Hastings Comes to Terms With Itself

Much of the tone of this blog has been fairly light hearted commenting on happenings in the community sector in Hastings. None of that today, as the whole town is coming to terms with a truly awful incident in which a visiting language student from Qatar was killed over the weekend.

There is huge media interest and some of the early reporting was wildly inaccurate. A racist incident in or outside a kebab house led to a chase and then, depending on which report you read, a serious assault or a fatal fall. There is much debate about whether there is a problem with racism in the Town. In terms of the majority of people I would say absolutely not but there is an under-belly of the most awful racism and xenophobia in the Town which shows its ugly face from time to time. When we used to publish BME News I used to get personal racist hate-mail and there is clearly a number of hard-core racists out there. The BNP target Hastings during election periods and at the last election they gained a higher proportion of the vote than during previous times. There is also a lot of grief faced by ethnic workers in fast food outlets and late night garages. A little while ago I called for the kebab houses and fast food outlets to be embraced by the Council's Bar Watch ("banned from one banned from all") to show solidarity with those who run and work in them. This was being 'looked into'.

As far as the future is concerned I sometimes think that it is a time for honesty an realism and for the Town to come to terms with what this all means. There is much political denial defending the Town against the media claims made about it which, I guess, is appropriate. But in this there is also a need to face the facts and I am reminded of a comment made about bullying in schools - simply put, it asserted that a school which took a view that bullying "doesn't happen here" simply became a delay to the problem being addressed.

Thanks for reading - now watch this...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-mB3pDYTne0

Van the Man

A quick update to say that I have been neglectful of my blog because I am that busy I make the winner of the 100m meters in the Olympics look slow, wasn't he incredible. WOnderful to watch and it just seemed so effortless. ANyway today has been business planning for the new building arranging cover for a colleague who won't be with us for a while, signing off the BASIS bid and attending a meeting nof the Executive Delivery Vehicle the monthly meeting of all the Chief Executives from the main agencies. I find myself in the unusual position of agreeing with Roy Mawford the Borough Councils CHief Executive on a couple of issues. This must mean I am either getting soft or he is. Answerson a postcard please. We also receive our business consultant to help with the planning for the new building. Apart from that I complete a monitoring form for an evbaluation meeting I have next week for one of our projects and generally catch up with people. I also show willing by folding the newletter with colleagues and generally catch up. Adam - who used to work from HVA on the ICT side joins us and is pursuaded to fold for a while.

I run the country park this morning to the sounds of a fantastic live album from Van Morrison - I am not generally a huge fan of Van and Man as it were but Nothing can stop us if a wonderful album which you should hear. Here is an extract from the same tour http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SP60n9v2YM

So Easy (not)

It's been a little while since I posted some music for you all to listen to so hear is a track "So Easy" by Royksopp - a Norwegian electronic band (I say band but there are only 2 of them) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu684V2lB3Q&feature=related. It has no meaning apart from the fact that this was the music that accompanied my morning run over Hastings Country Park and has been in my head all day. Today we press on with the business plan for the Community Asset Transfer and I make contact with Carl from Barking and Dagenham CVS who is in a similar position to us. ALso going through the Community Strategy refresh process at the LSP Officers group. I also brief the manager of the Towns services for Migrants about the Councils commissioning process and how the advice agencies can strengthen their role. It is a useful discussion.

Worth the effort

I am a little out of sequence in my chronology but I must tell you about my recent day out with members of the Saxon Mount Youth project. Regular readers of this blog will be aware that for the last 2 years I have run the Hastings marathon to support this initiative providing a youth club for young people with special needs. This time we raised over £500 for young people to choose something they wanted to do. Thjey decided that a day out to Chessington World of Adventures and this was duly planned. Unfortunately it was the only day in a 2 week period during which it chose to absolutely tip dsown with rain. From dawn til dusk without a break. Even the staff were dressed in wet weather gear and looked miserable as they staffed the rides. The young people themselves decided that a little bit of (torrential) rain was not going to spoil their fun and proceeded to act as if it were a summers day. They had a great time and many young people achieved "firsts" - these are little tasks which increase confidence or improve skills in dealing with situations young people find difficult. All in all a really good day and well worth the marathon effort.

Getting the message out...

There is usually a paralell between how busy I am and how often I get a chance to update the blog. My service to you, dear reader, has been shoddy of late because of the sheer volume of work I am tryiong to wade through at the moment. Highlights recently have included the HVA Board meeting, 2 audits, cover for the Health and Social Care Forum, the reprovisioning of a local day centre (where we have been trying to support VCS tendering) our own relocation proposals. And, of course the day to day round of e-mails faxes and conversations which try and keep the place ticking along in a coherent fashion. We were also trying to fit in a crazy gold challange with the Hastings Trust and an Old Town History Walk but they were victims of our general business and will have to be rescheduled.

I also volunteered to assess a Duke of Edinburgh expedition around the countryside near Jevington which took up much of Saturday and Sunday.

I have written an article about this blog which now features as part of NAVCA's (our national association) review of good practice. I have always thought about writing up the impact of this blog and some of the effect it could have. So if you are a visitor to this site as a result of reader CIRCULATION then a hearty welcome to you. We have also been meeting with the new providers of a Hate Crime Support Service (supporting victims rather than perpetrators of course). When they visitors one of them mentioned how much he enjoyed reading the blog. You will understand why they were promised our full cooperation and support. Apart from that Jill (HVAs depuity director) is in the midst of producing a BASIS bid to strengthen activity around financial advice and funding support. This build on some of our existing work but rolls out the model accross the whole of East Sussex. Consortium or partnership bids are often the most problematic as they require much discussion and the building of real consensus. For myself I am beginning to complete the business plan for our new building which is going to take some time. We have only recently received the drawings from our architects which will then allow us to see the kind of spaces we are looking at and the kinds of rent they might go for. We are trying to achieve a balance between viability and affordability so the margins will always be tight. This is one call we have to get right so worth putting some time into it.

I must close by mentioning an engagement I attended over the weekend which was the official opening of the History House in the Old Town. This new history centre has been developed almost entirely by voluntary effort under the umberella of the Old Town Preservation Society good to see a packed venue for its opening.