Hi Roz,

I've been following the threads on the forum about our plans for a community drop-in and I thought I'd introduce myself and our church.

My name is Chris Orange, and together with my wife Jennie, I lead a church in Forest HIll called Ichthus. The Church was started in Forest HIll in 1974 and has a long history of community outreach such as drug recovery programmes, befriending the elderly projects, parenting courses, youth and children's work etc etc. At the moment we lease the Bonhoeffer Church on Dacres Road for our Sunday services and have a training house for our volunteers on Perry Vale.

In these days it's clear to see that the need before us is greater than the provision the state can provide, and so we want to start a Community Drop-in that will be a place for people to meet for coffee, and where we can serve the residents of Forest Hill with various social inclusion projects to help the elderly with gardening and shopping, train people wishing to develop their computer skills, provide parenting courses and a professional debt counselling service etc etc.

As a church we have signed up to something called the Faithworks Charter which you can view through the following web link:

http://www.faithworks.info/Standard.asp?id=7432

If you have any questions or concerns please do contact me.

Thanks!

Chris.