Nothing if not varied

A pretty random day full of appointments. Firstly a discussion and review of our porposed commissioning response to the Borough Council which will need to be in shortly. Thereafter it is an induction visit with the Councils new Community Cohesion Officer where we discuss this important and sensitive area of work and ways of apporaching it in light of recent and tragic events in the Town. Then it is onto a health workshop where we discuss the best way of interfacing the services of the new walk in medical centre planned for the Town and related VCS support services like alcohol drugs and debt counselling. This is a difficult one as GPs have so little time and referall pathways need to be spot on. We make some progress and the convenor of the workshop makies a special trip to HVA to thank us for our involvement later in the day so we must have given good value. I also review a few cases with members of the team who are supporting groups at various critical phases of development. I then call in at a couple of placements where a couple of our volunteering passport students are based. I enjoy a conversation with a group of volunters who run a charity shop about how and why they got involved. I am considering writing up some of these stories for the UN International. Volunteering Day. Tonight I am supposed to be doing a 7 mile run as part of my marathon training but I seem to have picked up some kind of virus on the place back from Greece so how far I actually get may be open to question.

Keep the faith

It has been what you may call a challanging week all round. The economy is in freefall and the bankers and city people all look like the preverbial is about to hit the fan big time. Workwise I am covering the bases and speak at the launch of a local inter-faith forum. I am genuinely touched by the ffort everyone makes to bring this off and meet moslems, christians, buddhists students from the international village with everyone learning and really enjoying the experience. I was a little nervous, being something of a heathen but I talk about the values that underpin all the major faiths - a kind of doctrinal DNA if you will. It seems to be well received. On the work front I am in the middle of a squabble with the local authority and its Director of Regeneration and Planning. We met for a drink and are now squaring up to each other in writing about some transitional funding arrangements which were - or were not - agreed some months ago. I hate this kind of exchange but hope we can focus on the future in a way that is constructive. Actually, the Director in question is someone I rather like and it seems a bit odd to be "at odds" with each other on this one. Anyway despite our frequent allegations of compact breaches and exchange of e-mails I dedicate this rather lovely number from a jazz festival to the spirit of comon sense. I give you...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89nKf1zCSfc

And Off It Goes

Today is stage 2 of the looming lottery deadline. I awake to 8 urgent messages on my mobile phone from our property lawyer. He has deeds of transfer leases and partnership agreements for me to review and is worried because his server went down and caused a significant delay. So I spend the day reviewing, raising questions and writing confirmation letters to get everything moving. In the meantime, Glyn our contact at the Borough Council (who incidentally has been brilliant throughout) coordinates planning permissions, architects drawings and suchlike.

Apart from that I provide an induction briefing to the Brighton Housing Trust who are envisaging some work in the Hastings area and are launching a training project. I then sit down with one of the mental health bridgebuilder team who is about to embark on a community development degree - then it is a planning meeting about a fund we are seeking to establish to encourage corporate giving. A brief catch up with messages and the most urgent faxes and e-mails and on the practical side a visit to the bank to get petty cash to keep it all ticking over. In recognition of the enormous work undertaken by Glyn I drop off a bottle of wine as a small token of our thanks. On my way the first Death in Vegas album screams out at me to be bought for a mere 85p from the Shelter Charity shop. I listen to its dynamic and diverse beats as I write this.

In the meantime it is now 5pm and our lottery plans are now on their way to Newcastle - all should be well as I signed it with my lucky pen!!!

Talking of lottery check this out...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XJReSZKKGNw

Today's the day

My working life has been revolving round keeping the general plate spining going and also working to submit a detailed business plan for the Community Asset Transfer project. Well today was the day and I dutifully hand over the plan to Glyn from the council who is our partner on the project. By the end I was pretty sick of the sight of the thing and anyone who menitons service charges rental footage or business rates to me over the next week gets smacked in the mouth. Apart from that I chair a team meeting and advise one of the companies who are bidding for the new medical centre about how to build relationships with voluntary organisations in a coherent fashion. Then onto a discussion about the community bridgebuilder project and then back to the e-mails that could not wait.

I decide to celebrate by buying myself a big piece of steak to cook only to find that the butchers/greengrocers ion the Old Town is now closed down. Here in Hastings Old Town we can buy lots of arts and crafts but not, apparently a pork chop! There is now no local butcher which is a shame as my hopes of a steak disappear and the only thing to eat is some vegetarian bolognnaise. I put on some running gear and stride out to the Marina Pavilian and back to the sounds of a new Dubstep podcast I have subscribed to be. Dubstep beiong, of course, the best music to run to as I am discovering. Maybe something about the beat replicating the heart-beat I guess.

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.