Debra's Blog
Debra Green's latest update on Redeeming Our Communities
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ROC Ambassadors Conference in Plymouth
| We hosted a ROC Ambassadors conference in Plymouth earlier this month. This was our first ever regional conference, with 45 delegates from the South West peninsula. Assistant Chief Constable Paul Netherton spoke about some of the social needs and challenges for a police force which covers the largest geographical area in the UK, and one which also covers a very wide variety of both rural and urban communities. Conference delegates came from churches and also from agencies including Police and Probation. I had the opportunity to share the ROC vision, and the weekend included lots of interaction including speed networking and a dragons den exercise which unearthed new project ideas like ROC Rural, and ROC Farm. Things have progressed a long way since the early days when ROC was mainly focused on urban cities! |
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I was asked to speak on the subject - what is a ROC Ambassador? My three main headings were; a ROC Ambassador - Represents, Demonstrates and Testifies. Over 260 ROC Ambassadors around the UK represent the ROC DNA by living out the vision and values. They show communities compassion by demonstrating love in action by kind acts of service. They also testify by telling good news stories which promote immunity well being. We are excited to see how things will progress in Devon and Cornwall under the leadership of a local steering group. ROC conversation consultation evenings are being planned and the first ROC projects are already underway!
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Travels to Belfast & Burgess Hill
The last week has definitely involved some travelling. It was great to be back in Belfast last Thursday to speak at the Church Resources conference which was attended by over 1500 people. We also had our ROC launch planning meeting and, with only 12 weeks to go, it was good to see things coming together. I met some good people like Paul and Lesley Scott who organised the conference and George Hamilton from PSNI, recently moved from Strathclyde Police.
I also met with an old friend, Owen Crane who now leads Abundant Life church in Belfast. It was fab to see Chloe again from Girls Brigade, and dream some dreams together re our partnership. Hopefully a new ROC Café will start up in her hometown.
From Belfast to Sussex on Friday for the launch of ROC in Burgess Hill. Around 600 people came to the launch with 50 VIPs including Deputy Chief Constable Giles York, the Divisional Commander of West Sussex Martin Walker, Rt Hon Nicholas Soames MP, Mayor of Burgess Hill, Councillor Chris Thomas-Atkin, Mandy Thomas-Atkin, who is currently the Chairman of Mid Sussex District Council and Deputy Mayor of Burgess Hill, Councillor Anne Jones MBE. The local organising team did a great job and plans are now underway for two ROC Conversations in March. Hopefully these will result in new projects. We will host a ROC projects training day in Sussex on June 21st.
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Lords, MP's and Attorney General
What a day we had on Wednesday! We had a great opportunity to share the vision of ROC with some influential people.
ROC Ambassador Barry Knott, from Kent Police, and I arrived at Portcullis House at 2pm and then we had back to back meetings until 7pm!
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We met MP’s, from all over the UK including Romford, Enfield, Salisbury, Bury, and Barry’s own MP from Maidstone, Helen Grant.
One MP had some specific influence in Northern Ireland which will aid our launch there on May 9th. We met the Attorney General (his constituency is Beaconsfield) and followed his meeting with a chat with a few staff from the Home Office, and finally over to the House of Lords to meet with Lord Nat Wei and Baroness Berridge, the youngest female member of the House of Lords.
It was inspiring to meet such interesting people, as well as to get some great feedback about our work. I also loved seeing St Mary’s Crypt, where prayers are said each day before parliament meets. The Chapel of St Mary Undercroft was completed by King Edward I in 1297, further developed under Edward II, and finally completed by Edward III in around 1365. While St Stephen's Chapel was the chapel of the Royal Family, the Court and the Royal Household worshipped at St Mary Undercroft. Because of its underground location, the Crypt Chapel was one of the few structures in the Palace of Westminster to survive the great fire of 1834, although much of its stonework was harmed. The Chapel is still in use today, chiefly by MPs and their families for weddings and christenings.*
It was a day which has really helped to shape my thinking about our work and how ROC can be instrumental in transforming more communities across the UK.
* http://www.parliament.uk/about/living-heritage/building/palace/estatehistory/the-middle-ages/chapel-st-mary-undercroft-/
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