Monday, 22 January 2007

Getting through the day

I made it to work ok despite the distressing events of the weekend.

First thing, Anne (Funding Advisor) and Vanessa (Development and Training) gave me a final briefing on our Reaching Communities bid. At 1:00 am I had my telephone interview on this bid with the lady from the Big Lottery. I think she was impressed by the application and I think she had a good grasp of the project's importance for Watford. But this may have just been wishful thinking on my part. She concluded the interview by saying that our application now has approximately a 20% chance of final approval, and that we should learn the project’s fate sometime in early April.

Before this interview, I met with Heather from the new Hertfordshire PCTs whose current role is to identify ways that the NHS in Hertfordshire can work with the voluntary sector. I pointed out that Herts PCTs had signed up for the Herts Compact and then largely disregarded it, that they did not attend Compact meetings and rarely engaged in other cross-sector forums, and that they were generally very poor communicators. And yet when it suited them they still expected to use the vountary sector as unpaid consultants and pollsters.

Heather has a good voluntary sector background and she knew all of this. She did leave promising to try and make sure the PCTs were represented at the forthcoming Herts Compact meeting.

At sometime during the day, I also met with Helen (to push her Annual Review one step closer to completion) and Anne to discuss some forthcoming conferences and so on.

I made it through the day ok and avoided any unseemly blubbing.

Humanist ceremony

I left the office about 2:00 and hurried off to meet with my Mum and brother Jez to discuss arrangements for Dad’s funeral. Mum wants a Humanist ceremony and she has some very good ideas for it. Jez and I, and I think everyone else in the family, will thoroughly approve. I think I will enjoy the day.

Mum is coping very well, but I am a bit worried for her. My eldest brother Bill was born in 1956. I was the youngest and I left home in 1980, after which Mum was left caring for Caroline, my disabled sister. Caroline went into residential care in 1990, after which Mum raised Caroline's son Andrew (born in 1988). Around the same time, Mum also cared for her own mother, and then shortly after Gran died, my Dad was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. In short, Mum has devoted half a century to caring for others. I am worried that she may have difficulty now she has only herself to care for. I hope she enjoys it.