Chocolate as an approach to relieving the grieving

London is a lonely place, anyone who has moved here would tell you that. I've benefitted from being part of a team moving into a new place together and so not experienced loneliness as other might. The reason i mention this is because recently i've seen example of London's loneliness. One example is my team-mate. She had received some bad news through a letter and sat crying on a bus. In a bus full of people nobody approached to ask if she was okay. Even the person sat beside her showed no response to her emotion.

Then on the train last wednesday me and my friend Dan watched as girl said goodbye to her friends and then burst into tears as they walked off the train. Dan and I had been at a concert and on the way to the train picked up some chocolate. Dan asked me if we should offer the girl some to cheer her up. We were both so moved by her grief that we felt we had to do something (surely that's the natural human response!). So after a couple of minutes i took the kinder bueno out my pocket and approached the girl. As i got close i said "i see your upset so i wanted to give you this to cheer you up....it's both nutritious and delicious". The girl smiled and took the chocolate. I returned to my seat smiling. Me and Dan watched as she ate the chocolate and her grief turned to happiness. Once the chocolate had been consumed she turned to us and said "thankyou, that's cheered me up no end". It was a really nice moment.

Spontaneous good deeds is something we should all take the opportunity to do. Although it takes a small step on our part to overcome our inhibitions it has the potential to change someone's day. No one should ever sit on a bus and cry without being offered some form of reassurance. I hope that you agree with me.




Kinder Bueno: Now the chocolate bar associated with spontaneous good deeds......mmmmm

Hub House - Save the youngsters

I wanted to draw your attention to one of my webpage links. These can be found on the left hand side of this page under a section call 'places you wanna go see'. The specific link is entitled hub house and it outlines the centres plans to open up a state of the art youth centre. Pete the head youth worker is running the London Marathon to raise funds and he would value your support.

The youth centre when up and running will offer young people an internet radio station, a training suite, a meeting area and a beauty salon as a career opportunity. This youth hub will touch hundreds of young people lives. Your support would be greatly welcomed.

New experiences are a good thing but I wouldn't like to be hit by a car

If you ever want to experience something then come to London. I believe that the people responsible for advertising London around the world could really market the city with the slogan ‘experience everything in London’. Obviously that’s a weak statement because I’m not even sure of everything that there is to experience but I’m pretty sure that you can do it in London.

I’ve had experiences in London that I wouldn’t have gotten in Perth. For example eating Jamaican food (seriously it’s some of the best food I’ve ever had, jerk chicken or even just rice and peas with jerk sauce). Maybe that’s a bad example because someone in Perth could make Jamaican food. My point is that I’ve been opened up to so many different cultures and it’s a really wonderful experience. Often I sit on the bus into work and try to work out where the different languages being spoken are from.

The reason I’m writing about experiences is because I had a very new one yesterday. I was leaving the centre heading to the post office to post a letter (obviously! Although I could have been going for a chicken mayo baguette, only £1.99). As I fixed my headphones into my ears I looked up to see a car screech to a halt and man bounce up onto the bonnet and then smack onto the road. First onto the scene I pulled out my phone and called an ambulance. By the time I got through to the right people I was beside the man. He was conscious but obviously in real pain. It was really hard to speak to the emergency people because the traffic hadn’t stopped and the vehicles passing were really noisy. I explained to the man that I was calling an ambulance and they would be with us soon. The driver of the car was standing over the man looking very concerned. Another pedestrian had come running over when it happened and he began to speak to the injured man. He asked him where he felt pain etc. Within about two minutes of my call the Police, the Ambulance and the Fire Brigade joined us. I had to give a statement to the police about what I saw (from what people were saying the man had walked out in front of the car from behind a truck). I told them I only saw the collision.

The man was taken to hospital and we were reassured he would be fine. Then I went to the post office to post my letter and I was more careful than normal when I had to cross roads.

New years resolution failure

I never could do new years resolutions...and it seems a week in i've already failed to Blog everyday....

Yesterday we had a training session on group communication and in front of each other we had to present for 90seconds on a subject of our choice....I've always found talking in front of people fine but yesterday in front of my small team i couldn't. Not a very nice experience becuase i felt totally useless afterwards.....Perhaps it's becuase there are so many good publice speakers within Oasis and as a result you see yourself being able to reach a different level. I mean Steve Chalke is a great public speaker and i suppose that is what we're being asked to strive towards.

It was interesting to learn the traits of a good public speaker....one that makes eye contact with his audience, one that captures people's attention and one that uses stories and illustrations that people (young and old) can relate too. Dave our minister told us that these were essential skills for a church leader to have. Mainly to keep the church excited by it's vision.

After a visit to Church.co.uk one of my good friends once asked me a question. "If God is really so incredible and his word so wonderful, why do we need preachers and exciting speakers to sell the word?" Is it time to stop preaching, to change what church offers to people. To something active, something more community based....something that revolves around community and discussion and fellowship. Tea and coffee drinking and chatting. Minsiters as discussion prompters and carers. Encouraging people to meet and greet. Just a thought out loud becuase i think my friends got a point....I'm hoping i'll get some responses (gavin matthews).

Not always easy to be inlcusive

I'll set the scene. The coffee shop in the centre is contently quiet. A few people sit scattered at numerous tables. Some having meetings, some reading books and others sitting reflecting. I'm behind the counter cleaning cups and plates awaiting the next customer to arrive so i can put my coffee maker hat back on. I really enjoy being in the coffee shop becuase i get to meet lot's of people. I always feel that its an opportunity to encourage people to make this their regular coffee house. This i do by chatting to customers and smiling warmly....(i would like to think that the face of the centre is one that smiles).

Every so often the tranquility of the coffee shop is disturbed by what can only be described as a penniless poet. Indeed, this is what he calls himself. The penniless poet enters the coffee shop loudly and aggressively and sits himself down beside the nearest customers. Once there he begins to resite poetry that he has written himself (some of it's actually very good). The problem with the penniless poet is that he makes a nuisnace of himself. He doesn't do anything quietly. He doesn't let other people speak and he can be very aggressive and nasty.

The dillemma facing the centre is how we deal with the penniless poet. We want so badly to be able to offer this homeless man a place he can feel welcome but while he acts the way he does we can't allow him into the coffee shop. So every time he arrives we always have to get the police in to escort him out. It doesn't matter how hard we work to settle him or chat to him he always does something that puts the safety of the customers in jeopardy....It really breaks my heart to see him taken out by the police.

The penniless poet shows me that it's impossible to be completely inclusive becuase no matter what you plan to do somebody will always be excluded. However, this shouldn't hinder our attempts to be as inclusive as possible.....

A glimpse of sunshine on a cloudy day

I’m sure we all experience the moments where a small incident can change a bad day into a good day. I don’t know what you call those small moments but they’re wonderful. Today I had such an experience. Struggling to motivate myself on a slow Wednesday afternoon I groaned at the thought of doing kids club. I couldn’t understand why I felt so unenthusiastic because I love kids work. When the first kid arrived he came straight to me (F – you might remember him from past stories). Leaping and bounding he had one thing on his mind….Football. He grabbed my arm and we went through to the theatre of dreams that is the centres sports hall. Half an hour later and a full five-on-five football match was in swing. Me the oldest and tallest joined by nine 10year old boys in a game that made me so thankful to have the privilege of working in such an environment. It was an honour to be playing football with these boys.

Now I cant quite pinpoint when my attitude changed during that day but whenever it happened it’s a moment that is going to keep me motivated for a whole term.

2007 - a new era for this Blog

My new years resolution is to Blog something everyday. Whether it’s just a paragraph on what I’ve done that day or a paragraph discussing the finer points of ‘inclusion in 2007’, I really want to update the Blog regularly. I think this will help people to get a greater understanding of my work in London.

I have a feeling that by updating my blog more regularly my work will seem less glamorous and more real life. Perhaps you’ll come to realise that I’m actually the tea boy for Oasis. Or worse, realise that I never actually do any work and this blog is filled with other peoples’ stories. Upon refection that isn’t actually a bad thought because I would love to be able to share other people’s stories. It’s a severe reality that many people leave this earth without ever having been able to tell their story. In this next term of work I really want to push on with the drop-in advocacy/support/advice service. Its development will allow the centre to offer a service for the excluded - Those people who haven’t had the chance to tell their life story.

One thing I’ve experienced in all my work with homeless men is that they love to talk about their lives. As a young trainee Social Worker (how old are you Andrew?) I was in the mindset that it was my job to provide the answers for people. This meant I probably never really gave the guys I worked with the opportunity just to talk. By allowing them space to speak it probably would have created a more honest and natural relationship. Three years on I feel really strongly about allowing people the opportunity to tell their story. Whether realistically this is always possible I’ll find out. What I know for certain is that people benefit from an unconditional ear that listens for no other reason than to enjoy a person’s life story.