Keeping the faith
This seems to be the year that I am seeing more of England that I have in the last 24 years. In the last two months I have driven to Liverpool, Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, and now I am back in Nottingham.
My curiosity is tickled by being back in Nottingham University within the month. This time I am staying in the University’s Hotel. I did say to Cee on the phone as I drove up, “ I wonder if this is a sign that you will come to Nottingham University?” She doesn’t seem to share my fanciful thinking.
This time I am here for the annual Napo, trade union for Probation and Family Court staff conference. This year we have ditched the seaside towns and we are trialling University conference suites. I am impressed and I have only arrived a few hours ago.
The room I am in is the best room I have ever had! Note above the forest scene we are after all in the land of Sherwood.
I can never quite work out whether it is like arriving at a Murder, Mystery weekend or the Hogwarts Annual meeting of Wizards. We are given a location and we find our way to it. You can guarantee that as soon as you step out of the car or off the train you will meet a Napo bod. The more often you come the more you get to know the others who regularly come from the 3 out of the 4 corners of the Kingdom, Scotland has a different system.
I believe this Union carries the custodians of Probation within it. I say this particularly after the splitting of the service in 2014 into a public and a privately contracted managed sector.
If was as if, ‘the powers to be’ knew nothing of the true spirit of Probation and treated it as a commercial entity to be sold rather than valued. Like the Cathars of old the Probation believers held the value of it in their hearts and continue to practice.
Over the next few days, the believers will meet and stir up the fire within them to ensure the gift that is Probation continues to transform their and others lives.
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