What Do I Do on a Typical Day (Grainne Jennings: Director)

Sep 01, 2020

For an organisation founded over thirty years ago there have been many changes but also constants that are embedded into the culture of our daily routine. Our founding member SrCaoimhin clearly understood the value of bringing people together around the table as a means of creating a sense of belonging and community. As such each day begins and ends with a coming together around the table to share foodand lots of laughter to sustain us through the day.
The ethos of MT has always been on the building of relationships and community from within. In order for that to happen it requires ongoing engagement and giving time at individual and group level every day. For me no day is ever the same as the needs of the group and organisation shift and change. My time is occupied with following up with counselling support, crisis intervention, involvement in project based learning initiatives, report writing, responding to a funders requests, networking at local level, visitingprison to follow up on a referral, attending court, meeting with Board members. All of the above requires me to think in very different ways and focus on the issue to hand.
As expectation shift and change requiring charities to have expertise in law, finance, governance, research it becomes a constant juggling act of ensuring that group needs are met and expectations of funder are adhered to.
What Do I get Out of It
Challenge of dealing with such a wide range of issues, challenge for myself in constantly learning and adapting to new situations as research develops and new working methodologies give us insight into progressing our work.
I am deeply conscious that as expectations of charities shift towards higher levels of accountability, and administrative tasks we are in danger of forgetting about why we are here in the first place and that is to work with people.
This is coupled with having to compete for limited resources to ensure that we can provide a high quality, relevant programme. I see it that it is my responsibility to go out there a shout with a very loud voice on behalf of our community to ensure that the wider community and society recognise the value of what and how we do it in Matt Talbot

What Does Your Job Normally Entail?

As Director, I work closely with the Board and Senior management team to ensure that our programme is relevant and meeting the evolving needs of a diverse group of people. My role spans from direct engagement with group members, support to our outreach, raising awareness of the needs of group members with funders and corporate partners and ensuring that the necessary infrastructure is adequately in place to support the continuation of our community into the future

What’s My Favourite Memory/ Experience working in MT

There are so many memories that are completely stand Out for me so this is very hard to answer.
Being in a position to watch and be part of the lives of so many families that came to join us in Ballinascorney for the summer residential programme over many years is definitely something that fills me with joy. Without giving too much away in terms of my length of tenure with Matt Talbot, I have had the privilege of knowing children that in turn brought their children to the summer programme!!
We were able to create a magical experience there that included nights around the camp fire telling stories and singing while drinking our hot chocolate and toasting marshmallows; midnight walks into the forest and canoeing expeditions on the Slaney river; the constant washing and sorting of clothes into everyone’s “piles “and up early to make the breakfast each day. Each year when the children arrived I would mark off their height on a wall so that they could see how much they had grown from one year to the next. In many ways it became a home from home for so many people in the Ballyfermot area.