My last post was about a brief encounter with a small charity in Liverpool. So if you follow it, who knows where will this thread will lead?
My first experience of working for a charity was when I joined Coventry Churches Housing Association in January 1979. It was started by a small group of volunteers linked by their Christian faith and a desire to help the homeless in Coventry. Their Chairman was a Jesuit priest who had worked with communities in Liverpool. I spent 10 years at CCHA as part of an inspirational team of people lead by Bill Martin; a man who knew no boundaries and strove relentlessly for improvement and innovation.
In 1987 with Bill’s encouragement and a seed funding loan I set up the ExtraCare charity to develop and manage nursing homes for the elderly as well as managing CCHA’s rented retirement housing. I was able to take several key people from CCHA with me and we remained a team for the next 20 years.
How does this relate to growing 🌻?
Well we started with no public funds most of our capital for new nursing home projects had to be raised from bank loans, but a small proportion came from charitable fundraising. Over the years at ExtraCare we raised over £20 million from a standing start.
ExtraCare’s story is covered earlier in this blog and you can find more posts in the Tag Cloud, “ExtraCare Traditions”. What started as a seed of an idea about “Better lives for older people”, turned into a 🌻 that improved the lives of a great many elderly residents of ExtraCare and several thousand staff.
This is a long way from a small charity in Liverpool, but a 🌻 has many seeds and there are some parallels which I will cover in my next post.
GrumbleSmiles 
Dear John, the seeds you have sown and the blogs you have posted on the subject of living in old age as printed in 2012 are still true today The basic concepts of a Retiremwnt Village as you invisaged are still true;
1 Security of tenure.
2 Safety in ones surroundinds
3 Social intergration and neighbourliness
4 staff and facilties for offering advice and imediate emerrngy care.
There are still small issues from day to day, but overall the dreams you had in the days of the Coventry Church Charities 1997 still hold true.
Molly and I are still both very happy ere in EXTRACARE Lovat Fields. Thank you John for inaugurating your ideas and dreams.
I am privileged to have known and been mentored by both Bill Martin and John. This experience had a profound effect on me and focussed my career on providing improved housing opportunities for older people.
Thanks Phill. Good to hear you are still doing well.
Best wishes
John