We are pleased to hear that the Mothers’ Union office has smoothly moved from Church House to St. Thomas’s house in the centre of Salisbury and functioning from the beginning of September. Jenny sends best wishes to all members.
Our September meeting was at the home of Michael and Jane Brake, where we were made welcome on a beautiful, warm and sunny afternoon. Ashley Jones, well known to us all as a Licensed Lay Minister from All Saints church, was our invited speaker and talked to us about his role as a Medical Receptionist at the White Horse Health Centre.
As a result of the COVID epidemic, Ashley had been made redundant from his job with Pickford’s removal company where he had worked for many years Taking part in an “on line” programme designed to help people find a new path of employment, Ashley eventually found an opportunity on his own home ground in Westbury as a vacancy occurred at the health centre. A period of observations and training followed. Ashley found that God had led him through his experiences as a Lay Minister, as well as dealing with customers in the removal business, to be patient, empathetic and understanding .
COVID was still very rife so full protection equipment had to be worn at all times .
It was quite an eye opener to hear just how many different roles are covered by the staff at the health centre and that there are already 24,000 patients in the area covered by the practice. We all know just how difficult we can find telephoning the centre and hearing just how many people are ahead of us in the queue, but Ashley assured us that everyone is answered and that the whole staff from doctors, nurses and all those with particular areas of expertise will do their very best to help each one of us. I do hope that having listened to Ashley speak so eloquently, we will all try to be understanding and patient as we all know the tremendous pressure that the NHS and hospitals are under and the difficulty they are having in filling vacancies in all departments. We thanked Ashley for his very informative talk.
We were all reminded of the remaining events for this year which included: an invitation to have a Mothers’ Union floral display at our Harvest Festival; our annual service at the Cathedral in November specially dedicated to the campaign against Gender based violence and our next meeting planned for Thursday October 5th 10.00am at the home of Janet and Peter Likeman. This is a social gathering and we also invite our members to bring ideas for a Christmas Lunch venue with information of what is available and a selection of menus.
Enid Holbrow.