90% Perspiration

If you've read earlier postings of this blog then you'll know that a TD and I started a company a couple of months ago and it's kinda hard going.

We knew it would never be easy but we've been a little bit disasppointed at the lack of engagement in the idea by local authority bodies whose brief we will be contributing to.

Nevertheless we press on in the hope we can start to spark some interest around us.

The chance of maybe setting up a relatively small project cropped up last week and so I arranged a meeting with someone I've known for a while and to whom I pretty much knew the idea would appeal.

June runs the Pierian Centre in Portland Square. She bought the house, rennovated it and runs it as a centre for learning and support for all sorts of people and things. As well as her time and energy June has poured an awful lot of her own money into the project - a real case of putting her money where her mouth is.

The last conversation I had with June was very much along the lines of "times is 'ard" but with continuing financial support from her the centre carries on.

Today she smiles and tells me that it's not free and clear yet by a long way but things have improved a little.

It would be easy to dismiss June and the centre as bleeding heart liberal, tree huggy nonsense but it would be grossly unfair.

Yeah, there are classes and groups who meet at the centre who would have me running for the hills but the core work of the centre is about social inclusion, support and true equality.

We talk for ages about how things are going there, how far along the plans for Bristol to become a City of Sanctuary are, griping about things political and then she asks me to explain what ExtraVerte want to do.

Then I tell her that she was, in many ways, the catalyst for me leaving work. It was a conversation with her at the back end of 2009 that made me realise that job security may not be everything. She looks a little surprised and then we both agreed that it would be far better going to our graves regretting some of things we did than thinking "I wish I'd tried to...".

We also talked about political correctness and how we hate it and how we got annoyed at tokenism.

We moved on to talk about the project I wanted to work on and she gave it her wholehearted support and offered some practical help too.

Then she annouced that later in the week she would be having dinner with two people who would be extremely useful contacts for me and she'd chat to them about ExtraVerte and our aims. This is more than I could have hoped.

She asked if I would go and take some photographs at a forthcoming event - that is, in fact, how I met June - providing volunteer photographers for her events. I happily agree.

I leave the place after a couple of hours completely re-energised, with faith that all things could be possible.

This morning, I realise that June reminds me of my favourite aunt. She was a devout christian who spent her whole life working for the benefit of the community she lived in - from serving on the PCC, fostering difficult children, running Sunday School and Guides, doing the flowers in the church, and, and...

All the while, she did so with a twinkle in her eye and without a shred of piety or political correctness.

She had me volunteering to play my guitar and sing at the church - something I still do from time time - she suggested I look after the church choir until a permanent replacement could be found.

All the while she knew I was an atheist, living in sin with a lapsed catholic (and ex trainee priest) and she cared not a jot.

In a conversation I had with CJ a while ago I said that the "church" was a force for good, in general, because it inspired people to do good things. He countered that these things could happen without the chuch.

June and her centre are proof of that...although a lot of work she gets involved in also features a lot of input from local faith communities. In any case, the work they do is vital to the health of our City.

I say give three cheers, and if you can manage it, a bit of support to organizations that work quietly in the background doing real things for people who are less fortunate than the rest of us.

Surely an example to everyone...


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