Local Elections

I feel a little disappointed at the lack of information available for those of us who have questions we would like answered before we decide how to vote next Thursday.

I live in Wolverhampton and have spent 19 years of my adult life living here.  I am particularly keen to know what the candidates plan to do about (what I consider to be the significant decline of) Wolverhampton City Centre.  There are many empty shops, bars and retail units and some of the larger retail chains have scaled down their outlets and/or the stock they hold.  The whole place has shabby, down on its luck look and feel.  Many people choose not to shop in the Wolverhampton preferring Merry Hill, Telford, Birmingham or Shrewsbury.  Sadly, if visitors come for the weekend I no longer take them into the City Centre to shop or potter around as it tends to be a sad and dispiriting experience.

There seems to be a recognition that something needs to be done but I've not heard or read anything which amounts to a plan, to putting flesh on the bones.  Something creative and innovative needs to be done and soon - in my view!

Wolverhampton does have some wonderful features.  It's main asset is the people who live here who, generally speaking, are friendly, welcoming, hard working and have a warm humour. It is a city of great diversity on many levels which gives it depths of richness in terms of culture, food, sporting tradition and in the past manufacturing but you have to do more than scratch the surface nowadays to find those things. 

The jewels in the crown include: Wolverhampton Art Gallery which is a wonderful place exhibiting a wide range of art and with an excellent tea shop; the Lighthouse Media Centre which shows excellent films in a welcoming environment where you can drink wine out of a glass or hot chocolate in a mug while watching the film (no popcorn in sight!); West Park is a wonderful example of a Victorian Park which is beautifully maintained; Wolverhampton Grand Theatre is an impressive venue; and there are also some brilliant independent traders (of varying sizes) and restaurants who provide an excellent service and good quality products while building relationships with customers.   

So local politicians and election candidates, what are you going to do about this sad decline?  Who is going to think outside the box and come up with something original that will breath life into the City?  Who has got the dynamism to encourage business, retail, leisure and entertainment entrepreneurs to invest and do their stuff here so that people can regain a sense of pride and of future in Wolverhampton?

Lone Working

Although I work as part of a team with two other people with whom I have a weekly team meeting which usually lasts about an hour, essentially I work alone. While the role of Chaplain isn't a lonely one and my life is full of meetings over drinks and food with a huge variety of interesting people,  I have found working virtually on my own a significant challenge.  

Prior to my current job I have always worked in teams, of varying sizes, dynamism and efficiency and I have enjoyed an office and a desk to work from.  Now I am often working from home and for the more strategic pieces of work I am have no-one to bounce ideas off or to read and critique draft documents. This is the part of my old life in legal practice that I miss the most!  I have discovered that I quickly run out of creative ideas, enthusiasm and energy which the dynamic of team work can so often provide.  The rest of the family humour me as best they can and try to show interest and offer assistance when I appear to reach a near standstill.

My work has brought me into contact with a number of other people who face similar challenges in lone working either through running their own business or as a result of having a job where they mainly work from home and do not have access to regular office space.  I recently spent an enjoyable evening with a friend who runs her own business as she ran through a presentation that she was giving the following day to a potentital new client.  It was fun to be able to give my view and work through her ideas with her - I have yet to hear if her pitch was successful!

Some independent coffee shops in Birmingham City Centre have fixed times when people who work from home can pop in, work, have a coffee and meet up with others in a similar position.

If you work alone I would be interested to hear from you about how you overcome the challenge of brainstorming alone or what you do when you run out of creative ideas.  A couple of people have approached me to see if we could set up a Birmingham based network for lone workers - would you be interested in this idea?  Do get in touch and let me know what you think - I've run out of ideas for now!