About the charity

People usually ask me why I felt I had to set up a charity and I have to say it seemed like the only option at the time. I had some involvement with refugee organisations in Manchester, heard about some people that needed family reunion funding and that the Red Cross programme had closed (this has since reopened).

Working at the time with property investors who were buying apartments like they were handbags it seemed sensible to see if I could get some of the refugees looking for funding some of the money that was being waved around in the office.

However nothing is that easy and once the ball got rolling setting up a charity was the only way to get the money and once you've set it up and a few people have got in touch, you've been over awed and inspired by other people in the sector and the help they're willing to give you, you've seen the need.... you're kind of committed.

Originally the idea was we'd give grants to families looking for family reunion and we still do this. When an asylum seeker is granted refugee status their dependent pre flight family are eligible for visas to come and join them. Although this sounds simple written down this visa application can be expensive (legal fees and documents - the visa application is free) and can see delay after delay for documents to be found, applied for, DNA tests to be carried out and any obstacle you can think of coming up.

At the end of this people are left with a visa and a family overseas. The cost of bringing a family over depends on many factors, the country of origin, whether children are accompanied and the number of people. For some it can be well into the thousands and for most even a couple of hundred means months of saving their already stretched income.

We are able to take cases, on a one by one basis, and cover the travel expenses for the family. This means families can be reunited faster and the healing process can begin.

About this time last year we launched a travel service to those who are able to fund their own travel. This allows them to use our booking service, contacts and discounts and we charge a small fee (as a percentage of any savings they make on the flights) to go towards our main grant fund. Although it started slowly cases going through the service are beginning to come in and we hope this will continue to be useful to people looking for family reunion.

Whats's the longest word you can spell using the top row of a keyboard?

*Hint: You can use the letters more than once

Great icebreaker from Kathy Valdes at Verse One at a seminar today.

Wanting to know what came first - the chicken or the egg so to speak - I looked into it a bit further.

Christopher Scholes laid out the keyboard in that now familiar QWERTY design so common two letter combinations were on opposite sides. This simply to prevent his mechanical keyboard jamming.

Scholes with the assistance of his friends Carlos Glidden and Samuel W Soule invented a writing machine in the early 1870s - the original layout was not the QWERTY pattern we see today. This became popular in the Remington No. 2 of 1878.

As the manufacturing rights for the Scholes and Glidden Type-Writer were sold to E Remington and Sons in 1873 and there were a few rearrangements of the keyboard subsequently it would seem that this is just a coincidence.

Unless as I prefer to think the designers prioritised this clever trick and excellent pub quiz fact for future generations above mechanics and usability. Maybe this is something we've all been guilty of as designers at some point?

Answer: Typewriter

Getting started...

Not particularly sure where I'm going with this blog but as I spend my days pestering the staff at Bolton at Home to write articles for the corporate blog I thought I should give it a shot.

Colleagues objections range from 'I don't know how to write' to 'How will I find the time?' and I agree with both sentiments with the additional concern that nothing I do is of any interest to anyone. However I have decided to carry on regardless.

So... a bit about me.

I really enjoy the work I do for my day job. Looking at everything digital from social media to intranet and a lot more besides for a housing association based in a small Lancashire town I get to meet staff in roles around the organisation and, when I'm out and about, our customers.

It never ceases to amaze me how much is going on in the communities we work with and I'm always on a mission to get our activities out in the public domain, partly to showcase the work of the organisation but mostly to tell the outside world about the brilliant people living and working in our neighbourhoods.

I will admit that my career background hadn't really prepared me for life in the private sector but would hope that after 10 months 'adjustment' I'm getting better at working within a public sector environment. I think my colleagues would be better placed to say how this was going though!

In my spare time I run a charity supporting refugees with family reunion. Having set it up just over two years ago I'm not sure I'd completely recommend this as a relaxing hobby. At the beginning of our third year we're struggling to meet demand for our services and are still making only a tiny dent in the sector but will be persevering on a case by case basis.

For anyone out there thinking this all sounds massively rewarding I will advise you that I've learnt that charity management is 98% fruitless fundraising and turning people away and 1% small successes and 1% incredibly rewarding case work.

So I would think I'll be writing about all these things and probably just whatever comes into my head... Not sure how its going to go.