asked the boy,
“Help!” said the horse
Charlie Makesy
Very occasionally in life serendipity throws a help line to us and, as long as we’re open to possibilities and acceptance of change, we move out of being stuck, our lives progress and we grow.
A couple of years ago, as Soar Valley Life was growing – in number of advertisers, contributors, and the number of magazines we were producing and delivering—it became clear to Mary and I that we really did need extra help to share in the work load. A Sileby chap, Peter Collett, who I had seen once or twice volunteering at The Great Central Railway, had applied to become a distributor. After a couple of months I asked him if he’d like to help me deliver the boxes of mags to the 20 or so people who delivered door to door each month. Up to then I had mostly done it all myself, with the odd Samaritan helping me out when I’d sprained my wrist or had a bout of gout!
As luck would have it, Peter was about to take up a different role with his employer – Leicester Diocese – which meant him having more free time to explore other avenues. We offered him the job of Distribution Manager and, to our good fortune, he accepted.
As way follows way, Peter began to take an interest in many of the processes involved in the business, and began to show us different and more efficient ways of achieving the various desired outcomes. And so, from 1st December 2019, Soar Valley Life gained it’s first ever salaried employee! Welcome Peter, Soar Valley Life’s Operations Manager.
With all that’s transpired this year, and as the business continues to grow, we now find ourselves looking for assistance in other areas.
Just as an indicator as to how much we have grown we now have 46 distributors on our books, and everyone of them is an absolute star; they are our business’s life-blood and there would be no business without them.
So, we are again looking for that serendipitous help line, and hope we can meet that really special someone who can spearhead our media sales and marketing into the new decade. It will only ever be a part time role, as all of our roles are, but, as part time jobs go, I can think of no better endeavour that ticks so many boxes: helping our brilliant community become better informed and served by its trades and organisations. So if you are, or know of, a sales and marketing boy/girl Friday, then please get in touch.
On another level, serendipity’s angels have made our last year far, far better than it otherwise could have been. The help, support, positive messages and spirit of community we felt after the burglary got us through the episode enabling us to move on and out of the mire. More than retaining a positive attitude, it reinforced our belief that humankind is overwhelmingly kind.
We know, of course, there are some that may be a little light on good fortune right now and if you know someone, or that some one is you, go and buy the best little book to be published in many a year—its cover is pictured above. It’s a book for anyone; if you are 5 or a 105, it will lift your spirits as high as heaven. It is Waterstones Book of the Year for 2019. Some of our footnotes in this New Year magazine are excerpts from the book-
The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse by Charlie Makesy
It is the most beautiful book. Happy New Year…
Steve & Mary Johns,
