Wednesday, 16 May 2007

Over the past few months, so much effort has gone into preparing for tonight’s meeting, so everything today was secondary to the launch of the Watford One World forum.

During the day, I chased up people to attend, I also talked to several groups about WCVS’s new membership arrangements, received a dozen or so e-mails back re: yesterday’s e-mailed newsletter, wrote to the One Watford LSP group with a paper on volunteering, wrote to WCVS with proposals on marketing, struggled and failed to sort out some technical problems in the Gents’ loo, and finalised arrangements for a briefing of WBC staff next month.

Did I really do all that today? Before the Lord Mayor’s Show?

The evening began very well. I was delighted to see Althea McLean OBE (one of my trustees) attending and also very pleased at the turnout from the Muslim Community Project and from elsewhere.

We were also joined by some people form Norwich and Norfolk Race Equality Council who have been commissioned by East of England CRE to prepare a report on setting up a new race equality organisation in Hertfordshire. Inevitably this stimulated interest and the short report stretched to nearly 40 minutes before I (from the chair) managed to move the meeting on without ruffling too many feathers.

But from that moment on, the meeting went absolutely swimmingly. There were lively discussions and my proposals suffered several amendment. But the changes were needed and this just went to show that people were engaged and gully committed to the new forum. There wasn’t a single note of discord. Vanessa (our Development and Training Officer) was magnificent and Althea’s experience proved invaluable.

Elections were held and officers are now taking up their posts. I have high hopes for this group playing a positive and high-profile role in Watford.

After the meeting, everyone was on a bit of a high and took time to disperse. I took the opportunity to talk with Latif Khan from the Muslim Community Project about the possibility of a voluntary sector event focused on building a better understanding with Islam. I hope to report more in this later.