Back from two days at West Ham (yes, Hammers fans, the Boleyn Ground itself), the improbable venue for our latest senior management conference. Not as improbable as it sounds, actually. Cheap, within easy reach of transport for our colleagues from Scotland and the North, and perfectly situated for the first day’s business: a close look at issues in East London - housing need, the plans for the Thames Gateway, the impact of the Olympics, community cohesion issues and the rise of the far right in Barking and Dagenham.

And a journey back in time for me. My dad was from the area, born and brought up in Becontree Avenue. Even when I was in my 20s my step-grandfather would pass a message down the line (my father’s family had long since disintegrated) that if it all went wrong, there was a job waiting for me on the line at Fords in Dagenham.

Long since closed now, of course, along with the docks. An area rich in potential – the Olympics alone will bring huge opportunities – but lost in its present. How can we make those opportunities work for our clients? There is a huge danger that the boom which is coming in East London will simply pass them by.

And then back to the grindstone. What is on the agenda for Shelter in the next 12 months? How for example can we respond to the challenge of keeping and winning more contracts (yes - the Legal Services Commission again, but not just them) and make our whole operation even quicker, more efficient and more effective?

Because it is not just about Government money. Of course that is a spur. But we have an obligation to spend every penny we get in the most effective way possible. It is not just funders who want us to show we are offering value for money. Our duty to our clients demands it too.

A series of e-mails crammed into an already overstuffed day to deal with a staffing crisis at the Prisoners’ Advice Service, a charity I helped to found way back when and where I have been Treasurer (“Just do it for a few weeks until we can sort ourselves out, please Adam”) for the last 10 years.

One of those crunch points. Having chugged along for over 15 years doing really great work, PAS has grown slowly to having six permanent staff and a large number of volunteers.

Throughout that time, it has operated effectively as a collective. But with each new staff member added, the structure has creaked more and more audibly and the demands on the Management Committee to sort out the day to day decisions have increased. With the most senior staff member off, now is the time to bite the bullet and put in place some sort of hierarchy.

But is it? The staff don’t seem to want one – say they don’t need one. What right have we, the semi-detached outsiders, to impose a new culture?

They could be right. But all the new Charity Commission guidance is pushing Boards further and further towards closer and closer oversight of the charities they are responsible for. In my day job, as an employee, I kick against it. But as a non-Exec, it feels very different.

Slightly fuzzy today following a reception at No 11. Not that I drank much at the do itself – breathing beer fumes all over the Chancellor would not, I think, do much for our plea for an extra £1.25 billion for housing. But the Red Lion opposite was a bit too tempting afterwards to pass up.

The event was the Sheila McKechnie Awards for up-and-coming campaigners, a scheme which we helped to set up in memory of one of my predecessors and which we still help to sponsor. Spending two hours in a room full of bright-eyed and bushy tailed activists was a humbling experience. What many of them were doing, often without much support or money, is remarkable.

And Gordon’s speech was encouraging too. He and Sheila were mates at university and his ideological commitment to encouraging campaigning is, I think, very real. But perhaps we will find out how deep that commitment goes when he starts to feel the hot breath of Shelter campaigning on the back of his neck later this year.

Drink with a prominent backbench MP to discuss the future direction of housing policy. Oh the excitement! But in this case, it is a pleasure, not a duty. First – and this is a sad statement – after four years in the sector, I am beginning to find housing increasingly fascinating. And an hour spent jawing through the possibilities of reshaping what has been a criminally neglected area of public policy with a fertile and creative political brain is a pleasure indeed.

Which brings me to an even sadder confession. The other reason for taking pleasure in the experience is – wait for it – I really admire the MP involved. At a time when it is not merely a commonplace but an obligation to criticise politicians, it is sometimes difficult to credit any of them with motivation beyond the furtherance of their own, or their party’s, careers. And sadly they often live down to one’s expectations.

I learned this early. In the early 1990s, I was closely involved in conversations with Labour, then in opposition, about the future direction of criminal justice policy. Labour lost the 1992 election, there was a reshuffle, and all the carefully formulated policy prescriptions we had worked on were junked in favour of a catchy, albeit meaningless, political slogan. The slogan? “Tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime”. The politician? The current Prime Minister.

What was interesting was the fact that, in his terms, he was right. When Blair inherited the Home Affairs brief, the Tories were miles ahead in the polls on law and order. By repositioning Labour to the right on the issue, he neutralised one of their major areas of popular appeal. The fact that the effect was to create an apparent consensus in favour of tougher sentencing and drive up the prison population, thereby undermining the very aims he was publicly espousing, was irrelevant. Bad policy but great politics.

But my drink companion was not of that school. A politician of principle and commitment and a pleasure to be with. Would that were true of all her colleagues.

Meeting to consider what to do in response to the changes to the legal aid system. Faced with a massive increase in demand for legal help and a tightening budget, the Government is increasingly looking to provide more for less by introducing competitive tendering and asking suppliers to offer an increased range of legal help, not just one area of specialism.

This is a challenge. Shelter gets some £4.5 million a year from legal aid – only 10% of our turnover but half of the money which pays for our network of housing advice centres. Take it away and the bulk of our services become unsustainable. But competing for the money, particularly against the commercial outfits who are now coming into the field, means making some radical changes to what we do.

A real dilemma. Part of me wants simply to say “forget it”. Why should we chase funding and compromise what we do in pursuit of a Government idea of what is best for our clients? But the prospect of making 200-300 people redundant and shrinking back to a voluntary funded niche is not an appealing one. Our campaigning critically depends upon the flow of cases our advice centres throw up and our influence would be diminished by opting out. And we can do the work, and do it far better than can the new for-profit agencies coming into the market.

Sod it – we’ll probably go for it. But making the changes will be difficult; there are rocky times ahead. And there is always the worrying voice at the back of the mind saying: “are you sure this is the right thing to do?”