23:15 Take the prayer update Trudie emailed and update the web site with the information. (30 minutes)
09:15 Arrive, give Trudie and Andy a quick greeting, and start opening the pile of post in my tray. Have opened all but 'Regeneration and Renewal' and the NCVO monthly magazine when...
10:30 Prayer time in the Coffee Shop. It's a good start to the day in the shop - people are praying fervently and wanting to hear God speak and work through us today. Take down some more Daily Record sheets and Cold Weather leaflets.
11:00 Start replying to the post. When the most urgent items are done, download the email and receive 63 items. Jayne brings up the sheets from last week, including the first 'Essential Check List' cleaning records. They show we missed several days, but at least it shows that we did some cleaning. We have agreed that Jayne will bring me a menu covering the next two weeks in the Coffee Shop every Monday morning. This week, she remembers that she has not prepared it, which is progress. Add the Daily Records to the spreadsheet. Update from Sam about last week. Maintain Jayne's holiday record sheet. Conversation with Trudie: partly an update on what I've missed, and partly exploring how we can get on with our work and involve other people so they can grow through the experience... which is our work, in many ways, but is impossible to measure in terms of achievement, numbers or throughput. Talk with Doug from GroceryAid on the phone: he is upset because I wrote in a letter to his head office that we are given items we don't want. He flatly denies it. The trouble is, everyone who has used the service (not just people from CCM!) tells me the same story: it is almost impossible to say no if he wants you to have something. Start to prepare some notes for the meeting tonight. Update Trudie's draft agenda.
14:30 Go for a walk, pray and a bite of lunch.
15:20 Check Ann's progress in the basement. Back upstairs, finish notes for tonight.
15:30 Talk with Jill T, arrange to see her before the meeting. From several conversations today, it is clear that we need to clarify the role and expectations of people working as Duty Managers in the coffee Shop, so I start to update the guidance notes for them. It's a major task, as we have talked about numerous things relating to their role in Team Meetings, Volunteer Meetings and various other ad-hoc gatherings since the notes were last updated in June last year.
17:30 Work through the draft agenda with Jill, and agree several changes.
18:00 Management Meeting.
19:30 Trudie, Sue and I join the Prayer Meeting while the Management continue. Sue disappears with martin at some point. It is an excellent time of prayer: encouraging, challenging and stimulating.
21:00 Share a cup of coffee, talking and relaxing after the prayer.
21:30 Wash up the mugs from the Management Meeting, then continue to work on the Notes for Duty Managers.
23:15 Go home. (13 hours today, 13.5 this week)
09:30 Arrive after dropping the car at the garage and walking in. Check the post, download the email, dash off a couple of quick replies, and continue working on the Duty Manager Notes.
10:00 Martin comes in and talks about the decision of the Management last night. They want to make me a permanent member of staff from 1 April, working 5 days a week, and no decision was made about the training at Spurgeons. Can't work out why they don't want me to be working 5 days a week during March.
10:15 Paul Thaxter and a couple of his colleagues arrive. Offer them a drink. They go through and say hello to Jayne, Sam and Martin.
10:20 Phone Peter Kay as promised to talk about a prayer meeting he is arranging for St Pauls on Saturday 23 March, 7:30pm at Ivy Church.
10:25 Spend time with Paul and his friends instead of joining Sam and Jayne in the Coffee Shop - they have to catch a train soon, and have little time. Paul is glad to catch up on what has been happening, and seems pleased with they way he finds things. Thinks the office swap was a great idea. One of the chaps present is doing the MTh in Applied Theology at Spurgeons, and Paul is planning to start in September. They both strongly encourage me to sign up, as the content and structure of the course is designed for ministries like this.
11:00 Back to the paperwork. Start to work through some financial figures from Martin.
12:10 Lunch with the LITE Course - they have been cooking with Gill Luxford and we have a wonderful spread of baked potatoes, fillings and salad.
12:50 A client has self-harmed again, this time more serious than last, with serious bleeding and deep cuts. Bandage wounds, and spend some time talking and praying. He agrees to go to casualty, so we walk down together and wait for him to be seen. The waiting room is a good place to talk, since I can't afford to open up deep counselling needs here and now.
15:00 On the way back from the hospital, drop in to the bank and pay in around £640 worth of cheques. Use the time walking to pray.
15:20 Paperwork again. Rod has gone, so answering the phone. Talk with Jayne about the shopping we need for the Coffee Shop and planning ahead for it. She promises to let me have the menus on Monday morning. One message from Medina of Caring at Christmas: she would like some notes on staff reviews and supervisions. Email my notes to her.
16:30 Leave to pick up car from garage. (7 hours today, 20.5 this week)
(I have a weekly prayer meeting on Tuesday evenings, 18:00-19:30 where we pray for the Crisis Centre and I usually do some bits of CCM business with Anni and/or some of our volunteers, but traditionally have not counted this as part of my CCM hours).
09:15 Arrive, check the post. Quick reply to one letter.
09:30 Staff prayer meeting with Trudie and Andy. Sam joins us around 09:50.
10:30 Team Meeting
12:30 Start to work on some actions from the meeting, check the email. Download an offer of help in the coffee shop via the web site. Phone to arrange transport for meeting at Pendennis Evangelical tomorrow night.
13:00 Bridgehead Lunch.
16:00 Sit down to write diary. Sam comes in to talk about the death this weekend of a mutual friend. Trudie goes out to let people in to her mother's flat. Several minor phone calls.
16:50 Naomi Knapp arrives to do some evangelism, wants to collect some meal vouchers.
17:00 Phone GroceryAid. The person I want to speak with is not in today, and the office closes at 5 anyway. I've now made some kind of response to all but around 5 or 6 of the items of post waiting for me on Monday, although several of the replies need some follow-up. Start to do some filing. Read about half of a report on Cannabis distributed by ISR.
18:30 Leave. Spend half hour on the bus reading the rest of the report on Cannabis. (9.5 hours, 30 this week)
09:15 Arrive, check the post. Deal with a few items, but the rest has to wait. Send an email to Derek with several pieces of news and questions. Phone call to Martin Spink about the next BCAN Homeless Forum meeting. Before I leave, set the computer backup going.
10:30 Off to Pip'n'Jay (late) for a briefing on 'Freedom in Christ' - a ministry that sounds very relevant to us and our clients, which will be running a 3 day seminar in Bristol in April. There were several very powerful testimonies. Plan to talk about this with the team next Wednesday, and probably bring something to the next Management meeting.
12:30 Bristol EA lunch and speaker. Time for networking: several useful chats with Peter Kay, Andrew Kellett and a few others. Then a speaker talking about supporting marriages, which is of marginal relevance to us but he was an old acquaintance which was good to renew.
14:30 Back to the office. The backup failed: I didn't check there was enough room on the Zip disk. Start dealing with the most urgent outstanding items. Anthony - one of our regulars - has been sent to prison. Reports vary from 6 months to 18 months to 6 years. We are trying to support Vicky, his partner, who has (or, at least, reports!) several problems as a result of his incarceration. Several phone calls, one of whom is Richard Reddrop from Emmaus Bristol, who came and spoke with us about fundraising some 15 months ago. Richard is very interested in the next BCAN Homeless Forum meeting, and he is part of the Sheltered Housing Forum, which I need to find out more about. Will try and book a meeting by email later. Update the Project List. Foolishly try to do something on the computer while the backup runs, and the whole thing locks up. Recover the 'lost' document in time to shut up and go home.
16:45 Leave.
19:00 Leave home for Pendennis Evangelical. Very warm welcome from the ladies' group there, spend about 75 minutes talking with them, and receive a £45 gift. One of the ladies present has a brother who is an addict, so it was very relevant and helpful to her.
22:00 Arrive home again. (10.5 hours, 40.5 this week)
09:15 Arrive, check the post: one gift for over £1600. Do an initial trawl through the accumulated items in my in tray from yesterday. Start to update this diary. Trudie comes in and we start talking about using Paul G as a volunteer in the Coffee Shop. David Jeanerette comes in: we need a dehumidifier in the basement, and he has found one that is good value. He has been planning to tithe to us, so he offers to buy it. He is planning to help at the Salvation Army with their IT training, and then to offer something similar [...] on says the Salvation Army don't run their course. Trudie and I continue our conversation about Paul G and some of the issues raised: we may want to introduce an explicit new category of 'helper' - someone who is more than a client but trusted less than a volunteer.
10:50 Jayne comes in: Paul has been to the hospital and had his inspection. Not as traumatic as he had feared. Talk some more with Jayne about GroceryAid, what we get or don't get from them, and whether the insulated boxes we have at present are adequate for their standards. We talk about shopping and planning ahead. Jayne promises to have a menu covering two weeks for the Coffee Shop to give me on Monday morning. Start updating the Action List from the Team Meeting.
13:30 Lunch.
14:30 Back to the Action List. Spend some time with Trudie talking about how we can use our time in Team Meetings more effectively. We will try getting everyone to agree dates for each action, and only chase them in the meeting when they are overdue... I think this policy will have to be applied very carefully, as we need to be careful some things do not go overdue. But in general it might work. A phone call clarifies some confusing aspects of what happened with meal vouchers last week, and sparks a conversation about what we should be doing with meal vouchers and outreach meal vouchers - the situation is a bit complex following a meeting with a few volunteers and Duty Managers back in January. We need to prepare some outreach meal vouchers for the people in the shop tonight. Go back to updating the Notes for Duty Managers in the light of conversations in the Team Meeting and subsequent. Refill the Green File in Coffee Shop. Wash up.
18:30 Leave. (8.25 hours, 48.75 this week)
Crisis Centre