Well Updates

For the past year we have benefited from Sarah’s help with our funding applications.

Sarah fitted in quickly and easily to the team, and we certainly benefitted from her youthful enthusiasm, confidence and marketing experience.

So we were disappointed when Sarah got a new job, which meant she would no longer have the time to commit to The Well.  We are thrilled for her, knowing that she was looking for a new challenge in her professional life, but we do feel her lose very keenly!

It does mean that we are once again having to look at how we manage the fundraising side of the work.  Penny is able to commit one day a week, but we do need more than that, and just now we are considering a team approach – perhaps a group of volunteers who would be able to help out a couple of hours per week or month?

Recently we were given funding from St Margaret’s Scottish Episcopal Church in Newlands to run a parenting class for some of our Mums.

Since April we have been meeting every Wednesday morning in Govanhill Free Church, with a group of mums primarily from a Pakistani background, but also one Romanian mum was referred to us from The Space, a local agency that we share a common ethos with.

We have covered such subjects as “looking after yourself” “the importance of words” “boundaries” “listening” “play” and much more.

It was lovely every week to have Gail and Ailsa look after the children, and Shaida doing both the hospitality and translation as required.

I’m pretty sure that the children’s favourite thing was the messy play every week!

The mums thoroughly enjoyed our sessions and we had a special time today, encouraging them to build good memories with their children.

For the past 15 months we have been blessed to have had Ellen Cooke seconded from Interserve Scotland and Ireland, to help with our admin work in The Well.

As Ellen’s role in Interserve will come to an end with Interserve Scotland and Ireland merge their England and Wales counterparts to form Insterserve GBI, Ellen’s job will come to an end, and with her own family commitments she will no longer be able to work with us.

So! From the 1st May we are looking to recruit a part time admin worker.  Our admin post is a unique role!(The Well is a unique place!) It doesn’t easily fit into the traditional admin type of work – that is included of course, but there’s more to it than that, it has been described as a “very bitsy role” from ensuring the rota is covered for every shift, to making posters, from writing thank you letters to giving a listening ear to volunteers. (That just happens!)  The person will be an important member of the team of paid and volunteer staff, based in The Well.

Any interested person can request further information from Rhoda at The Well and should contact rho.yar@thewell.org.uk to request the job description and further information.  Application will be by  CV and a task to be submitted by 5:00 on Monday 3rd April.

The Well depends on volunteers to function.  I’m always encouraged with the sheer quality and commitment of our volunteers – they truly are a very special group of people.

However we need more!

We currently have gaps on both Wednesday morning and afternoon for the regular advice sessions.

Perhaps you would be interested in helping out by being a welcomer in the reception area?  We also need this help on a Wednesday.

If you can help out with any of the above – please get in touch.

Ever since I’ve been involved with The Well we’ve never closed for lunch.  It was often quiet enough for folks to have their lunch together, have a blether and change shifts.

I remember those days!

In recent years The Well has become so busy that there times the volunteers never see each other, perhaps the morning staff work well into the afternoon, and some have been seen sitting down for something to eat at 2.00  or even later.

We’ve all just got used to this way of working, but since The Well is about community and fellowship for the whole team, we’re going to try things differently for the next few weeks!

From today we will close at 12:30, the afternoon folks will come and join us for our prayer time and have lunch together for those who want.  Initially this will be just for 1/2 hour, but who knows we might love it so much that we need to have longer.

Hopefully our service users will also benefit from a staff team who are more refreshed!