Time to turn the page

On Friday I will leave my job after nearly four years. I have had this date on my diary for months now, and I have known I was leaving since 28th November last year. But as I sit here now it all feels a bit real, a bit odd and I am unsure. On Sunday in church as I was praying I had an image come into my mind. I was standing on a huge book. I looked behind me and I could see the fold down the spine and the facing page in the distance. I was quite close to the edge. It felt like I had to step off so that the page could turn over. I was scared but I knew that God was there with me. And that's how I feel. People ask me if I am excited about SCITT but I am not ready to look at that yet. It's on the next page.
I have recycled masses of paper, sorted out files, written handover documents, deleted emails and computer files, handed over the keys to my filing cabinet and now I'm sitting here reflecting.
What does four years of a job look like?
The information in these files cannot possibly convey the conversations I've had, the relationships I've built, the anger I've felt, the good times I've had. It's even hard to portray the progress I've made. What I do is very qualitative, its been about changing attitudes, making links, talking to people and getting people to think differently.
I have changed enormously in the last four years. I started here at the end of August 2004, aged just 24, only one 'real' job under my belt. I have had to change and develop, learn a new jargon. I have grown to understand how things work, how to behave in meetings, how to address professionals and service users. I've learnt to work with people I don't like and to like people I work with. I have learnt not to take things personally. A few weeks ago I found myself chairing part of a meeting with some fairly high level professionals in it. I had a heated discussion with a service user who upped and left saying "I am not being insulted by some young girl." And as he walked out, I held my cool, took a deep breath and carried on. Some young girl I am not anymore.
I am leaving this job as a young professional woman. I hope that I have earned respect from my colleagues. I hope that I have been able to share some of what I have learnt, and worked on. I hope that I have been a good and amiable colleague. I hope that whoever comes in to do this job after me (Watch out for the advert in Wednesday's Guardian, as well as 4 other jobs) has energy and passion and refuels this project to achieve its potential. My time here is done. I am finished. Time to turn the page.
Hannah

Ch ch ch ch changes

Common wisdom would have it that you should get married, buy a house, settle down and have 2.4 children, or whatever the national average is these days.

James and I can tick off one, and two. Half way there.

As for three? Errrr not exactly.


You may remember that last Summer, shortly after we got married I started considering a change in career, and that in September we had an away day and spent time listening to what God wanted us to do with our lives. Well it wasn't just me considering my future that day. For a very long time James has wanted to become a Police Officer. It is something that he has thought about doing since school. I have never been terribly keen on the idea, and have encouraged him to pursue Planning that his degree and masters degree allow him to do. However after being in planning for a while he felt that he wanted to investigate whether joining the Police was a feasible option.

Well it turned out that it was. He called the MPS recruitment to see whether being a PCSO was the only route into the Met these days, this being the story his brother had been told 12 months earlier. It wasn't, and there was a recruitment seminar about two weeks later, which he could book a place on. This was the route into getting an application form and spoke about how to fill in the form and fill statements for each of the five competencies. We thought and prayed about James changing his career. There was a lot of soul searching, and tears and questions. The form arrived and James sat down for a mammoth filling in session. Except there was a surprise in store - James didn't have to fill in the competencies, he just had to declare that he was a graduate. And that was that.

He had his 'day 1' interviews in November, which he passed, and his medical in January. All good. The supposedly impossible application process had been so smooth and simple. It seemed that God had prepared a way for James, and I needed to rely on His wisdom and strength to deal with my worries and concerns.

The day after we moved, James had a call with a start date of May 27th. He resigned from his job at the council and got ready to become a Police Officer.

I still have concerns, and worries. I will worry about his safety on the streets of London, I will be concerned that he enjoys his job. I pray that he will be a good witness at work, that he remembers that he serves God first, not the MPS. However I have come to realise that my marriage vows mean that I am called to support James whatever he chooses to do. I would rather be married to a planner than a policeman, but God has changed our path and I need to walk it with faith, one hand in James' and one in God's. Together, bound in prayer, strengthened by faith, trusting God's manifold and great mercies, we will be going the right way. It might not be a comfortable journey, but it's the only way for us.

H x

March On!

Well it's been an emotional week that has left me feeling drained. Wednesday night saw the full meeting of Lambeth Council to set its budget for next year, including 132% rise in Community Care Charges, cutting the eligibility criteria from Substantial and Critical to Critical only and cutting £3/4 million off the Voluntary Sector. If you clicked through the link in my last post you will see that we have been campaigning under the banner of Lambeth SOS.
The petition that ran off and online was signed by over 7000 people! And we decided to march from our offices to the Town Hall in time for the meeting. We thought we would be lucky to get 150 people. Over 350 disabled and older people, and their carers turned up and marched with placards and whistles through the centre of Brixton in rush hour. Now that's user involvement! It was awesome. I was a marshal so could take a good over view of the progress of it. At one point I got quite emotional knowing that so many people cared and had turned out to help us show the Council how much.
You can read the rather partisan account of the rest of the evening's happenings here:
South London Press Article
Sadly not one Labour Councillor voted against the proposals, although four did not attend the meeting, which could be seen as a sign of opposition. So the campaign continues, and my job, although not definitely coming to an end at the end of this month hangs in the balance.

Lambeth SOS

This is what is taking up my time at work at the moment. If you have a minute go to the website and sign the petition if you agree with what we are trying to acheive: Lambeth SOS