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…

OK, this is awesome…

Since the moment Dock Cafe opened its doors, everyone’s favourite window & preferred sofa has been the one at the corner looking out onto SS Nomadic.  The little tender ship is, hands-down the best living link to Titanic anywhere in the world, a hugely evocative piece of history as well as being a gorgeous sight in her own right.  She was built by the same men, using the same metal, the same rivets, the same design features as Titanic and her sister ships.  She carried some of Titanic’s best-known passengers from Cherbourg harbour to board the mighty liner.  She acted in all sorts of other capacities – tender, troop-ship, restaurant, cinema – through a long, varied, turbulent century of service.  And now she’s sitting, 100 years later, right on the spot where she was fitted out and sent on her way in  May 1911.  Amazing.

And now – the Dock gets to be part of the Nomadic story.  The restoration team – who are doing an incredible job of refurbishing the ship to her 1911 glory after the batterings of a century – have asked for our help.  The teak railings, bannisters and doors which were fitted during the exterior renovation are in danger of drying out while work continues on the interior.  And so, as next-door neighbours, we’ve offered to help out – and the offer has been gratefully accepted.

So, are you up for it, people of The Dock?  We’re talking about a once-a-month trip onto Nomadic, on a dry day (yes they do happen in Belfast), armed with equipment and teak oil which will be provided by the restoration team, and elbow-grease which will be provided by us.  The team, and the day-of-the-week, will probably change month-by-month as we fit in with the weather and the availability of volunteers.  But if you’d like to be part of the gang, just send me a message, and we’ll be in touch with times and details as each Nomadic Day approaches.

You won’t be committing yourself to anything, and if you’re not free for every session don’t worry.  But if you want to be a small part of this amazing Nomadic tale – if you want to sense the shiver of history as you step on board to play a part in her story – get in touch.

(And PS – sorry for the late notice, but if anyone is around the TQ at 11am tomorrow and able to call into Dock Cafe, we’ll have a rather special visitor calling in for a cuppa and a scone.   He wears some serious bling around his neck, and he’s coming to the end of a very eventful year… guess who it is yet?!)

Apologies for a bit of a delay updating the blog – what a week!  Hopefully you’ve been able to keep track of things on the Dock Facebook page or through Twitter – if not, check in and start following @thedocktq straight away!

Things got off to a nice early start on Wednesday as we supplied breakfast for the brave souls setting out to cycle 300 miles between Belfast and Cobh (Titanic’s last port of call) for the Christian Aid Titanic Cycle Challenge.  After bacon butties and coffee, we marked the start of the cycle by wetting the wheels of the bikes with some good (clean….?!) Lagan water at the exact spot where Titanic slid off the slipways and touched water ro the first time…

It wasn’t just a week of early starts – late nights featured too…  Dock Cafe was the venue for some of the events in the superb No More Traffik On Our Streets campaign – raising awareness of the shocking reality of human trafficking in our society.  On Wednesday we heard some Stories of Hope – of those who had been rescued from a life of slavery, and stories of some of the organisations bringing transformation in cultures where trafficking is rife.

On Thursday we hosted a Chocolate and Fashion night – a fashion show and a chocolate-tasting session promoting products which have been ethically produced – nobody exploited in an anonymous production chain hidden behind a temptingly-cheap high street price.

This was followed by the premiere of The Pink Room, a new movie on the subject of trafficking, and a question-and-answer session with its director.

And on Friday the concrete walls, columns and surfaces of the cafe were used to project some superb artwork and photography – many of the photos taken as part of a project by Tim Doak, a Belfast-based photographer (who has some work on display in Dock Cafe, natch!)  who was in Cambodia to teach photography to girls rescued from sex trafficking.

Most exciting moment of the week: when the doors opened every night and the people just kept coming…and coming… and coming… (we had over 250 squeezed into the cafe on Thursday night!)

Most hilarious moment of the week: trying to fit the huge wooden-block letters from the photography exhibition into the back of a Ford Ka…

(solution: come back with a van the next morning…)

Most challenging moment of the week: too many to mention.  It was a real eye-opener for me personally to hear some of the stories and realise how much of a reality this issue is.  Right here in Belfast we’ve heard of convictions for trafficking offences in recent weeks – so we can’t pretend that it’s a problem that just happens elsewhere in the world.  So can I really encourage you to click on the link to the No More Traffik site and get involved.