Ways to See the World

These are the times when I love my current role. Part of my job is helping people de-stress and recharge by helping to organise fun things and doing little trips to places. I can’t go with them for all of them but I do get to help make them happen. If you don’t have a car the North Coast can be a challenging place to visit as the public transport system is dire (unless you’re heading to Giant’s Causeway that is) so I get to help make those little trips happen to places you can’t get to unless you’re planning to walk everywhere for a very long time or have a car. I’ve taken people to watch the sunset at Kinbane Head, dropped people off at Murlough Bay to walk back over Fairhead, gone to explore some caves in Cushendun and many other things. This may all seem pretty irrelevant but actually helps people unwind when the entirety of living and working at full capacity gets tiring. It’s about saying we care about helping you de-stress and we heard the wish when you said you’d love ...

I was recently set the challenge of restarting my blog so here we are. Restarted. Things have changed a little since I last wrote this. Not overly much though admittedly. I am still volunteering at Corrymeela albeit in a slightly different role now. People have asked me what the heck I’m still doing here and plenty of people joke that I’m clearly incapable of leaving. Maybe that’s true and maybe it isn’t. The important thing is that I’m here because I want to be. Not because I couldn’t find anything else or that this is a stopgap but because it’s the right place for me to be right now. Summer is here again and with that comes new faces and familiar ones. Both faces breathe new life into community and work and the sense that we’re all doing this together is recharged. It’s also a challenging time of year as our groups stay for longer periods, there are more people around and the One Year Volunteers are beginning to think about goodbyes. Lots of emotions all round. This yea...

One of the most challenging things about this place is the goodbyes. It’s part of the rhythm of life here and whilst you anticipate the dates, it doesn’t make saying those goodbyes any easier. The summer is a particularly challenging time for the lived community as people come to volunteer for short periods of time and can have a huge impact, and then there are goodbyes to the people who have lived here for a year or more. There are things about living here which are hard to explain to those who’ve never experienced the intensity of it. The impact a small group of people can have on your sense of yourself, your personal growth and professional development is astounding. The ways that I see the world have been challenged again and again this last year and whilst there are people I have shared experiences with who I will probably never see again, there are also those I know will be some of the closest friends I have for years to come. It’s strange to anticipate another year here ...

So for some crazy reason I have yet to work out, I have signed up to do a leg of the Belfast City Marathon on Monday 6 May. I do not voluntarily run and have never really been for a run in my life so I have just over a month to prepare to run the admittedly short distance of 4.3 miles. Thankfully there's a team of us here at Corrymeela who are all doing this together. So many in fact that we have two relay teams of staff and volunteers in the marathon this year.  So, why are we running? Many of us have given up our time to come to volunteer at Corrymeela and believe in the power of volunteering to provide opportunities for people to grow, develop and learn so that we can give back to communities around the world when we leave but also to contribute to the work of peace and reconciliation in Northern Ireland in some small way. Not only is this a way of giving back to Corrymeela through fundraising but it is also a way of raising money to allow people who may not be able to aff...

It's that time of year again, the time to celebrate with family and friends and for celebrating the birth of Jesus, if that's your thing. As I have never celebrated the birth of Jesus, Christmas has always been the time of year when all the family meets up and generally just has a nice get-together over a few Harvey Wallbangers (on my Mum's side at least). Talking about family get-togethers is always a strange one since for most of my life I have always had to divide my Christmas and New Year between my Mum and my Dad. In some ways this makes them extra special as I then get to see both halves of my family over this period and in some ways it really doesn't as it takes the magic out of the whole experience. In recent years the family aspect has begun to fall away and I find myself wondering what the point of Christmas is if you don't celebrate the birth of Jesus and your family gathering seems to shrink every year despite your best efforts. This year is particu...

Of all the things I expected to love about being here, attending community worship was not one of them. Living and working in an open, Christian community sounded to me as if it would be the most challenging aspect of my time here since I am not a religious person. Thankfully, I have already been successfully challenged in my views and genuinely look forward to this aspect of the rhythm of life here. Worship takes place in the Croi ( pronounced Cree ) every morning and most evenings and whilst it is not compulsory to attend, I find myself there more often than not. The 'worship' is facilitated by community members and the nature of it changes depending on who is running the session.  Obviously, being a Christian community, some of the sessions are related to God and the central tenants of Christianity but generally speaking it is a space for contemplation and reflection on a topic, providing an excellent way to start and end the day. Last week was the anniversary of ...

It's been almost a week since I started work and already I feel like a part of a community.   I find it hard to describe the atmosphere here but it's an incredibly calm and peaceful place, overlooking Ballycastle with views across the sea to Rathlin Island, and Scotland on particularly clear days. Upon arrival there was a Welcome Party to greet me and due to various birthdays and parties this week there has been a lot of cake available. There was also Halloween which, being of Celtic origin, is far more celebrated here than it is in Yorkshire. It's also a good excuse for a non-sectarian party.  Having had no warning that all the volunteers would be participating in the Halloween parade I had no costume ready, especially as my Halloween costumes consist of variations of either pirate or witch, and everyone was going as a character from Mario. As it turned out, one of the volunteers had made me a toadstool hat and we raided the costume box for the rest of the outfit....