Did I say daily blog?
I’m sure I meant weekly…
Yes, tonight I’m thinking, “Yay I’ll be in bed before 10:30!” and then I remember that I need to write something about Hardie Park…because I promised I would.
So again, tonight’s instalment will be devoid of frills, cutting humour and reflective wisdom and get to the nitty gritty.
Today was another beautiful day, hot and sunny…and the park was strangely quiet. Tony (our sparky) and Liz (Director and sparky’s wife) were doing a few bits in the building and Toyah and Vicki were on sweet selling duty. I was called down to have a chat with a guy called Mark who gave us some advice on our sewerage situation (the situation being we don’t know where the nearest drain is and neither do Anglian Water).
So the rest of the day’s focus was Volunteers.
We have been granted £5000 from Thurrock CVS for the next 12 months to develop our volunteer scheme, so Toyah and I made a start on the application forms and volunteer hours record forms that everyone who joins us can complete to help us prove the impact the volunteering is having.
The three main outcomes of our funding bid are:
- To help local people with low skills to obtain professional qualifications in running a business, managing a cafe, catering, grounds maintenance, horticulture and bike maintenance.
- To actively engage 50 volunteers in the park in order to manage the park effectively within one year.
- To create a part-time paid position for a Centre/ Volunteer Co-ordinator.
It is our aim to recruit volunteers who work in the cafe/park and gain qualifications so that they can go on to first-time employment or a better job.
So would you be interested in being involved with that? Maybe you could do with learning some new skills? Or even better maybe you have skills to teach others? Either way, your help and support as a volunteer will always be greatly appreciated and will make a massive difference.
Tomorrow I will publish some photos of the building so far from 1st June (when it arrived) until now!
Thanks for reading.
Rob.