Thursday, 21 December 2006

The Shortest Day

The weather was milder, but the fog persists causing havoc at Heathrow Airport where flights have again been cancelled. Fortunately Bobby and his mother have already escaped to America for Xmas. Few cars are on the roads and my journey into work was easy-peasy.

At 8:30, Sue was already in the office beginning to review the accounts and taking a call from the Police who are keen to recruit more volunteers.

A surprise visit

My work on accommodation was interrupted by Kim (our WBC grants officer) who hovered at my door expectantly. It slowly dawned on me that she and I must have a meeting. I knew nothing of this meeting, but recognise that this was probably my own oversight. Anyway, I was not otherwise committed so Kim and I talked through the detail of WCVS’s three-year “Service Level Agreement”.

WCVS’s Strategic Plan pretty much spells out everything we want to do, so the meeting was very productive. We identified lots of ways in which WCVS and WBC can work effectively together.

The main headings were:
· Updating the Watford Compact
· Developing local strategies for voluntary sector accommodation, fundraising, and quality assurance
· Working with WBC to restructure their grant and monitoring arrangements
· Working with WBC to restructure local arrangements for consultation and community engagement
· Supporting our members on quality assurance, training and fundraising

Of course we also discussed WCVS’s own accommodation needs, and other issues over WBC funding of some voluntary organisation. We exchanged xmas greetings and agreed to meet again in the new year.

Woodside Community Centre

In the afternoon, I returned to work on our report detailing the likely impact of WBC’s proposals for rationalising the basis of voluntary sector leases. Then I met with Daniel and Anne from the Woodside Community Centre: an unincorporated group that is only just breaking even but is providing a focus for much community activity including a pre-school group, football team, pensioners' group, bingo and darts. They are concerned that the Council’s lease proposals could force them to close down just as they approach their fiftieth anniversary early in 2007.

Given the turnover of committee members at the club, no-one there seems to have a copy of the current or most recent lease and there is some disagreement over who actually has the title to the building. I spoke with Tim at WBC who kindly agreed to send over copies of the relevant paperwork and Daniel and I agreed to meet again the following day.

After this, I caught up with some correspondence, including with the lawyer who has offered to provide pro bono advice for local charities.

Clubbishness

I love books. But I rarely buy books new: second-hand books have been a passion of mine since childhood. It comes from having a librarian as a father. Outside Charring Cross Road, Hay-on-Wye and a few provincial exceptions, second-hand bookshops seem to be a thing of the past. But just a few paces from the WCVS offices there are half a dozen charity shops each with a good selection of second-hand books. Occasionally I visit the library, but more often than not this turns out to be an expensive exercise when I receive reminders telling me to return books and pay a hefty fine (last time £6:50 for two overdue books on the seventeenth century witch-hunts in East Anglia). So charity shops are undoubtedly the best option, and I am also pretty good at recycling books (returning them to be resold) before they take over the house entirely. Although Jackie and the kids may dispute this.

This evening I began reading The Sunday Philosophy Club by Alexander McCall Smith. I didn’t get far. Set in Edinburgh, the story seemed to focus on a single middle-class woman who witnesses a murder at the Opera (lots of in-jokes and “U” references to singers and composers about which I know nothing). The following morning, she patronises her quaint savant working-class cleaner, visits her niece (who runs a swish coffee bar), and then returns home to have a sleep in the afternoon. I am not a class warrior by any means, but this had me longing for revolution. Strangely, I am quite tolerant of this sort of thing in Victorian and Edwardian literature. Or perhaps it’s because the leading character in this book was a woman? Or Scottish? I worried about my prejudices. Jackie as ever set me straight: “Life’s too short. If you don’t like it just move on”. Perhaps it was just her lovely way of telling me to shut up.

Instead I picked up The Rotters Club by Jonathan Coe. At first, this wasn’t promising either (the introduction featured some highly eccentric punctuation) but I persevered, and was amply rewarded: punctuation returned to normal and a well-written story developed about working-class school children in the 1970s (lots of in-jokes and “U” references to bands I remember rather well). U and Non-U just depend on where you stand.