Newham District Scouts Chaplain

Scouting , Flags, Parades, and marching (well walking with a flag really)

(preparing for the March Pass St Georges Day 2010)

When I arrived at St Paul’s Church Stratford I inherited a scout group who use the church hall each Tuesday evening. In the time I’ve been here we have had about four different Scout Troop Leaders, now that’s not what you think, nothing to do with me, just illness took off two of them and another got a new job in the North of England so it was a serious problem getting down to London to run a scout troop so he had to give it up.

The current Leader is Andy Brodie and he has gathered a good team of support workers and Cub Scout and Beaver Scout Leaders. Andy has changed the name of the group from the 20th Maryland Scouts to the 20th St Paul’s Scouts to reflect the close relationship the church and scout group has, and also to say thanks to the church members for the support we give them and the free use of the church hall for their meetings.

(waiting for the March Pass, with Scout District Commissioner, Lord Lieutenant, Deputy Mayor, and Stephen Timms Labour MP for West Ham)

So what’s happening and how am I involved? Hmmm sometimes I wonder myself. I was asked to become the Newham District Scout Group Chaplain, it was explained to me that it would be about an hour a month (give or take) of my time, “just show up and be there”, was a phrase I distinctly remember hearing. Well I’m good at just showing up, and being seen, and eating cake and stuff so thought I would help them out and so I said “yes”. (You just know that I had been suckered by a big fib don’t you) I found that it does take rather a lot more than an hour a month and I am of course very happy to be rather more involved than was my original intention

So for the last few years I have led and sometimes preached at various ceremonial services and regularly attend meetings and sit on a selection board for new scout leaders to be interviewed for their appointments. This is such a serious job, whilst we always need new scout leaders, and new ideas, we do have to make sure we have people of the right calibre. Of course the CRB and police records checks help weed out the undesirables, but they can only go so far, so the interview system will still be important.

One of my great pleasures is to lead the St Georges Day Parade for the scouts, in the past the numbers attending were too big for my church to cope with, and St Johns in Stratford Broadway has been kind enough to host the St Georges Day Parade for us, so I go there and take over from their vicar.

Here’s just a few pictures from the 2010 St Georges Day service and parade. This year the weather was good, and the sun even managed to shine through a watery cloud.

I am always so very much in awe of the time and effort the scout leaders put into their work for the kids, honestly they are people who I admire immensely. They spend hours involved in training for themselves, and for each other in order that they can be best equipped to teach scouting to the children in their troops. I have seen in the last three years some real ‘tearaways’ join scouts and through the scout leaders and their patience, these kids who would have been cast aside by many, have grown into focused and motivated young people. Their aspirations have been raised so that they can be ‘more than they think they can be’, they get to do things which are exciting and teach them life skills. It’s a huge difference in their lives and it keeps them from joining gangs and wasting their lives, or worse, taking the life of another, so the little time I can spend supporting them is just my way of thanking them for what they do.

this is me looking 'vicary-ish' wearing the scouts scarf , and standing next to Andy Brodie Scout Leader for 20th St Pauls Scout Troop

Hello again, sorry about the dreadful grammar in the previous blog but hey, I don’t care.

One of the things I keep getting interviewed about from newspapers is “do I think the Olympic is a waste of money?”, well I suppose in retrospect we could have done without the Olympic finance bill during a recession, it did look very wobbly for a long while back in 2008 when the recession ‘bit’.

I held counselling sessions in one site unit for about 3 weeks leading up to Christmas 2008 when 30% of the workforce in one area had been informed they were being made redundant and their contracts would be terminated the week before Christmas. Now that was a seriously difficult time, and I have no idea how the men and women I spoke to were really going to cope. I have experienced a lot in my short life (Ok so it’s a long life to some, but not half done yet as far as I’m concerned) but I have never been made redundant.

Whilst everyone knew I couldn’t actually help them keep their jobs they did seem to understand that I actually cared, and I spent a lot of time listening to them and allowing them the opportunity to get things off their chest and articulate perhaps how they were going to deal with this change in their circumstances. I am pleased to say that now here in April 2010 I have seen some of the people I spoke to employed back in the Olympic Park and other units locally so at least they now have work.

Sadly last year a man died in the construction site locally and I was asked to deal with some counselling of the workforce. As ever, bad news always travels fast, and several days after when I was walking in a unit area in the Park I was spoken to by some workers who just wanted to speak about ‘life’ and how they had heard about the death. Sometimes the chaplain just needs to be a visible presence and people will come and speak about what’s bothering them most.

The picture at the top is from the Construction Skills College unit which had been set up in Temple Mills Lane next to the construction park. The deal made by the government and councils was that the skills college should train long term unemployed people who lived in the five boroughs surrou8nding the Olympic park in construction skills, ie driving tipper trucks, earth movers, diggers and cranes. In about 2 years 400 people were trained and 300 were found jobs in the Olympic park doing the things they had been trained for and gaining valuable experience in a trade which would give them employment for life

A couple of young men I spoke to were over-joyed at getting this job skill, and they were now making it their goal to earn enough money to move out of their local area and get away from the gang culture which pervades the youth in east London and as one young man said ‘ I can move my mum and dad as well, and we can be safe!’

So is the millions being spent on the Olympics a waste? Not for these young people it isn’t.

It’s not easy to tell what the chaplaincy work entails, speaking to people is obviously the primary role, but its what we get told that sometimes can make you sit back and wonder how some people live.

A young lady, born in England to naturalised UK citizen parents, was , how shall we say, ……. She was in dispute with her parents over their desire to arrange a marriage for her. In the country where her parents were born it was culturally acceptable for the parents to arrange a ‘good marriage’. As this young lady had pointed out, she was an English citizen, educated at a UK university and whilst she respected her parents and their culture, she wanted to choose her own husband and marry for love.
Understanding that I was a priest but not a religious leader from her own cultural background I did ask if she wanted me to arrange for her to meet a temple elder from her own faith. Her reply was very English and broadly ‘east end’ when she replied “ no f###ing way, he’ll just tell me to do what me parents tell me to”.

So after several weeks of her speaking with me, and listening to her increasing difficulties with her parents, she sadly come to the conclusion there was no ‘half way meeting point with them’, and she moved out of her home. She found a place to live but hadn’t told her parents as she didn’t want them turning up and taking her home. She was very obviously upset but had made a decision based upon her own rights and her own feelings of what she wanted to do with her life. she was very brave and I have seen her a couple of times and now she seems to be happy in a relationship with a young man from a different ethnic background and I just hope in time she will be able to reconcile with her parents who will come to understand the importance of their daughters desire to make her own life decisions.

We also meet people who claim faith or religions which are definitely not Christian or main stream. I have met several (men mostly) who claim to be Jedi Knights (no jokes about light sabres please…)
On one occasion a man got very aggressive with me, he stated he was a pagan and there was no way that I, being a priest, would ever make him a Christian. I told him I had more chance of making him a virgin than a Christian, which drew howls of laughter from his colleagues and made him laugh as well.

Interestingly enough the next time I saw him he offered me a coffee and we sat and spent time talking about his problems. So just a small peek at what chaplaincy does from time to time.

So what happens next? Well to be truthful, this isn’t the place to come and fine out “Secrets of Builder”, what gets told to us , stays with us..ahhhh, never mind, stay with it, there’s still other stuff to read

Its been a bit of a roller coaster, I had been invited to attend the Olympic Park Legacy group meeting on what the park will look like during and post Olympics.

Very ‘swish’, lots of parkland, lots of trees, lots of open space for people to wander about. However, no way of getting there unless you walk. So that’s going to exclude a lot of elderly people, disabled people and mums with small children. The distance is just too far, very lovely park, but no ones going to be able to travel to it unless they set out early and then the facilities around the new park, well, there wasn’t a lot of talk about that. But we have found out that the Legacy group now want £400 million to build toilets and amenities in the area (goodness me, what sort of toilets they going to build?)

They did inform the group I was with that they had set up a BMX track near the cycle Velodrome, which is fine, except most kids round here don’t won a bike, they cant afford it, parents don’t see the point in buying their child a bike when its just going to get them mugged and have it stolen off them. So someone came up with the brilliant idea of having BMX bikes for hire? Errr, how much money do they think children have in this area of East London? The government statistics show that 4 in 10 children in London live in families which are living below the poverty line. Thats nearly half the children in London, and guess what, in Newham alone, the statistics are worse. So just who is going to hire a BMX bike?

Now private funds and £ million subsidy from the Olympic delivery Authority are going to build a huge (I mean HUGE) sculpture in the Park, called after the sponsoring steel company “ArcelorMittal Orbit” .
Its going to be 115 meters high and with viewing platforms which you can pay to go up to, it looks really interesting and I suspect its going to be a money spinner , also its likely to become Stratford’s version of the Millennium Eye, except the MillenniumEeye carries you round in a circle, and this edifice will sort the fit from the fat, as you have to walk up and down it (no, not me, I’ll be happy to stand and stare up at it)

The roads round here have been dug up and re-laid, and several roads are still cut off, so we have through traffic making ‘rat-runs’ through the previously quiet estates. Tea times are worst because everyone wants to get home and so knowing their back street short cuts we have a constant stream of traffic flowing past the vicarage and no one seems to want to stop at the stop lines, so near misses are a frequent thing. (Still not sure how a 38 tonne truck managed to get round these side streets but by heck he must have been some driver, however, he did manage to slow the traffic to a crawl because he had to take the corners so carefully)

Well that’s enough for now, speak to you soon. Kelvin

How the Olympic Park Chaplaincy Works

The picture is, I'm afraid, scarily realistic, I did ask someone to photoshop it and make me look less 'grim'; but the person I asked had fainted by that point, so I didn't like to ask anyone else.

So, yes that's me, wearing enough security passes to do an impersonation of B.A. from the A Team (come on, you know who he is really)

I started off working in the site and simply talking to the men and women about anything they wanted to talk about. Understand that the chaplaincy role is not about selling religion. It has everything to do with being someone who is 'outside of the organisation' and who will listen to what you have to say.

Question:- So why be someone of 'faith' and be a chaplain, why can't anyone do it?

The answer isn't clear cut, but it has a lot to do with being in a position of trust. Perhaps there a general perception that people with a religious faith can be trusted to do the right thing, and the right thing in chaplaincy roles like this is to listen. Sometimes people just need someone to talk to, to get things off their chest, to sound off. Often in conversation's I've had people are midway through telling me their problem and then its like a light going off in their head and they know what they either need to do, or understand how they can deal with 'the problem'.

So what makes a chaplain different to telling a friend? Well we all need friends, got one or two myself; thing about friends is, they will 99.9% tell you just what you want to hear, or risk not being your friend if they tell you what you don't want to hear. The chaplain isn't going to criticise or condemn or comment on what you say. Just listen. Then there is something chaplains can do to support you, we can ask 'what do you think you can do?'.

I have been with people to speak to their union, or line managers over issues, that's being supportive. Also I have passed on to management the concerns of the workforce over matters of their personal safety and how they have felt that management isn't listening to those concerns.

One example was when in one section of the site a drying room heater had broken and the men were leaving wet outer clothing there to dry, and coming to work the next day and having to start work in wet clothes. Not something I would have wanted, and I'm sure you wouldn't either. Whilst management knew the heater was broken, and had 'put it on the list of things to do', it wasn't getting repaired as a priority. Quietly I pointed out that perhaps it was something they could do quickly to prevent long term sickness and a potential 'site shut down' when the men walked off site in protest. It was repaired that day.

Chaplaincy is a varied role, there isn't any hard and fast rule, except :- we don't sell religion, and we are there to support men and women of all faith's, no faiths, any faiths, any background, and gender, heterosexual, gay or lesbian.

The work site is a tough place to be, I have some serious admiration for the people who work in construction. Just trying to understand the logistics of putting roads in place is mind blowing. You have to decide on how long it will take to dig the road, how deep it has to be, how to put foundations in to hold it up, how to place any appropriate edging on it, what substance to place in the road foundation, how will the concrete be poured, how much will you need, what grade of consistency it has to be, what grade of steel 're-bars' to use as reinforcement, what do do with the spoil, and it all has to be done in order, and flow without stopping. That's just the road you see here going in along the side of the international Euro Rail line from St Pancras to Ebbs Fleet which has a station at Stratford,which you can see in the background.

Then once the decision has been made on all the things to be used in the building of the road, you need the appropriate machines, trained workers and vehicles. Provide the workers with wet weather gear, safety gear, and then make sure they actually wear them (that's another story) you have your work cut out.

Watching the construction take place over the last three years has been a modern equivalent of watching the Pyramids go up. From ground 'empty' to the situation we are at in January 2010 is outstanding in the nature of the amount of people involved and the number of planning applications and the sheer number of decisions which have been made to get to this stage at all. The London 2012 Olympics won't just happen because Seb Coe wants it to, it will happen because of the hard work a great many people have put into it.

Chaplaincy is a very small part of that work and its there to support people across a very wide spectrum of roles, and is doing it as quietly as it can and as much as is wanted by the workforce itself. Believe me, chaplaincy does seem to be very much in demand, I have had to recruit an additional six Assistant Chaplains in the last two years to cope with the problems that people bring to us.

Chaplain for 2012 London Olympic Construction Workers

So it's 2010 and I've been looking for somewhere to write about the most amazing job in the world. And now I've found it I just hope I can keep up the popstings and tell you about the people and the work I come across in my daily role as the Vicar of St Paul's Church Stratford E15 and the Construction Chaplaincy work.

I've been the vicar at St Paul's Stratford for over three years now. The church is sited next to the new Westfield Shopping Centre being built in East London. We are also right on the edge of the Olympic Park and Olympic Athletes Village. The entrance to the site is about 200yards from the front door of the vicarage, so you would think I dont have too far to go to work. well you'd be very wrong, soooo wrong. To get on site I have to catch specificaly appointed transport buses from the appointed bus stations next to Stratford Regional Rail and Underground Station. So walking away from the site catching the bus which passes my house, then takes me a mile further into the security check points is like having a proper job and travelling to work.

I started here in October 2006, and frankly it was a bit boring. We had won the Olympic bid in 2005 and the site in East London had been selected for redevelopment, but nothing much was happening. It was open wasteland.

The picture shows the Stratford International Railway Station to the distant right. Soil from the Eurotunnel link had been drilled out and placed on the land you see in the picture. It raised the land height by 20feet over an area of 400 hectacres (so I'm told, having not measured it myself I am willingto accept these figures)

So when I started on the site there were half a dozen security guards on the main gate 24 staff in the International Station & me. Before the Olympic and Stratford Shopping Centre could begin lots of planning had to take place.

The London Borough of Newham East London, was and is the 4th most economically and socially deprived area in the country, Stratford sits on the edge of the borough and butts onto Tower Hamlets in London which is the 2nd most deprived area in the UK. So it really doesnt look like it has much going for it. There are currently 15000 unemplyed people in Newham. people who have never had a job, people who never want a job, and people who would love a job but have no skills or insufficient education to aid them in getting a job.

The allocation of the Olympics to the London 2012 bid and especially the venues to be built in East London, iniatially raised the hopes and aspirations of the local communities. Jobs for all was the mantra, local expectations at the Buisness Community Forum were that 'local people and buisness' would be first and foremost in line for employment and recieve allocation of contracts from the Olympic Delivery Authority (ODA). Local shops were expecting a boom period, local councillors I spoke to were confident that the Olympic would bring immediate prosperity to the area.

My friends, how sad it has been to see that very little of this has come to fruition. Local buisness has been almost totally excluded from the contracts from the ODA as they quote one source "dont have the expertise to provide the quantites or quality of .........." the open ended sentance is for you to fill in the gaps.

The excitment that I found in the community when I arrived here and the expectations of what the ODA promised soon faded. By August 2008 the local population were still waiting for the 'Olympic Boom' to happen.

St Paul's Stratford Interior

Meanwhile I was also the Vicar of St Paul's Church Maryland Road Stratford E15 and I had work to do there as well. Upon my arival there were only 8 people in the church congregation. It would seem that the previous vicar had left after some madman had come into the church and thretend to shoot him. Well, I know my preaching isnt all that hot (sometimes) but no ones ever threatend to shoot me, so the poor chap left and the congregation just wilted away.



Now we have numbers in the mid 20/30's but its been a big long slog uphill to encourage a community of believers in the church. I am pleased to say they church members are a family and do care about each other.


the building is exceptional and is fast becoming a venue for arts and music concerts so heres a picture to show what we look like from the front.