September 2007 - Richard Aston

Training our newest coordinator, Martin is progressing well. Although he is our third coordinator he will be the first to be trained using the new training process we have developed this year. We are getting much more organised with this with training processes, manuals, evaluations processes etc but I still like to retain an organic element to the training. One of our core values for mentors is they each will have their own style of mentoring, that it''s not a one size fits all, generic approach. I figure this value should be held with our coordinators. While we are looking for the same outcomes and have some fairly proscribed approaches, especially to screening, I hope each coordinator will develop their own unique approach. I am looking to be surprised! Martin is showing some of his uniqueness already, he has found ways to use our client database that I didn''t think were possible; stretching it to the extent we will modify it to accommodate different ways of working.

Training someone new is always a great opportunity to reflect on what we do, how we do it and most importantly connect back to why we do it that way.

On another note I did an interview on Shine TV, seems like an annual event now. Shine is small (on sky digital) specialised in the Christian market but all publicity is good in my view. It did generate quiet a few inquiries.

While my grand plans for expansion occupy a good deal of my time I like to stay strongly connected to the grassroots work of Big Buddy, meeting the mentors, keeping up with the stories of new boys coming in, existing matches and how they are going. After a day of number crunching budgets and projections it''s really refreshing to touch back into the heart of my work, talking to the many people we work with, remembering why I do this work, remembering how simple it really is, people caring for people.

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