KILLER DRAFT

The Wind That Shakes The Barley

There's a phenomenon known over here in Eastern Europe known as 'curent'. More lethal than smoking, more dangerous than a polar bear with toothache and more deadly than a bite on the arse from a black widow, it strikes the fear of God into people all over this part of the world. So petrified are they, some people are even too scared to open a window.

I've been wanting to write about this for a while but someone in Bucharest beat me to it (and wrote a much better article than I ever would have anyway).

Have a read of Ken Huegel's hilarious blog post here

CHANGE

A Change Is Gonna Come

Every time I have thought about my blog recently, I’ve tried to think of something different to do. Procrastinating is my favourite activity and since school I’ve been a world champion at it. As I’ve said before, I don’t believe in writing a blog for the sake of it and I certainly don’t want to ramble a lot of pretentious twaddle which I see a lot of in others’ online diaries. So I have to keep thinking of fresh ways in which to keep my blog relevant and contemporary. The best way I can think of doing this is to write the truth about what’s happening here and how things are changing within the Hospice.

When I accepted the job with Hospices of Hope, the whole concept of my becoming Country Manager was ‘to change’. According to Sheryl Crow, “a change would do you good”, and I’m an avid believer in this. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it but when things aren’t working then you need to rethink your strategy and come to a different solution.

There have been lots of changes in the Hospice over the last few months. We’ve recently seen quite a change in the personnel here and while this has caused a bit of unrest, I truly believe that while we’ve had some extremely difficult decisions to make, and through guidance and consultation, we have made the absolute best decisions for the future of Hospice Angelus. Having recently won a grant from the Bosch Foundation in Germany, we have hired a doctor, nurse and social worker to work in the non-cancer area of paediatric care here in Moldova. Sadly, this resulted in us losing one of our long-serving members of staff, however we are extremely happy with the new candidates we have and we are looking forward to watching these members of the medical team undergo their training and become valued members of the Hospice Angelus collective. Additionally, the decision was made to remove the post of PR & Events Manager from our organisation and replace this with Fundraising Co-ordinator. Our fundraising department is in huge need of expansion just now and while this decision was by no means taken lightly, we feel that we have made the right decision in creating this new post. In addition to this, we have said a fond farewell to our summer intern, Olea Brega, whose activities at the Hospice you can read about here. 

Not only have we seen a change to our personnel, but there has also been a noticeable change to our fundraising events. This year we have seen our charity ball raise four times the amount we expected and we have also reaped the benefits from a pool tournament plus the Hospice Angelus Big Charity Quiz which is now going to be a monthly fixture on our events calendar. For the remaining part of the year, we hope to be extremely busy organising the following:

• A football tournament for local businesses, organisations and embassies in September
• A concert and photo exhibition to mark International Hospice Day in October
• Participants for the Bucharest International Marathon on October 9^th
• A fashion show in November
• A special event to recognise our 10^th Anniversary in December
• A winter run in one of the main Moldovan wineries' tunnel

For further information about these events, you can see our events on our website or why not become a fan of  our Facebook page