Farewells

After 20 years of service in The Well, Nancy has retired from The Well.

We couldn’t possibly let Nancy retire without having a party and it was just lovely as a Pakistani man and his sister were here and they saw what was happening, they went out bought some flowers for Nancy and said to her:

“Thank you on behalf of our community for all the years you have served us!”

 

 

 

 

Wasn’t that lovely:)

They were really quite chuffed that they were her last ever clients in The Well.

 

Mary has been a faithful member of the Friday morning team for several years and due to personal circumstances is unable to continue giving the advice, I’m glad that Mary will continue to help us with recording our stats, that’s a very important job too. We will miss Mary on a Friday, but glad she is still a part of The Well family.

 

Last August I got a phone call asking if Ruth could spend a gap year in The Year – we were delighted to welcome Ruth into the team, she has fitted in so well, but I can’t believe that her time is already finished. I asked Ruth to jot down her reflections on her time here – here’s what she said:

“Graduating from uni in June 2013, I was really unsure what I wanted to do, so had planned to take a year out during which I hoped my future career path would become slightly clearer! I was looking for some voluntary work that would give me a broad range of experience and had thought about Citizens Advice, or something similar. It was then I heard through church connections that The Well was looking for volunteers, so decided to go along and give it a try.

I’m not quite sure what I expected The Well to be like, but I certainly
wasn’t aware of the scale of help and support it provides for its service users.

My time at The Well has been a steep learning curve for myself in a number of ways.
Completely unfamiliar with our country’s benefit system a year ago, I now feel a lot more knowledgeable about what benefits there are and who’s entitled to what although there is still much I don’t know.

Something I really appreciated was that no one ever expected you to know everything, and the other volunteers would always be more than willing to help if you weren’t quite sure of something or had any queries.

I think I’ve definitely learned to be more patient too, as at times the language barrier and the situations people are in can be frustrating, but with some perseverance you usually get to a solution in the end.

Working at The Well has definitely opened my eyes to the desperate situations and absolute poverty so many people are living in today in our society. It can be all too easy to make assumptions and generalisations about groups of people, but coming face to face with the person behind the statistic, and getting to know their story, certainly gives things a new perspective.”

Owen had been with us for a few months, but then he had to move to London earlier than expected and the Morag informed me that she has got a job, and unlikely to be able to continue at The Well – depending on the hours and times she has to work.

We are very grateful for all the time that each of these people has given to serve God, through The Well and wish them all well in the various next stages.

As you can imagine this leaves us huge gaps in our volunteer rota and we are praying that God will fill these gaps with the people of His choice. I think this is the first time in the history of The Well that we’ve had such a big change all at once. Please do pray with us that God will fill the gaps & if you know anyone who might be interested then please let them know our need.