Friday, 6 July 2007

For a month or more I have known that July will be a busy month. So it is proving. This has been an exhausting week and still I have not been able to devote sufficient time to our application for Basis funding. This does not auger well for a relaxing family weekend. Fortunately, Vanessa and Anne have done a brilliant job of reviewing my work to date and identifying errors and omissions; my work completing a first draft ought therefore to be correspondingly more easy. But nothing can actually make it a productive exercise (except of course in the very important sense of generating money).

There are many brain-numbing paper exercises involved in running a CVS. The most pleasant parts of the job relate to building contacts with people and working with networks. Today I had a call from a lady called Catherine who will soon be a Governor of the new Herts Partnership Trust for Mental Health. It was very useful to hear about emerging gaps in mental health provision, and opportunities for filling the gaps. Catherine suggested a meeting of local voluntary sector groups who might be interested and I was pleased to be able to say that we would try to help.

Elsewhere, our new Finance and Administration Officer seems to be getting to grips with things.

Recent reading (I know you're interested)

I finished The God Delusion. This was home ground for me. Generally speaking I think Richard Dawkins’s rudeness and aggression are exaggerated, although even his own mother would hesitate to call him “charming”. He does himself few favours, but he is quite capable of looking out for himself. And atheism will surely survive him. As will religion.

I then began reading the Centenary History of the St John’s Ambulance Brigade published sometime around 1980 (I forget exactly). This is a marvellous organisation, but an awful book. I gave up reading on p50 when I realised that the most plebeian character featured had been a Brigadier General. It had otherwise been a relentless tedium of Lords and Ladies and Princes, who simply willed things to happen and the ordinary little people somehow just knew what was expected of them.

Currently I am enjoying The Travels of Marco Polo.