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Back up and running at last and now with a better specked machine after a hard drive and memory upgrade, it’s great it does now work better so that’s good and I shall have better back ups from no on although I managed to save all my files but one which was an email back up which is frustrating but hey all the baby photos were ok!
Tuesday night last week, I took the bus out to a venue we have not managed to get to for approx 6 months due to not being able to get a team together. It was good to know we were finally going to get back there, however on plugging into the electricity supply the bus trips out, after some investigation and several more trips we discover the problem lies with the downstairs lighting circuit, we have no lights, without lights we can’t run a session so the bus is back off the road again until I can get an electrician to come and sort the bus out. 
Wednesday morning last week got into the office and first job was to send out an email with the news of the previous night. Plug in laptop, dead, comes up with ‘read error, press any key to reboot’ press any key gets diddly squat, a dead hard drive! I did by Friday evening manage to recover files, today I am working from home waiting for a delivery of new parts (although the web site from where I ordered them and paid extra for delivery today still haven’t shipped the whole order so will I get it all or any of it?). Anyway that is why the longish silence, I was still in the process of sorting out the laptop after a major software crash a few weeks back (maybe Dave was right when he told me all those years ago that one day the mighty pen would rule again!)
Anyway today as well as hoping to be able to start getting the laptop back up and running I am also going to try and get my email working again on this computer (a rather old desktop at home) and see what I should have done and who I should have been in touch with during my almost weeklong computer black hole existence.
I hope normal services will resume later this week (although possibly not here as I am sure there are other things I need to catch up with but I will at least try and update you in the story when I can).
God bless you all TTFN
Update: within 5 mins of publishing the above there was a knock on the door and the new hard drive is now in my possession! Not sure about the blank DVD’s or memory upgrade I ordered but at least I can now start on getting the thing up and running again!
This weekend has been somewhat busy, Friday saw my parents and brother arrive, that night I was out working, Zac had a friends birthday party. Saturday saw another party at lunch time for Zac at a local play place then the late afternoon was Birthday party time for both Zac and Jonah (it was actually Jonah’s birthday, Zac’s is tomorrow). At this I was obviously parent which is quite busy enough for a childes birthday party let alone a double but I was also the entertainer, which I have to say was great fun and has got one or two people interested in future bookings so that is good. Sunday was a little quieter but in some respects has the highlight of the year as Charys made her first distinguishable noise, dada, and she does seem to be using it to refer to me as well so big smiles on my face! My brother went home yesterday, mum and dad are around for Zac’s Birthday so that is really good.
I have been talking occasionally for some time about some changes here on the blog, well just to et you know, they and others are still in the pipeline so keep a watch out!
It’s me!
The Door is our local diocesan news paper and this month was my tern to write the ‘Youth View’ for the back page, however I’m aware that the google and yahoo etc robots that read my blog (and possibly one or two actual people occasionally) wont necessarily get the door so here is a link to the article, if you wanted to comment that can be done either on the diocesan site with the article or here!
Last week (when computer was down hence posting it late) we had a sad day on Tuesday as a family, very close friends moved away back home to Ireland, I know I’m in a job where I can expect to move every few years but this can make I all that much harder to make good friends where you live especially in this role I find, we are very fortunate here in that we have made several really good friends but we will miss Peter, Nicky and Leo, the boys especially missing Leo, but we wish them every blessing and cant wait until we get over to see them hopefully some time in the new year. God bless you!
Well last night it happened, myself and 3 others were licensed by the Bishop of Reading as Youth Ministers. We were at St Laurence’s and had a really good time, Bishop Stephen was on top form as usually with a very challenging message and the whole service was just really enjoyable. Needles to say it’s great, I have been waiting for several years to be able to do something like this so it is good to now finally be recognised in my ministry by the wider Church of England. It is great that the diocese here has such a form of licensing and although it was quite hard work to get through it was worth while. Now for the Church of England as a whole when are you going to get your act together, when is there going to be a centrally recognised form of licensing for those of us involved in youth ministry, who have worked and trained to get where we are, some form of recognition like for lay readers/licensed lay minsters. As things stand at the moment (at least to my understanding) if you don’t study at an Anglican recognised collage you can’t be licensed (at least on the basis of your qualification alone) to minister in the Church of England, but none of those collages that are recognised offer any training in youth work. Now even if this were to change I didn’t primarily specialise in youth work so I would have still needed to put in some extra work and that is fine and perfectly acceptable but there are still diocese that don’t offer any kind of recognition of Youth ministers and that is wrong, it’s time that the powers that be came up with some form of recognition throughout the denomination not just down to individual diocese.
End of rant
Thanks though to all those involved in planning and running last night!
The question is where is it? is it where you live? Is it where your parents live? Is it where you grew up? Well in many respects I suppose it can be all of them, for me when I think most about home I think about Mulbarton, the place I spent my life between the ages of 8 and 22. Last week we went home for a few days (of course it’s only home for me as neither Gill or my children have ever lived there) and it was great, it was a year since we last got up to Norfolk and things they are a changing, firstly the village where did that round about come from? And how come the road now goes left into Long Lane instead of through the bends and into the rosary? And what is going on with those new houses, they look very nice but out of place, they belong in a town somewhere not a small village. Apart from that it was great to be home, and I still feels like home, despite having moved away to collage in 95 I can still go for a walk and will usually meet people I know (even if I do forget their names, sorry Alice). It was great to see old friends, visit God Children and I’m sorry for those I didn’t manage to see, it’s very difficult finding the balance between visiting people and actually getting a bit of a rest. It was also great to get into Norwich, now I’m not a fan of shopping but if I have to go Norwich would be my preference every time (although it’s getting busier) there are more new shops but the good old favourites there is something about it, there is now huge choice but it is still the place I know where to get what I want even Gill now starts thinking after walking around shops not finding what we want we know exactly where we would go in Norwich. On top of all this we went to a Jim Bailey Praise part on the Saturday evening which was great and then back to my old Church in Mulbarton on Sunday Morning more catching up with old friends and feeling as always when we go excitement about the amount of new people we don’t know but also like it’s somewhere we fit in and feel at home as if we haven’t been away, this is for Gill to (I think). Anyway a great few days.
Upon returning home I had a letter to say my paper and everything was alright and I shall be licensed this coming Sunday so that’s good, looking forward to it.
Now just to get on with everything else!
Last Christmas Gill and I decided that we would not send out Christmas cards, not because we were feeling skint or lazy but because we felt there was something better we could do and so we did, this year we intend to do the same again and several people I have spoken to are also intending to do the same this year. Each year there are goodness knows how many millions of Christmas cards sent around the country alone each is then dutifully displayed for a few weeks before being (hopefully) recycled but how much money has been spent on buying and posting these things, how many trees were cut down, just for a pretty picture for a few weeks. So last year we brought a couple of goats from the alternative gift catalogue, we wrote a short news letter and emailed it to all those we would normally have sent cards to explaining that we had spent the money on goats instead (we printed a few to send to those for people who still don’t have internet). It was done in such a way that people could print it and have a picture if the wanted but people still knew we were thinking about them. This was not a money saving exercise, in fact we probably spent slightly more than we would have on cards because we felt it was important that we still used that money but for something so much better. So this year I want to encourage you to do the same. You don’t have to but goats (we might not this year) there are loads of things to chose from starting at just a few pounds and going into the thousands. Just think if everyone you know did this instead of cards how many less trees would come down, how much less landfill would be used how many more people less well off that ourselves could really benefit. Go on give it a go!
Straight Jacket Escape – Flying Cat Circus
I don’t know about you but I find you tube can be quite helpful, I can see that it could become a distraction but I think when you are looking for ideas and inspiration it can be a good place. For example as many of you will know from a post a made a few months back I now have a straight Jacket from which to escape, this has two purposes really:
1. It can be use to get a message across.
2. Two it can be used as part of a performance, especially as either a crowd puller or as a show ender.
So I was looking up how other people do Straight Jacket performances and I cam across this one and just loved it, it’s the kind of thing you see and you just wish you could take credit for something like that (or at least I do)
Be warned it is 5 1/2 mins long!
Enjoy
Finally got hold of Dave’s book at the end of last week and I have to say it is hilariously funny (even my mother in-law thought so!) if you have ever asked questions about the Church especially the Church of England or wondered about some of the strange traditions then this book has the definitive answers, well the funny ones anyway the only negative comment I can make about it is that you should not have this book anywhere near where you work as it will distract you and you will spend the afternoon laughing instead of working! Click on the title to find out where you can get a copy or use the details below to order it from a local book shop, for those of you looking for more ideas for Christmas presents for those too old for the CD’s mentioned below this book has to be a good choice for anybody involved in church life!
Author: Dave Walker
ISBN: 185311779x
Publisher: Canterbury Press Norwich
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