I can see the church I win!

This was a game we used to play with the kids on the way home, didn’t matter where we had been… the first person to see the church and to shout out loud ‘I can see the church I win’ won the magnificent prize of 50 pence. To be fair, I don’t think I ever had to give the 50p away (it became a virtual coin – maybe I invented nonfungible tokens but didn’t know it?) anyway I still do it even when I’m in the car on my own and the kids still do it even though they are now 20 and 21.  

I think we still do it because of the notion of being home, the excitement of being home, the safety and security of being home. Which is not unlike the feeling I get when I turn up at the LVET conference. This is the fourth conference that I’ve been involved in. The first was only a week after I started but it feels like coming home it feels like a safe space. It feels like that place where all the family come together, the newborns, the grandparents, the aunts and uncles and the slightly odd cousins that you see only once a year and that’s fine.  

Like the family party, it’s a place where we meet, a place where we talk and I think that’s what LVET is more than anything, a place for conversation, not just at the conference but all through the year. LVET is a safe place, a place where we can say to each other the things that need to be said, it’s a safe place where we can share ideas without fear no matter how ridiculous they may be. Like families when we come together, we don’t always get along. Sometimes we might quarrel, sometimes we might not agree on things but that’s fine. Like families we find a way to work through that, we don’t all need to think the same thing, we don’t all have to have the same view of the world. As VCFSE organisations we are united by our love for people, for our communities and for our fellow Voluntary and Community Organisations.  

The conference always reminds me too of the diversity within our membership. And like families there are people who are particularly good at specific things, the organiser, the baker, the entertainer, the diy enthusiast who all get called on when something is needed. We need to be more like this and call on each other when we need expertise and ask for help – not because we are weak but because we know where our strengths are and know when we should seek help from someone who knows more or is more skilled. No shame – simply asking for support when it is needed. If we can do this I think the prize is far greater than 50 pence it is real collaboration.  

There is one thing that I hope that we don’t do like families. I don’t want to be like the families that say ‘let’s get together more, we only see each other at weddings and funerals’. Let’s make sure that we’re keeping in touch that we share what we’re doing that we share our successes and our troubles more often than once a year. Together we are more.