Warden's Parish News 26 July

Dear friends

This week’s services are at 8am and 10am with Rev Rosie Newport presiding.  Thank you, Rosie, it’s always lovely to have you here with us and to catch up with you and Ted.

Health & Safety

As part of our regular health and safety checks we would like to bring to your attention a couple of things:

1. If you are using the church for prayer, a meeting, doing the flowers or the brass or any other reason please let someone know you are there and tell them when you have left.  This way should there be an accident or medical incident, you will be missed, and someone can come and help.
2. It has come to our notice that there is little, or no, coverage for the land line phone in the church.  Please ensure that someone in your group has a mobile phone with them so you have a means of communication.

Working Bees

Brass Cleaning
There is to be a brass cleaning working bee on Saturday 1 August from 9.30am until we're finished (no longer than two hours). All welcome! Just bring yourselves. 

Hall & Garden
We are continuing with our freshening up of the hall and gardens – this week new curtains were put up giving the lounge a lighter, airier feel.

Another working bee is planned for 8 August at 9.30am.    On the last one great progress was made around the back of the hall in particular. With the aim of continuing to make ourselves more presentable to any group looking to rent premises in the area and, of course, to make things nicer for us all (“first impressions” etc.) there is a more garden tidying needed, windowsills to clean, road cones and hoses to put away … Are you available to help please?

Emergency meals

Are you able to help out here?  As we said last week it would be good to have an emergency meal or two in the parish freezer.  Nothing elaborates needed – cottage pie, a pasta bake, fish pie.  And for 2 or 4 people would be ideal.  Please contact Lee if you are able to help here.  Maybe you could just do extra when you cook your own evening meal and package it up for someone in need.

PJ’s in hospital

The PJ’s were delivered to Wellington Hospital this week. We have received a lovely thank you from them.
 
"Thank you so much for your very generous donation of pyjamas to the Children’s Hospital!  This will help to keep sick kids warm this winter and is much appreciated by our Child Health teams."
 
Warmest regards
 Liz Gibson
Storytelling and Fundraising Officer - Wellington Hospitals Foundation 
 
 

An Update from the Kotahitanga Trust

As you will all know Kotahitanga Trust operates from the cabin on the church grounds.  The trust thought it timely to give you an update on Celia’s work and how the Trust operates.

Through recent discussions with Vestry, the Kotahitanga trust has identified the need to provide more regular updates to the parish so there is a greater understanding of role the Trust plays within the church, but also the vital role it plays within the community in terms of providing much needed support for a very vulnerable group of people.

The Kotahitanga Trust was established in 2016 in order to provide social services to those in need in the local community of Onslow and the wider Wellington area. In doing so, it was hoped the Trust would encourage a spirit of love and compassion and actively promote the message of Christ.

Our core objectives are as follows:
(a) to express and encourage a spirit of Christian love and compassion through the act of providing social services to whoever may seek them and especially to the lost, the last and the least;
(b) to establish and maintain programmes and facilities to provide psychological services within local communities in the Onslow area and beyond to those in need of them, including at subsidised or zero rates to those whose means would otherwise prevent them from accessing them;
(c) establish the Trust as a specialist centre and niche provider of ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) assessment; trauma assessment and treatment.

Key members of the Trust are:
Dr Celia Falchi is our registered psychologist
May-Ana Tirikatene-Sullivan, Board Chair
Glen Prince, Board Member

Following the recent departure of Tony Biss and Flora McIntyre, who did some wonderful work for the Board over a number of years, we're now on the look-out for new board members, so if you're interested, please come and have a chat.

Here's a small snapshot of the great work being undertaken by Celia:
Kotahitanga A contemporaneous glance: As at the 1st of July 2020
Celia currently has 18 Clients.
Celia currently has 12 hours of paid work per week.
Celia is also a solo parent to her two school aged autistic children and is also the sole caregiver for her mother who lives at her home, thus, time is tight.
Her work covers mostly complex trauma cases with regular Autism Assessment clientele.

Celia has 2 supervisors:
1) Mary-Ann Stephens whom Celia has face to face supervision once a fortnight (regular supervision is a requirement of all registered psychologists).
2) Arriene Struiich who is an International Child / Adolescent EMDR (trauma) Specialist
whom Celia meets via Skype/ FaceTime once per month.

Kotahitanga pays $100 for the use of the toilet/ Kitchen/land beneath the cabin and a further $75 for power and Wi-Fi (which includes half the Parish's Wi-Fi cost) usage per month. 

Moreover, on top of this, the Board and Celia are also looking at how we might make a regular financial contribution to the parish to assist with the general running of the church.

Celia uses the cabin 2 1/2 days per week on Tuesday and Thursday and also Wednesday afternoons.

During the lockdown she took on a new client, pro bono, (thus without seeking a fee) who was an essential worker in the hospital, to help support them through the crisis of their front line covid work.

Onslow Medical Centre has been referring to her now for 12 months.  Khandallah Medical Centre has been referring to her for 4 years.

Kerryn Martin of the Bishops Development Trust wing has been in recent communication with Celia (earlier this week) over potential lobbying of the Ministry of Health over the community need for Autism specialist work as there is a shortage of skilled practitioners in this area and Celia has been upskilling in this area. Celia is a ready candidate to fund.

Celia is also consistently contracted to ACC handling referrals under the trauma case load arena, but her passion is inclining towards Autism diagnosis and mental health treatment in both adults and children.

May-Ana Tirikatene-Sullivan
Glen Prince
Celia Falchi.
 

And to end a quote from Albert Schweitzer:

There is an ocean of cold water without motion.
In this ocean, however, is the Gulf Stream, hot water flowing from the equator towards the pole.
Inquire of all scientists how it is physically imaginable that a stream of hot water flows between the waves of the ocean, which, so to speak, form its banks, the moving within the motionless,
the hot within the cold, no scientist can explain it.
Similarly, there is the love of God within the God of the forces of the universe,
one with Him, and yet so totally different.
We let ourselves be seized and carried away by that vital stream.
 

God bless,
 
Flora and Lee

Flora 021 246 9846 – floramaxnz@gmail.com
Lee 021 029 91480 - brianandlee@icloud.com