It was the first warm, sultry and almost Mediterranean night of 2026 and out team of five was swelled by the inclusion of a new young man who is interested in joining us. His story is that he is someone we came across on a previous shift who needed some help, this has expanded over the last month or so to him wanting to give something back by committing, where he can, to helping out. Not only does he bring the average age of our teams down by some considerable amount, but he proved to be a real natural in this role. He was much encouraged by the team throughout his short 'trial' shift experience. We feel that this is just another of the ways that small community groups like us can impact lives.
But back to the night, started by setting up our equipment with the addition of some purple balloons and a 'feather' banner in support of promoting the City's The Purple Flag Award. For the uninitiated, this is a Award that was earned by Lichfield City last year, that acknowledges Lichfield as being a safe destination after dark. Purple Flag strives to help create safe and thriving locations at night for all users. This particular weekend was seeing a promotion of this throughout the City's entertainment and hospitality outlets.
Our new potential recruit realised that he knew one of our regular homeless guys quite well and promptly took him a coup of tea and some biscuits over whilst having a chat with him.
We had a trio of lads who came over, one of them asking if we were Jesus!! Some of us responded by telling him we weren't but were heavily influenced by his lifestyle. This comment resulted in a firm handshake!!
We drew the attention of a lady her friend who came up for a brew and was grateful for our wares... though she did tell us that she was only 30 and still single! We replied that we only do coffees, tea and biscuits but regretfully, we don't do Tinder.
We had a number of people who were unaware of Purple Flag Award, so it allowed us to explain it and give out leaflets to spread the word. The female partner of a couple who had made a beeline for us informed us that she had been a LNL volunteer back in the day and she was now married with 3 children. She thought it was a good thing that we were still out there and going strong.
Another lady who told us she worked for Bromford Housing was very interested in the work we were doing in serving the local (and visiting) community. She took a card from us expressing that she would love to be part of the group. Another couple of young ladies were eager to be photographed with us as they expressed their gratitude for what we were doing.
Our regular patrols observed the night's atmosphere to be a very good-humoured and almost serene one with people having fun without any overt alcohol fuelled aggression.
Our night ended with our regular gift of hot chips (courtesy as always of Millenium Chickens' security man, Bobby) and a pack-away with the night still feeling strangely warm.