
The other day 3 Boroondara employees spent a couple of hours with me looking at our houses, talking with some of our resos and Housekeepers ……… and generally just wanted to clarify and confirm for themselves the good things they had head about Servants – which was nice!! They were from Safer Communities/Social Planning area of Council.
As an immediate result of their visit a speaking opportunity has arisen for me at Council later in the year.
I believe our reputation within Council at the present time is stronger than it has ever previously been – and I do not think we have ever struggled in this regard!
More ……….
Lisa, sister of Romana reso Jaimie, sent out a loooooong email to her friends and acquaintances about the journey of her brother – and asking said people to consider sponsoring Jaimie in Run Melbourne. The following paragraph is pretty glowing about SCH – please enjoy and be encouraged by it.
‘He’s raising funds for the wonderful community housing organisation where he lives, Servant’s. I shudder to think where we’d be at if they hadn’t of entered our lives. They provide him with so much more than just shelter: a genuine sense of community and belonging. Please consider sponsoring him, even a small amount helps and most importantly – it reminds him that there are people rooting for him. This is direct as charity gets!’
Elvis
Like Elvis before them ………… the Halls have left the building. The Romana building that is. What great service the Halls have given to Servants – as Housekeepers at both Carrical and Romana, both as committee members, Brian as Chair, various sub-committees and small groups and generally, well, just a great example to us all of what servanthood is all about.
Soooooooo, how did Matt and Amanda go about replacing them? First and foremost we recognized that finding another couple just like the Halls was not going to happen – so we looked to younger, single men. Three young men, Ben Palmer, Alan Morrison and James Turnbull have now moved into Romana and have commenced their tasks as Housekeepers. Ben and Al are already very well known to us (they have worked with us for years already and last year they managed Hamer together beautifully as the Donohoes took a break) whilst James is new to The Wonderful World of Servants. We are very much looking forward to seeing these guys make their mark upon Romana. They are moving in at an incredibly stable time in the life of the house. Please pray for these men as they commence their tasks at the house.
Off track
You might have seen on the news tonight the article about the tram coming off the tracks on High Street, Kew? This was close to Hamer. You perhaps saw one of our Hamer resos, Saade, being interviewed about the incident!! He certainly had a few minutes of fame today!!
Footy
2 nice stories to share from the recent round of AFL matches.
Ben Palmer, one of the 3 new Housekeepers at Hamer following the Halls’ departure, took Big Peter from Carrical to see Essendon play North Melbourne on Saturday arvo. That same evening one of the teachers from Trinity, Tom, took Phil from Romana (who talked at the recent Strategic Day) to see Richmond and the Swans.
Servants – creating community, being community, keeping the community in community housing.
Enjoy.
We recently took in a new reso to Hamer – Wayne. The text below is from an email I received today from his worker – I hope that this puts much wind in the collective sails of all who read Heartbeat. We know that our work is appreciated – but it it lovely when this is articulated.
Hi Matt,
Just wanted to say thanks again for housing Wayne. I think we are lucky and I am appreciative that places like Servants exist to provide housing for those who are experiencing disadvantage in our community. I hope Wayne is settling in nicely and all is well.
Kind regards
Greg Solomon
Caseworker
Flagstaff Crisis Accommodation – The Salvation Army
Baptcare
I had a meeting today with John Timmer, the Housing Development Manager of Baptcare Affordable Housing Ltd. These guys are, like us, a registered housing provider. They are a subsidiary or Baptcare. This meeting was in many ways a long time in the making.
The meeting proved thought provoking for me in terms of seeing how Servants/Baptcare/Baptcare Affordable Housing might benefit one another moving forwards.
30th Birthday Party
A reminder to all that the Servants 30th Birthday party is on the evening of Saturday 28th May at Hawthorn West Baptist Church.
It is 5.30 for a 6.00pm start. The formal part of the evening will be from 8.00 thru 8.30pm. Josh F’s office today confirmed that he will be our key guest speaker for the evening.
if you are intending on attending can I please ask you to ensure that you book tickets (no charge) at trybooking.com/LCSD This will greatly help us with quantities for catering.
This is an alcohol free event and children are most welcome.
OTG and Trinity in general.
Ok, listen up folks – it is far too painful to keep typing Old Trinity Grammarians. As of now I decree that it is OTG. If anyone in future asks me ‘what is this OTG caper all about old chap’ I will direct them back to this post and take it as conclusive evidence that they have failed to read said post!! I am keen at this point to type something about ‘rolling pins’ and ‘relentlessly beating people’ ….. but I won’t.
This evening I attended the monthly board meeting of OTG (You’ve got it! Good work!!) as a guest to talk about the burgeoning relationship between SCH and OTG/the broader Trinity community. I was particularly asking them to become involved in Team Servants ’16. The response was favorable.
On a slightly different Trinity angle – another group of Year 9 boys, 6 in total, visited Romana yesterday to host a lunchtime BBQ for/with our resos. These Monday gatherings are always fun and beneficial …….. but the gathering yesterday was one for the ages. I now regret not taking some happy snaps and posting them of the Servants Facebook page. The banter and the cross-pollination between the 2 groups was insanely good – just an incredibly special time. One of those occasions where it didn’t matter if you were a privileged schoolboy or a Servants reso – everybody was truly all the one. At moments such as these I feel incredibly blessed to do what I do for a living.
Women’s House update
A brief update of my progress in regards to the establishment of a women’s only Servants style house following our recent Strategic Planning Sunday.
In a word or two the response has been super positive. The Dept is supportive (not that this equates to cash, land or buildings!,) Boroondara Council are supportive (see comments re Dept!) and, perhaps most significantly, Judy Line CEO of Womens Housing Ltd (Big Housing Provider currently applying to become a Housing Association) thinks our proposed model is an excellent idea and will help to fill a significant gap in the market. There has also been some very positive feedback from the psych department of St. Vincent’s Hospital.
No, there is no great detail within what I have written above – but I trust that you will be encouraged by the response we have received to date. I am.
Thank you!!
A big THANK YOU to all committee members, Amanda and Madeline for your ‘above and beyond the call of duty’ weekend/Monday evening commitment to Servants.
Personally I thought Sunday was an absolute triumph of an occasion. I had been looking forward to the Strategy Day for weeks ….. and I was not disappointed. I feel very excited that we now have a very specific new housing venture to work towards.