It’s fantastic to be back to Dock Cafe life after our little Jubilee break.  Hope you all had a fantastic long weekend (I managed to be in Titanic Quarter, Carrickfergus and Portrush on Sunday but just miss the Olympic Torch each time!)

And with a new season at Dock Cafe comes lots of new ideas and enthusiasm.  And so here is Number One: as of today, Dock Cafe is the proud owner of a lovely big professional boardroom table, complete with 12 comfy chairs, a flip chart, and of course a steady supply of fresh-brewed coffee and tea…

The idea emerged because many businesses and groups from around the city have already used Dock Cafe as the venue for a big board meeting, an AGM, a brainstorming session or a group discussion.  It’s great to see Dock Cafe being used for both work and play – and now we’ve got the furniture to suit.  One side of the room – comfy sofas, swivel armchairs, glorious views, space to chill out.  And now the other side – tables, chairs, room for discussion and creative thinking, all surrounded by fantastic artwork and the inspiring buzz of Titanic Quarter life.

So – we’re open for business!  If you’d like to use Dock Cafe for a group meeting, just click ‘Cafe’ and ‘Event Request Form’ on the menu bar at the top of the page – and we’ll put the kettle on!

(PS – our regulars have noticed that a little teaser campaign has been going on for the last few days on the Dock Cafe blackboard – what does it all mean…?  Answers on a postcard…

For the first time in its existence, Dock Cafe is taking a brief pause this weekend… along with (most of) the rest of the nation, Tegan and the gang will be taking an extremely well-earned Jubilee long weekend to enjoy the sunshine.  Thanks, HM the Q!

But of course the Dock Walk will continue as normal at 3:33 on Sunday afternoon – after my first regular service with my new chums at St Clements in East Belfast.  Scroll down for a few pics from my Introduction Service last night – and for those of you who have only met me in my role as TQ Chaplain, where I wear the sort of clothes that any vaguely normal person might wear, get ready for some hardcore clerical fashions…

Just having a wee bite of lunch after spending some time on Titanic’s slipways – the exact spot where, 101 years ago precisely, 26,000 tonnes of riveted metal scraped and screamed their way into the water in 62-seconds flat…

I had my trusty camcorder with me – the results of which will appear over the weekend.  But for now, how’s this for transformation: this day last year, as we celebrated the centenary of Titanic’s launch, the slipways were a cracked concrete wasteland and the visitor centre behind us was still a building site:

Today, the slipways are beautifully restored – a fabulous, subtle, deeply moving place to spend some time in Titanic’s footprint.  (You may remember I raved about them here.)  And here I am having lunch in the Titanic Belfast galley cafe, surrounded by hordes of visitors from all over the world.

62 seconds: pretty snappy time to launch a ship.

One year: pretty snappy time to transform a city.

31st May (which falls on Thursday this week) is a pretty significant date in Titanic circles – it’s the day when Titanic first hit the water during her 62-second slide down the slipway in 1911.  (We stood there for a bit during today’s Dock Walk to mark the moment!)

It was also, this time last year, a very significant day for Dock-world.  Karen and I had the privilege of leading the service on the slipways to mark the centenary of Titanic’s launch, and the resultant TV coverage of Titanic Quarter’s ‘Shared Medley’ church in action was a big boost for the Dock project, just as we were getting ready to launch the Dock business plan.

So it’s kinda appropriate that it’s a big day again this year.  This time it’s the launch of a new part of the Dock mix: my role as a part-time minister in St Clement’s parish on Templemore Avenue, just across the road in East Belfast.  St Clement’s is a great wee place full of friendly, enthusiastic people – and so I’m sure they would be delighted if some of the Dock Gang turned up to my Introduction Service at 8pm on Thursday 31st May.  So consider this your cordial invitation!

(In case any of you are worried that I’m deserting my post in the TQ – not a bit of it!  Click here for a fuller explanation.)

One thing I should make really clear: although I’ll now be taking Sunday services in St Clement’s in the morning, the Dock Walks will continue as normal on Sunday afternoons at 3:33 and will still form the ‘church service’ (if that’s what you want to call it!) of Dock World.  I know I’m biased (having just come home from a Dock Walk in the blazing sunshine on this spectacular day!) but I’ve never experienced a form of worship which has moved, challenged and excited me as much as this.  A good walk with good friends on a Sunday afternoon, chatting and chewing over a passage of Scripture as we walk, stopping to praise the Creator of the skies and seas and gulls and mountains all around us… Something about being in the open air speaks to a very deep part of me, and I wouldn’t miss those Sunday walks for all the world.

You never know who you’re going to bump into in Dock Cafe…

Joining Mark Simpson, Naomi Long and (of course) Eamonn Holmes in the Dock Cafe Celeb Hall of Fame, Belfast’s First Citizen called in for a cuppa this morning…

And the Lord Mayor didn’t just call in for a quick visit and a photoshoot: he properly sat down, drank a cuppa, met the gang, chatted and chilled and shared ideas and stories with a mix of people from all sorts of different backgrounds.

Another slice of Dock Cafe Life in action.  And another snapshot of the new day we are living in.  Look how much has changed in the short year that Councillor O’Donnghaile has been in office: we met on 31st May last year, right at the beginning of his term of office,  on the cracked concrete wasteland of the unrestored slipways, in the shadow of the building site of Titanic Belfast, to mark the anniversary of Titanic’s launch in a city that still held to the culture of “We don’t talk about Titanic…”

Back then, Titanic’s anniversary still seemed an age away.  And Dock Cafe wasn’t even a pipe-dream.

How times change…