Refreshing

Love the buzz that the nasi lemak is bringing into Toastbar.
J asked me a really good question when we were chatting in the office after closing tonight.
"Isn't it weird operating beside Nasi Lemak? Isn't there a conflict of interest?"

I suppose it comes back to the competition question again.
Again,
I need to remember Toastbar's bottom line purpose and
vision.
Hold it.
Remember it.
Live it.
Be secure in it.

Last night's Toast Core meeting with Tim and Ellie was affirming and directional in that it gave us as a team the added clarity that we needed to take the next step, and enabled us to re-cast vision for Toastbar. Not that the vision for community engagement has changed, but it’ll be a continual process of refining and sharpening.

I realise that knowing Toastbar’s identity is so important. Without the clarity arising from last night’s meeting and an entire week of slowly responding to everything that’s happening around, i daresay i would not have been able to answer josh’s question.

Certainly, having nasi lemak being such a hit beside the consequently heavily overshadowed Toast menu felt uncomfortable at first. However, today, I felt like i was operating at a different level. Like it was a quiet little breakthrough as i got comfortable with working together with the nasi lemak crew to serve our customers. To serve the people who use this basement space.

There was such a buzz tonight. I really enjoyed seeing people enjoy the space. Andrew (my ex-tutor for maths in Trinity College) slowly becoming one of our regular customers and seeing a group of students gather around him to chat and ask him math questions. Fan.tas.tic. i think that’s a success. Toastbar successfully created space for life there. As Andrew left. He said “i hope you didn’t mind having the group of students just crowding around there”. Of course i didn’t! Now, I know somewhere like the Mess Hall would certainly NOT fancy that. Yesterday I was looking for a space to be alone and reflect on the past week. Went to the Mess Hall to ask if there was a place i could sit and type on my laptop (obviously getting lunch as well) but the guy just said ‘sorry this is a restaurant” and didn’t even bother trying to engage me. Srslywthlol.

So. Yknow what? I’m overjoyed to have toastbar. I feel so blessed.

Setting up toastbar and having a sense of ownership over it has also made me interact with people in the building differently. I feel like im part of the building, and part of a bigger community here. And just the other day i said hi to this aussie in the lift and i didn’t quite remember the brief conversation, but that conversation actually led him to come for neighbourhood dinner last night. I didn’t recognise him at first, but i went over to talk to him because he’d come late and looked a bit lost as people were packing up. So we reconnected and today, he came down to try kaya for the very first time ever! It makes me so happy to be able to plug someone in to community. Being new to Melbourne and not knowing anyone around at all, it obviously feels great to have somewhere to belong right... :D Later on in the night he came back again with his housemate and her boyfriend and asked me if i wanted to join them for drinks. :D these are little things that reaffirm me of Toastbar’s vision being slowly lived out through me.. or rather the HOPE i have for toastbar being lived out. Other people on the core may have other hopes, according to their faith, strengths and things they enjoy. And it’s in pulling our different strengths and things-that-we’re-anal-about together that makes us work as a team – hopefully a complete one. Haha. Now none of us are turned on by accounting and inventory for toastbar. Someone JUST has to do it. So. Hopefully we find some crazy accounting lover. Like wenyihong LOL.

I also had a brief hi bye small talk thing with some of the guys from glory city church who had an event at Champs Hall tonight and.. it felt like we were new housemates. The kind of relationship where you’re sharing something big together, and you’d like to know each other better, and there’s some form of mutual respect and interest in each other. It was comfortable. I think having Shirley from glory city as a toaster for the past couple of days has definitely helped to bridge some of the relationships with glory city church and myself. Not that we had any problems with each other to begin with, just that we never quite got the chance to connect beyond the “oh you’re just another user in this venue”. It’s lovely when you get a glimpse of something forming. So. I would say, that’s success also.

I just realised that in the past 3 scenarios i’ve ended with the word success somewhere in there. Yet it’s not that i’m conscious about how to achieve a certain level of success, but only realise how the very things that refresh me and make my day are the things that fall into my subconscious definition of success at Toastbar.

Anyway, tmr’s our first ever Open Mic night at toastbar. :) 8pm – 10pm (Friday) looking forward to it!