A Memorable Visit

After a few weeks of emails I had the opportunity to visit three of their projects and to meet some staff. My hosts were David Smith the CEO and Phil Conn the Director of Chaplaincy. I arrived at the Basis Drop In in Gateshead and I immediately felt like this was a good place. People were smiling!

I was taken upstairs to the office and was struck by how large an operation this was. There was far more people there than I was expecting. I see this as a good thing, the more workers the more help can be offered. I then had an intial chat and a quick tour of the facilities at Basiswith David and Phil and shared some of the, albeit limited, memories of the early days setting up Aquila Housing Association back in the 80s. It still felt weird being seen as a person of significance.

We then went to the Naomi project and met with one of the workers there. Once again I was so impressed with the dedication and professionalism of the staff. After a short time it was off again to visit Elizabeth House.

Thoughts from my visit
The size and professionalism of the organisation.
The commitment and dedication of the staff
A sense that individual service users are treated as real ‘whole’ people not as statistics
Care is centred around people – not just passing them to other agencies
A sense that God is there though not in an overt way.

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