Friday, 9 November 2009

I worked for an hour or two this morning on some correspondence and then headed off to a meeting on the new Integrated Youth Support Service for Hertfordshire. Pleasingly, this meeting was held at Breaks Youth Club in Hatfield, a place I last visited to play 5-a-side football when I was about 14.

The meeting was attended by about 100 youth works from across the County. The plans seem reasonably well thought out: within each of the county’s Districts and Boroughs, staff from all the disparate youth agencies will join together to create a single integrated local youth service. What could be more obviously sensible?

Apart from logistical issues, my only concerns were that young people don’t recognise local government boundaries (why should they?) and that creating a monolithic youth structure will tend to the further weakening of ties with voluntary sector projects, and the stiffling of local voluntary initiatives.

When I arrived back in Watford, Maria was just taking the 400 letters to the Post Office for onward dispatch. I had a meeting with our Connexions staff.

After the meeting, Maria reminded me that I still needed to write the letter to accompany the Community Directory’s distribution to local councillors and council officers. To do this, I naturally opened last night’s letter as a template and I was startled and shocked to read the first line of the letter: “Please find enclosed your complementary copy of Watford’s 2008 Community Directory.” Complementary? I thought. Complementary??!! Oh dear. And 400 copies of this latter have just been handed over to the Post Office? I felt so ashamed.

When I arrived home, Jackie had already completed her nightly walk. I have stopped accompanying her adn consequently I have remained large and slothful while Jackie is looking absolutely gorgeous. Later in the night, Jackie and I drove to the Lister Hospital in Stevenage where she had her heart palpitations explored. Needless to say, her heart behaved impeccably throughout the monitoring.

Later still, I finished reading Christian England Volume 1. This was an extremely interesting book, intertwining England’s military, political and theological history. It was hard work but very worthwhile. I wish I could retain all this lovely historical knowledge, but it almost immediately gets crowded out by new acronyms, government policy announcements and so on.