Monday Muses~Craig's Table

Sometimes on a Monday I wonder just how I am going to start placing my thoughts into a form of cohesion that will allow me to assemble the myriad of thoughts and concepts that I want to share with each of you. Sometimes the only place to start is with breakfast.

Last week I had a quick meeting with Chris Argyle (President of Craig's Table)so I took along some eggs from our chooks. Chris generously shared a photo of his breakfast the next morning.

It was this image that actually started me to reach back into the memory banks and of a project I was invited to consider putting together for and with a colleague many years back. The interesting part is when I reached back into the outline of the project I found the original outline of just why chooks had to be a part of Craig's Table. Not only do the girls provide eggs, they provide a form of therapy that simply eases the stresses and frustrations that fill the days for far too many of the injured worker community. Each one of the girls has the ability to warm the hearts of everyone. Not only are they fun to watch but they just listen to what is being said (regardless of the language spoken) and they help those who interact with them to find their smile again. It is very easy to understand why when nothing else is going well the participants gravitate to the chookyard where without any need for explanation the chooks just provide the bridge from loss to peace.

Last Friday found me in Darwin, it was interesting to sit in a room filled with people all working towards the same outcomes of understanding just how important it is for the injured worker community to return to the open workplace regardless of injury type. To be able to get up in the morning and return to a well-known routine is something that far too many of the injured worker community are not able to achieve.

It seems very odd and very sad at the same time to know that people with amazing abilities and incredible skills are left sitting on the sidelines with nowhere to go to work. We all celebrate those who reach so deep inside themselves and make it to the elite level, without gifting as much as a 

second thought to the myriad of others who just want to get on with building their own life. I am not sure just who said "if you can form the question then you can find the answer" so it makes no sense what so ever to have people with abilities left out of the workplace. The Australian economy requires all of us to be working at our own maximum ability lifting others up and lifting others forward. To be honest I am tired of hearing about "skills gaps" when each day at Craig's Table I see participants with skills just going to waste. I am also exhausted from hearing how difficult it is to engage with members of the injured worker community. As if just ordinary conversation and the simple question of "what can you do?" is just too hard to ask. For now; the conversation continues....

Back to the project I was invited to work on and to the current iteration of Craig's Table.

My knowledge base has always had to be wider than workers compensation itself, how to rebuild a broken life forms the basis of everything that can be found within Craig's Table. it has long been recognised that the act of gardening and being in a garden also heals and builds a person. At Craig's Table we have raised garden beds mainly because the area is covered in concrete and asphalt. That has not stopped me from reading as much as possible about other gardening possibilities. It was a very pleasant surprise when this book arrived in a box of donations for the Op Shop. (Next a book on sand dams and swales would be very handy) All of this is about understanding what it will be required to grow native plants for a very important project that Corey and I are working on

Over the years there has been one constant question "what is Craig's Table?" It is a great question but it is also a difficult question to answer, not because it is impossible to answer, but because the answer is different for everyone. With that in mind Corey set out on a project that aims to answer the question with the varied answers that are coming from others. "An injured workers partner's story" and "Kevin" are the start of providing an insight into what is possible when opportunity and hope are able to dance together for an outcome that defies logic and for the most part is counter-intuitive. Neither of these interviews have been edited in any way, the questions/answers were not written or rehearsed -the conversations were just recorded in the belief that others need to see what is on offer and how simple acceptance changes lives in ways that have never been considered possible. There simply is no data that reflects hope, what we do know is that John Nagle spoke of Craig's Table at the WIRO seminar in February this year, it was John who said that for each member of the injured worker community that is returned to open employment the scheme saves $120,000. Craig's Table is many things, it is a place of hope and outcome and support and understanding and it is a place where return to real and meaningful and sustainable employment all comes together. Please watch the two videos, I look forward to hearing your thoughts on what you see and learn. Corey aims to add more interviews over the coming weeks-he is a man on a mission 😊 so best not get in his way or he may have you sitting in an interview chatting with me.

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I know it is early, however I do have a lot of reading to do tonight, as well as the notes from Darwin to write up before I am not able to understand my own scribble. There are times when I really do think a Dictaphone to record my thoughts would be great, not sure that we are that technologically advanced as yet. Tonight; I am going to have scrambled eggs for dinner which is the perfect way to both start and end this edition of Monday Muses. 

Yours in service

Rosemary

Social equity for injured workers

craigstable.net.au         

Craig's Table Facebook

117 Magowar Road Girraween