Strange Meeting

"It seemed that out of battle I escaped
Down some profound dull tunnel, long since scooped
Through granites which titanic wars had groined..."

(My apologies to Wilfred Owen)

Today, my boss and the chair of the board will be meeting with some faceless civil servant in a vain attempt to reverse a decision regarding the ending of funding of my project. I'm not going to be at the meeting, instead I've been looking at statistical evidence to justify the continuing need for my work and will be briefing the high heid yins before they jolly off to Victoria Quay. (The statistical evidence is compelling, incidentally: essentially youth homeless figures in Scotland have remained more or less static for the past 5 years - in spite of an overall drop in the total number of young people, meaning that there is an increase in percentage of young people in Scotland becoming homeless even if the total number has dropped slightly.)

The funny thing is, one of the reasons I took this job was that I had been assured at least 3 years funding (there's not a great deal more longer-term than that in the voluntary sector, so three years is a fair whack...) and where I was working previously couldn't really assure me of more than a year. Within three years, you can make lasting changes and actually put project work into action: within one? You can't even get the paste ready to paper over the cracks.

And so, once again I am entrenched, fighting for funding, having been misguided and misdirected by management, having had meaningless promises made - and not being able to completely focus on the real work that might just make a difference because I am having to beg for pennies.

- Spare any change? Because as far as I can tell change is long overdue.