Today has been a day of planning for the future.

This morning I attended a meeting held in the church with local traders, Bishop Brian of Tonbridge and Judith Armitt, chief exec of Medway Council.

The meeting was part of a consultation over plans to regenerate the area of Gillingham. I thought the ideas were good and worth getting excited over. Unfortunately I have been here for so long and heard similar before and felt people were very good at answering questions and making statements without actually answering what was really being asked.

I do, however, think Medway is on the up and the sign of buildings going up is, I believe, a sign of a healthy economy and view of the area. I await with measured anticipation what will happen next.

Two things that struck me from this morning were three statistics:
Medway has 250 000 residents. That is the size of Nottingham.
27% of that are young people – that’s around 67 000 young people!
the number of over 70’s will grow by 75% in the next 20 years.

These figures need to be looked at and planned for by the local church.

Plans continued this afternoon as I joined the trustees of Chislehurst YFC as they interviewed for a new Director to lead and develop the work. This could be a cool job with loads of scope for exciting development. Hopefully an announcement will be made soon.