Wouldn't expect anything else.

Well, today was our "Community Visits" day at college. The assignment for our Community Practice module is to write a 3,500 word report analysing a community/voluntary service and it's value to occupational therapy. We've split up into small groups each of which have chosen a service to research, and today was the timetabled free slot to visit them.
We'd chosen to look at a local advocacy service and when we contacted them, it turned out that today was their AGM and they invited us along. This proved to be really good in a number of ways,

1. Their annual report has loads of incredibly useful information in it, for example a breakdown of their referrals by age, ethnicity and presenting issue
2. As it was the AGM all the paid specialist advocates and some of the volunteers had attended so we had lots of people to get information from. We tried not to scare them too much. (I'm not sure if we achieved that though)
3. They provided lunch! Hotpot or Butter Pie (for those not from that area, butter pie is mashed potato, butter, salt and pepper in a pastry crust, and allegedly was developed by the Roman Catholics in the area to eat on Fridays)
4. Lunch included pudding! Apple pie, lemon meringue pie or Manchester Tart (again an explanation for those not familiar with the regional dishes - a pastry shell with a layer of jam covered by a set custard filling, there's a bit of debate as to whether that's it or if it should be topped by a layer of coconut or almond slivers)

We monopolised the staff for about an hour after everyone else had left and they did their best to answer all our questions, gave us tips about useful websites and contacts in other services who may be able to help us. The manager even said she'd stay late in the office on Friday to put together a pack of further information about the service for us. In short they were really nice helpful people - or as Karen remarked as we were signing out from the building, "You wouldn't expect anything else what with them being advocates."