Once a month, the Dock Chaplains get together for a bit of an oul’ natter, chatter and pray – and today we welcomed a new face to the team – say hello to Robin!

So far this year we’ve been more often saying Farewell than Hello (Finiaaannnn!!! and Karrennnn!!) – so it’s great to see things heading in the right direction again!

You can get to meet Robin yourself if you call in for a cuppa on Wednesday lunchtimes – and like all the Dock Chaplains, he’ll as happily chat about your deepest darkest questions about life, the universe and everything as pour your cup of coffee!  And again, like all the Chaplains, he’ll very gladly pray for you or with you – just feel free to ask.

Also on the subject of new faces – we’re being joined this month by another neighbour at the ARC apartments – the signs went up today for the new Belfast Bakery Co outlet right beside the Mace and Green Deli.  Fresh bakes in the Belfast Bakery Company, all life’s essentials in the Mace, gorgeous sandwiches and hot food in the Green Deli, fabulous hand-made crafts in Dock Market, and space to chill, eat your fill and be still in Dock Cafe… what more could you want!

(And – it looks like – a place to pick up or return a Belfast Bike as well, right between the Dock & SS Nomadic – exciting!)

There’s a fab new sign on the blackboard above the Dock’s Honesty Box – check out these amazing facts and figures!

However the Dock’s Honesty Box has another challenge ahead of it this month… every so often a big household bill looms out of nowhere and the piggy bank gets broken open – and sometimes those are the big bills for those behind-the-scenes things which can’t be quantified like numbers of tray-bakes and bowls of soup.

Here at the Dock we have one of those big bills looming:

So – if you’re calling in to Dock Cafe, Dock picnic or Dock Market this month – please consider dropping an extra donation in the box.  Use it as an excuse to call in for a cuppa!

A few stories from just some of the amazing Dock Volunteers…

Jackie is one of our volunteers on Mondays and Fridays – you may recognise her or you may just know her as the blur of energy that whooshes past cleaning dishes, mopping the floor, and tidying the tables at 90mph!  On Sunday night at our monthly Sunday service (Sunday  Nights at The Dock, 1st Sunday of every month, 6pm @ Dock Cafe) she’ll be sharing her story of her amazing travels, adventures and opportunities… don’t miss it!

To find out more about Joanne, one of our Saturday volunteers, you just need to click through to the BBC – yes, a Dock volunteer has hit the headlines!   Just goes to show that you never know who is pouring your cuppa in The Dock – they might be an international globetrotter taking a quick break from their UNESCO duties to chill out in the cafe!

And Stevo – if you’ve been in at lunch time over the last few weeks, you won’t have missed Stevo.  He’s masterminding the further development of Dock Picnic, our lunchtime overflow extravaganza – and I’ll let him introduce himself in his own words:

Hi everyone I am the newest member of the team here at The Dock.(which is all very exciting!!) I am almost a full month into my role as a project worker for the new Pop Up Picnic. Time flies!

No day in The Dock is ever the same and as I have discovered post volunteering there is a lot of work that goes on behind scenes! I am involved primarily with the set up of our new and exciting project – the Pop Up Picnic in our Market space  (see the pics of work in progress!) I also help out with the volunteer recruitment process and chip in with the day to day life of the main cafe as well.

A usual day for me starts off around 9.30am setting up the Pop Up Picnic, looking after/developing it until around 2pm when it closes. I love it, it is very challenging but a great opportunity to be creative at the same time. It has been fantastic getting to know the students over the past month that use the space. My time outside of the Picnic is spent with the volunteer process, which is great because I am meeting new people all the time and hearing the fantastic stories of why people want to volunteer with The Dock.

A little bit about me:  I’m a pretty regular guy in his twenties. Sport is a big part of my life! I love kicking the odd sphere or chasing an egg across a pitch on the odd occasion. I love meeting new people and exploring new things. My journey to The Dock started many years ago when my parents decided to board me and my siblings on a plane to Southern Africa. I lived there for around 10 years (being Irish a lot of factor 30 was used). It was a great childhood and I learnt so much from experiencing a very different culture.

I moved back to Northern Ireland to complete my schooling in Ballymena, which was an experience in itself. After school I moved to lovely Belfast and studied Design Technology at Jordanstown. Post uni I moved towards full time work in the charity and voluntary sector due to my back ground in sport coaching and Church involvement. My last job was developing youth volunteering across Northern Ireland and working on some fantastic events. So it was all pretty exciting and now suddenly I find myself in The Dock cafe.

So how did this happen?  About a year and half ago I had been chatting with someone who told me about this quirky little place in the Titanic Quarter that would be right up my street.  I said ok, right I will check it out, thinking nothing much of it at first. So I went on the website and watched the videos of how the Dock came to be. I was blown away by the vision Chris had for Church and life in the area.  I felt a strong presence that I needed to get involved, but with starting a new full time job, that it may not happen. After a bit of tossing and turning, I decided just go! I don’t do much on a Saturday anyway. So I started volunteering and absolutely loved it! I couldn’t wait to get in on a Saturday after a long week in work.

Around March this year my work circumstances changed and I wasn’t sure what was next. I was still in The Dock volunteering and was asked if I would be interested in doing an Intern, I thought fantastic this is an answer to prayer! So over the past few months I have been ‘interning’ which involved a project or two. I was assigned to look after the volunteer recruitment process and help with the day to day operations of the cafe. I learnt a huge amount during the Intern and have met some incredible people!

Please feel free to come over and have a chat and I Look forward to pouring you a cuppa very soon 🙂

Dock Volunteers never cease to amaze me.  These friendly, smiling, hard-working, heavy-(coffee)-drinking people give time, talent, energy, enthusiasm, patience and practical sheer hard work on a regular basis to make Dock Cafe (and, these days, Dock Picnic as well – more on that soon!) a little piece of Heaven on Earth.

As part of the Dock AGM which we held this week, we had an update on those wonderful volunteers (prepared by the wonderful Katy and delivered by the wonderful Sally) that was so good I thought it was worth sharing with you all:

First of all – Dock Volunteering in the words of the volunteers themselves:
Dock volunteering is…
…an adventure that is always changing! No day is the same.
…a great way to get involved with the community and meet people from all over the world!
…a great way to feel the essence of community spirit.
…a great place to get free food– I mean! Uhhh… A great place to meet new people and have a great time! Of course!
…the difference you can make to others and yourself. Have fun while being a service to others.
…a way to feel part of a special family, odd cousins and all! But mostly like a warm hug.
…is fun and rewarding.

And now a few statistics…

In the week of 5-11 October the Dock Cafe volunteers gave 159 volunteer hours. And in those hours Dock Cafe Volunteers have served:
748 bread rolls
360 scones
200 cookies and shortbread
288 cake squares
700 bowls of soup
600 cups of tea
1300 cups of coffee
1756 tray bakes

During the Tall Ships four day festival the Dock Cafe volunteers gave 172 volunteer hours and served over 5500 cups of coffee.

On average The Dock volunteer team give 813 hours per month (includes cafe team, prayer team, chaplain team, operational team, directors).

There are all sorts of ways in which the Dock volunteers get a little thank-you – like our recent trip to the Tudor Cinema in Comber – or:

Over the past 7/8 months, we have given out Millennium Volunteer (MV) recognition certificates to our 25 years and under volunteers. As part of the MV programme young people receive a certificate backed by The Dock and the Department of Education after their first 50, 100 and 200 hours of volunteering. This award is highly beneficial for UCAS applications, CV’s and confirmation of hours volunteered. It is also an incentive for younger volunteers to commit to long term Dock volunteering.

4 Café volunteers awarded 50 hour certificates – now working towards 100 hour
9 Café volunteers awarded 100 hour certificates – now working towards 200 hour
2 Café volunteers nominated for 200 hour award.

And there are all sorts of ways in which our volunteers first heard about the Dock and were inspired to volunteer:

Stephen recently attended the Belfast Met volunteering fair – The students all said they absolutely loved the Café and in particular The Dock volunteers. The volunteers seem to be the main reason why many of the students want to be a part of Dock life. Stephen estimates that he talked to between 80 – 120 people with 14 volunteer forms returned the next day. There was particular interest from hospitality students looking for practical experience.

And the interest is international… The Alcorns shared The Dock story with a person beside them on a flight. Cue another Dock Café volunteer!

And finally – a few stories from Volunteer World – there are millions more – but the AGM could have gone on all year!

Three Dock Cafe volunteers have gone into paid employment, one of these volunteers got a job in another coffee shop based on his Dock volunteering experience. (His new employer had visited The Dock cafe prior to his interview.)

Some of the Saturday team came to the rescue by helping a resident from the Arc apartments retrieve their drone (not a cat!) that was stuck up a tree. The resident was surprised that our volunteers would come outside and help. That’s community spirit!

If you’d like to find out more about joining this amazing family, just click here

It’s the change we never thought would happen… Harvey the Campervan has gone to a new home!

If you’ve been around Dock-World from the start, you’ll recognise our little blue-and-white VW Bay Window – he was my daily driver back in the early days of the Dock, as well as being the focal point for our early Meet The Neighbours events and Christmas parties.

He even starred in Mission Titanic (or the Dock Doc as we called it) – the fly-on-the-wall documentary about the formation of Dock Cafe – the story of the man who went looking for a boat and found something so much better instead:

Mission Titanic Part 1: The Man Who Goes Looking For A Boat… from The DOCK on Vimeo.

(If you haven’t seen it, the whole documentary is online here: Part One –  Part Two –  Part Three – and Harvey is the star right from the first frame!)

Looking back at the Dock Doc, it’s almost overwhelming so see how the Titanic Quarter has grown and flourished in the four lightning-fast years since the camera crews were following us… We’ve seen numbers of visitors to Dock Cafe absolutely skyrocket, the opening of Dock Market and Dock Picnic, the start of Sunday Nights at the Dock on SS Nomadic and then in Dock Cafe, the formation of Dock knitters and book group and prayer team and so much more… Since Dock Cafe has opened, Titanic Belfast opened its doors for the first time – as did SS Nomadic, Cast & Crew, and in recent days Titanic Exhibition Centre… The Wee Tram, the Segway Tours and Cable & Wake have started operation…  We’ve been overwhelmed by the crowds at the Giro Big Start and the Tall Ships festival…And we’ve been joined by our wonderful next-door neighbours in the Mace & Green Deli:

And now the latest great news is that we have more new neighbours joining us at the ARC over the next few weeks: the unit beside the Mace is going to become home to The Belfast Baking Company – so the smell of freshly-baked bread and cakes will be wafting through the air at the ARC apartments very soon…  More life and activity, more new faces, more creativity, more reasons to celebrate and enjoy every minute of Life in the Titanic Quarter.