Initial sessions

I had an initial meeting with staff and companions on 10th Jan, and arranged to start the sessions 2 weeks later on 24th Jan. We decided to present it as an art and discussion project: I will be using creative arts to explore the issues, and our final outcome might be creative, but there will also be lots of discussion of ideas so we need to make sure people are ready for that!

Unfortunately on 24th Jan, nobody turned up.

I offered to make a poster for the Companions notice board; but staff have been so busy that they have not had time to put it up. Staff were going to mention the project at the regular Companions meetings on a Thursday, but unfortunately pressure of other things on the agenda meant it didn't happen.

I came to sessions each week - nobody came, but I did have some interesting 1-to-1 conversations about money, the economic system, benefits and work, etc, and gradually raised awareness of the project. I spoke to Chris, who was interested, and who said he'd try and let other Companions know about it.

I kept updating the start date on the poster, and eventually it went up:

But still nobody turned up. It is always tricky to get a new project started - you just have to keep showing up, and be present, and talk to people, so I kept doing that, but this was harder than normal. Staff told me that this Emmaus has had some issues in the past with outside staff being unreliable, so that might be part of the reason - there might be a trust issue, or an expectation that I won't do what I've said I will.

I was thinking about starting the project by doing some 1-to-1 interviews with Companions rather than trying to get a group together - but then on 21st Feb when I turned up for a session, staff member Jane introduced me to a few Companions and volunteers who she thought might be interested - and they were. Julie, Barry, and Joseph all said they would like to get involved, and that they would help Chris to spread the word. So it looks like we will have enough people for an actual session next week.