Yet another tabard-wearing, sultry evening/night where our famous five cascade onto the City Streets eager to serve their community.
Events of the night recorded below are not necessarily in chronological order though they all did happen!
A couple of nice young lads hailing from the Leicester area stopped by to investigate who we were and what we were doing. They were extremely impressed and felt that more people should know about us and what we do... They wanted to give a donation but after realising they had no cash they asked us if we had a 'card reader' ....er, I mean...well it did set the cogs whirring a bit. They tried to compensate for a lack of donation by telling us we should have a GoFundMe page and that if we set one up they would promote it on their Social Media... Well, it turns out that the main voice of the two was Harry, who just happened to be the bass player in a popular Midlands band called The Mercians (check them out...we did). The band have a huge midlands following (6,000) and have supported some big names including Jess Glynne. Harry was insistent that we had a photo that could be used for the GFM page.
It was a busy night with an unusual amount of younger people out and about, as usual they were all polite but a bit stunned that everything was free (including the biscuits) and who'd have thought that young people still like Custard Creams?
We had our newish man, who appears to be homeless as he always carries two or three carrier bags around with him, but he doesn't engage in too much conversation so we are still in the dark about his situation.
We had a couple of lads come up for drinks, one of whom was well down the 'had a bit too much to drink' path but appeared to be one of those who require an audience in order to voice his anti-semitic inclinations and trying to get our team to conspire with him as to our opinions.
One thing we encourage our volunteers to do is not to get involved or drawn into discussions about religion and politics with people who have been drinking. ....and this lad was clearly trying to goad people, making it very uncomfortable for a while until his mate, seeing what was going on, guided him away to the taxi rank. It is sad that young people choose to or are encouraged to adopt such negative rhetoric... At the opposite end of the spectrum, a lovely lady who told us she was a care nurse, after finding out who we are/what we do, asked if she can apply to be a volunteer and was duly presented with one of our cards... we do hope she remembered the next day and we wait with baited breath for her response.
It was a lovely night for me, as Team leader, to bump into, not one but two people I had not seen for a good number of years. One of them recognised my voice (not sure if that's a good or bad thing!!) - the other saw me standing chatting to this first friend and came over to say hello. She was a youngster who used to come to a drop-in in Sutton Coldfield that I used to run, now she was a mum, with a good career in Recruitment and her and her partner (also a lad who used to attend the youth drop-in) now have a house in Whittington... it's a good feeling to know that you had some kinda influence or input in shaping a young person's life.
Paul M turned up to say hi and as we chatted we became aware of a black Merc (or the like) parked by the keycode machine that allows access to the pedestrian area. Behind them a Fire Service Engine had pulled up but could not get through despite sounding his horn once or twice... . Two young guys eventually come nonchalantly strolling back to the car with their kebabs from the Millenium Chicken... you can't get your head around some people's flagrant disregard for others in selfish displays like this!! I think Paul was going to have a word with someone!!
Our favourite doorman, Bobby was back from his time with his famalam in Pakistan (see what I did there?)... if we think we were having it super warm here, he stepped out of the plane in Pakistan to 41 degrees with it rising to 51 later !! 🫠😳
We had a lady who was bare-footed and we asked if she wanted Flip flops, to which she said yes but as we sorted them for her, she had a crisis of conscience and felt it was better for someone who really needed them to have them as she only had to walk 20 yards or so to the taxi... well you can't accomodate everyone but we do our best. Chips came...and went and then so did we