As Friary reaches its 20^th Birthday, it is remarkable to think what has been achieved since the first cups of tea were served in July 1988 to a few of the residents of the (now demolished) Musters Hotel. Those residents had to face up to one of the most unsettling challenges of life - an uncertain future.

From these small beginnings, continual expansion in the number and quality of the services has been at the heart of Friary: not only to meet the immediate needs of deprived people, but to create opportunities for them to change their lives and retain their dignity.

Friary prides itself on spending appropriate amounts of time in assessing the needs of individual service users so that the person can be matched to statutory or voluntary services, many of which are run from the daycentre. In many cases, we have to ensure that they can cope in managing the home that they have been allocated with help from the Tenancy Support Team and, in keeping with the present climate, this increasingly includes the complexities of debt management. Providing opportunities for training that will lead to a foot on the job ladder is a growing expectation and we are aware of the need to expand these services.

The other side of the coin is that all these services have to be prudently managed, not only to meet the core objectives of Friary, but also to meet the influences of national good practice that is bound up with funding and the changing expectations of daycentres. Consequently, the Trustees are carrying out a consultation process to determine how best to strengthen the management structure that will benefit both the strategic direction of Friary and also enable day-to-day administration to cope with what is commonly known as ‘change’.

As ever, affordability looms large in these considerations: but if Friary is to seek continual improvement, as it has done so with great success over the past twenty years, some ground- breaking decisions affecting the organisation lie ahead.

Let’s hope we get it right first time.