Me
I am Simo (otherwise known as Simon or Silly Simon).
I am married to Gill (since 97) and we have three children, two boys Zac (2001), Jonah (2003) and one girl Charys (2006). We live in a small market sown in South West Oxfordshire called Faringdon.
I spent most of my years growing up living in a small Norfolk village called Mulbarton, just 6 miles south of Norwich, although none of my family still live there it is where I still think of as home (apart from my actual current home of course) as I still have many friends their.

What I do
I would describe myself as a youth worker/evangelist. I studied for 4 years at Moorlands collage in Dorset (where I met Gill) completing a foundation year followed by a 3 year degree in Applied Theology (specialising in youth work and evangelism). In 99 we moved to Hertfordshire where we spent 5 years doing a job share as youth and children’s workers for a largish Anglican church in the town of Berkhamsted. In June 2004 the time came to move on again, this is when we came to Faringdon where I am part time youth worker for All Saints Church and the other half of my time I work for a local Charity called ‘Vale Christian Youth Work‘ which covers an area of 160 square miles over 30 churches (various denominations) and a population of just 13,000. This side of my work involves being both a youth worker/evangelist running a mobile youth centre and an advisor supporting the local churches.

My Vision
I am passionate about the rural church and have a vision to see good quality youth work happening in small town and village churches an area that is so often over looked. I am privileged to be to currently be in a position that enables me to be involved on this on a small scale. In the long term future I would love to be involved in offering support, encouragement and equipping to rural churches in the area of youth work, working as a kind of consultant as well as an evangelist.

A little bit more
Along with all the stuff mentioned above I am a bit of a clown, illusionist and escapologist and a member of the Fellowship of Christian Magicians. I enjoy using skills such as juggling, stilt walking, balloon twisting, magic and escapology for fun, for entertainment and for portraying the gospel message, this can take many forms, obviously fun can just be wondering around on stilts with three balls and a load of balloons, or entertaining at a children’s party, but these things can also be used as tools for evangelism, they can be used to draw a crowd, to illustrate a message or by doing workshops by helping to build up trust before speaking to groups.
I also enjoy photography (I worked in the trade before going to Bible collage) and am currently saving hard for a decent digital SLR. I enjoy squash and Badminton but never seam to get around to playing either (haven’t played badminton for years)
Things I would love to do one day include rally driving, hangliding and paragliding (the last two along with the stilt walking mentioned above seam a little odd as I am afraid of heights but hey!)

Why the blog/this site
I started the blog in February 2005 while at Matrix conference run by Amaze, I was talking with friends who wrote blogs (Deep Thought & Youthblog) and decided to give it a go.
I have found the blog a useful tool on so many levels, yes some of it is fun, but it’s also an opportunity to share ideas and vision, to get feedback and to talk about issues, either on this site or on some that I read.
The site has undergone some transformation since it’s beginning, the hope is to be able to still be doing all that but to build upon it, I had another site that used to have some resources on it, they will be coming here sometime and if you have resources that you feel others might benefit from please fell free to send them to me for inclusion in that section. I hope that the site can become a useful tool to visitors building up the community through the blog but also in providing resources/ideas for those involved in ministry.