On the Road Again

I am blogging “out of sequence” as it were as quite a lot has been happening since my last update. My travels take me to Southend to be briefed by the Southend Community Foundation about a fund they have established to encourage local giving. This is helpful because I am seeking to develop something similar for Hastings. I drive over with Alan our volunteer who has an impressive CV as a senior communications expert with the post office as well as a history of editing local and regional newspapers. He brings both a good range of skills and a healthy objective which we will find useful. He also quotes REM songs which puts him a few notches up on the credibility scale as well. We are shown into a hugely impressive building which is the headquarters of one of the Foundations major Donors – part of the Olympus Group which make specialist medical equipment. A building custom designed for the needs of the people who work in it with lots of intelligent little features to make their lives easier and create little designed corners and areas for meetings or conversations to take place. A useful briefing takes place at which we hear about the do’s and don’ts of how they went about developing a local fund. I return to Hastings in time to dash to an AGM of one of our members which I had agreed to chair.