Fuddland

My experiences volunteering for the homeless charity Crisis over the Christmas period in 2005.

This category is a subcategory of Local News.

I can’t possibly write about this now — I’ve been up for twenty-six hours straight, having gone straight to the pub at half past nine this morning after an eleven hour shift. Suffice to say: everyone’s my best mate, they are…

Volunteering for Crisis continues to be a terrific experience; even though I have only seen the night-shift in operation, when there are nothing like as many activities and events happening throughout the shelter, it is still impressive how things are coordinated so well. This was especially true of the Christmas Day night-shift, when we had forty fewer volunteers than expected, and were providing accommodation for more guests than any Christmas since 1992. Due to the need to do staggered rotations in assigned tasks, each duty was lasting about twice as long as normal, particularly tough on those who were outside the shelter watching over entrances and exits. But these long shifts gave me much greater opportunity to talk to the guests in more depth than I had managed up to now.

Read the rest of “Crisis Open Christmas nights two and three”…

The first night at Crisis was fantastic: lovely volunteer people, and genuinely grateful [for the most part] guests. I was really nervous to begin with, and for extra fun my first task [with my fun new pal Sarah — you’re always with at least one other volunteer on any given duty] was to shut down the TV area nearest the sleeping tents, pulling the plug on the telly and asking people if they wouldn’t mind awfully moving to the other side of the arena. As you might expect, and they had my sympathies entirely, this was met with a few protests, but eventually everyone complied.

Other duties throughout the night: being a “runner” for the toilet/shower areas, fetching supplies from the store cupboard [nice and relaxed: they hardly needed anything, so I spent most of the time folding clean towels into bags with the lovely Kelly]; guarding the volunteers’ entrance/exit [a bit cold but kept warm with foot-stamping and chatting to a very sweet girl called Gemma who was very pleased to have finally turned eighteen and been allowed to volunteer]; and finally, a general clean-up of the sleeping area: folding blankets, stacking beds etc.

Everyone was really friendly and, as we were told at the debriefing, the night passed without any major incidents — a few of the guests’ tempers got a bit frayed but I’m hoping that was just first-night jitters. I didn’t feel as tired as I thought I might do — plenty of tea at every given opportunity certainly helped that. In fact, the only low point was when I bit into a small pie thinking it was going to be a mince pie, only to discover it was apple. Very disappointing!

If I was ever in any doubt that the efforts of Crisis are futile, those were surely blown away by the guest who strolled up to me and two other volunteers, took our hands in turn and thanked us all for giving up our Christmases for him. Warm fuzzy feelings aplenty!

[Aside: plural of Christmas, anyone? Christmases? Christmasses? Christmi?]

I’ve had a bit of a sleep today, and am feeling okay for another night, but I’ve a feeling this one may be a bit longer than the first. And there’s the added of fun of no public transport tomorrow morning!

Merry Christmas everybody.

In preparation for my night-shift duties at the Crisis shelter, I’m staying up as late as I can manage tonight, to begin shifting my bodyclock towards the nocturnal mode of life. Having never done anything like this before, I’m unsure just how many of the traditional day-to-day activities can be simply shifted eleven-or-so hours without society cocking its collective head to one side and frowning disapprovingly.

For example, I suspect no-one will have a problem with me having my “breakfast” — tea and toast or cereal — at eight o’clock at night, but when I come home from a hard day’s work at around nine o’clock in the morning, would it be acceptable to crack open a few beers as I relax in front of the telly before heading to bed? [Perhaps the fact that I’d be watching daytime television talkshows is justification enough for hitting the bottle, night-shift or no night-shift?]

Over the Christmas week I’m volunteering for Crisis, the London-based charity for homeless people. Their work carries on year-round, but they are probably most famous for the Crisis Open Christmas scheme, started nearly forty years ago, which provides shelter, hot meals, showers, entertainment, health checks, advice, skills workshops, and simple companionship, all completely free of charge, to any of London’s homeless [and the so-called “hidden homeless” — people not neccessarily sleeping rough on the streets, but in hostels, on friends’ floors, in Bed & Breakfasts, who face the same problems with finding work and enough money to get by].

Yesterday I attended one of the several induction sessions Crisis run in the lead-up to the week, pleasantly surprised to see every seat filled. As a general volunteer I’ll be given a variety of tasks, including making tea, serving food, cleaning up, guarding no-go areas, and the thing that the coordinators have emphasised as the most important duty of all: talking to the guests. Designated to work at the main shelter [this year at the London Arena in Docklands] I was assigned my shifts a few days ago, and I’m on the night-shift, 10:15pm–8:30am, for five of the seven nights that COC runs.

Crisis can never have too many volunteers, and there is still time to offer your services [people with a skill or trade are particularly useful], so if you are interested in helping out, learn more from the Crisis website, or simply turn up at one of the remaining induction sessions:

Tuesday December 13th 2005 6.45pm–8.45pm

Abbey Community Centre, 34 Great Smith Street, London NW1P 3BU

(Nearest tube St James’ Park and Westminster)

Saturday 17th December 2005 10.30am–12:30pm

Park Crescent Conference Centre (international students house), 229 Great Portland Street, London W1

(Nearest tubes Gt. Portland Street and Regents Park)

Saturday 17th December 2005 2.00pm–4:00pm

Park Crescent Conference Centre (international students house), 229 Great Portland Street, London W1

(Nearest tubes Gt. Portland Street and Regents Park)