Keep Moving

It has felt like a tough week, partly self-inflicted as I took Wednesday off to undertake some interviews with clergy about their approach to pastoral care - being the subject of my MA Theology dissertation due in by the end of May.  I suspect this may not be of great interest to most readers, though to me its fascinating, so I will move on. I have to be quick as I have 5 key tasks to achieve today, of which this blog is the first, so it feels quite intense (the penalty for taking a day off!)

On Monday we embarked on a process of reviewing and updating our website, recognizing that it is our “shop window” and needs constant improvement.

That evening I went to Banstead Youth Centre to meet my co-presenter at the Celebration of Youth. She is a youth leader at the centre, and has given endless hours of volunteering, and is keen to study film at university. Come and see us in action on Sat 24 March at 4.00pm at the Celebration of Youth at Esher High School !

I have been drafting our Business Plan for next year to go to Trustees on 24 April, and prior to that for discussion with the team on Monday. It will then form the basis for discussion at my own annual appraisal by my Chairman and Vice–Chairman next week. The key theme I am suggesting is one of “Keep Going!”. There are of course lots of pitfalls, but we have to move forward and focus on what we can control, and not on what might happen.

I had a really exciting discussion with a colleague from Oxfordshire Council for Voluntary Youth Services, who is doing brilliant things on a nominal 3 days a week of time, including having great success in recruiting able (graduate level) volunteers into working at OCVYS, and brilliant work with social enterprises. Very impressive.  I do think that time spent in finding out other people’s good ideas (“networking”) is time well spent if at least one good idea comes across. 

The National Citizenship Scheme is coming into Surrey this summer, piloted by the Government funded organisation called “The Challenge” who have been in touch this week.  It will be interesting to see if this has an impact on DoE numbers.

I am looking forward to a late afternoon discussion today about a social finance project which I hope can be moved forward now.

Enjoy the last rugby match of the Six Nations (5.00pm Saturday), and of course Mothering Sunday!

Mike