In Your Shoes - Chic Lidstone

Chamber member Chic Lidstone is East of Scotland Organiser for the national charity Work Place Chaplaincy Scotland (WPCS). He looks after a team of staff and volunteers from Tongue in the far north of Scotland to St Andrews and is chaplain to Dundee City Council. WPCS provides chaplaincy to the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service nationally and Chic works closely with the emergency service across his area of responsibility.

Stepping into another week

To Aberdeen to deliver training in work/ life balance for  a firm of solicitors. WPCS is increasingly being asked to deliver workshops on topics such as dealing with stress, trauma in the workplace and work/life balance. We welcome these opportunities to help people share their concerns and give them a safe space to look at their situation. Often that’s all they need for them to see how to help themselves. It’s always a pleasure to meet new people and when leaving to hear them say that they wished more had come and been part of it.

Listening Post in Dundee

To Dundee, to help man our Listening Post in one of the shopping centres. Those times when we are available to people not just in the workplace, but passing by, have proved very successful and have been well received, particularly in regard to mental health services and work to help with suicide prevention. Then it’s into the car to drive to Dingwall Auction Mart which is on my ‘patch’.  I’m from a farming family so I empathise closely with the challenges facing people working in agriculture today.  It can be a lonely place with high incidences of depression and worse so to provide a listening ear is important. I wish I had understood what the auctioneer was saying  - but the sheep seem to have been sold!

Meeting with the Inverness chaplaincy team

Meeting with the Inverness chaplaincy team there to hear how things are developing. Later I meet with the manager of the town’s Eastgate Shopping Centre about offering our Listening Post service in the centre.  She loves what we do and is keen to let us have our listening post and for our confidential caring and listening presence to continue in the shops. Great to meet with the NHS Highland mental health and wellbeing lead person to discuss and agree a collaborative approach. 

DACC Lunch & Learn

Lunch at Strathmore Rugby Cub in Forfar with DACC. This was a very good networking event – as always. I enjoyed meeting up with old friends and making new ones and being reminded afresh of the value of mentoring in a business environment. Thanks again to DACC for hosting an excellent event which enabled us to engage with other like-minded people. Particularly in SMEs or sole proprietor businesses, those at the helm can feel a bit isolated, so it is helpful to go to these events and share experiences and encouragement. I always come away from them thinking: ‘That was good.

Blog writing & a trip to Glamis!

I research and begin writing my ‘Workplace Word’ blog which goes out to Dundee City Council, the Scottish Fire & Rescue Service and DACC. Sometimes that’s over a coffee in my favourite ‘office’ the FlameTree Café in Exchange Street, Dundee. It’s usually a day for journaling, study and administration when I also like to fit in a visit to the council where I am chaplain. Today though, it’s our East of Scotland team’s seasonal lunch in the welcoming and fantastic Strathmore Arms in Glamis – everyone’s so busy over Christmas and New Year that we welcome a chance to have something to celebrate in January.  These events are always fun and a chance to relax in each other’s company and share stories.

Chaplaincy hat!

I’m off to Kinross to a meeting of the Tayside group of SIBL – the Scottish Instute of Business Leaders. I’m there in my chaplaincy capacity. It’s always a privilege to share in people’s lives when they have something to celebrate and of course, in the not so good times. In the afternoon I head to Edinburgh for a meeting of the UK Pyschological Trauma Society of which I am a member. Increasingly our chaplains encounter people with mental health issues and sometimes those suffering from Post Traumatic Stress. It is essential that we keep up to date with the best ways to support them and know where to signpost them for further help.