At the weekend I was doing more stilts and balloons for a local event and was supposed to be doing a workshop as well (although the balloons were so popular and the crowds small due to weather I didn’t do that). Because of the workshop I had a gazebo set up to run the workshop from, most of the time it was just a table and a banner reading Silly Simon across the front and nothing more. The first aiders on site saw the opportunity to get out of the rain and congregated under my gazebo. Upon seeing a lady with young children approach also looking for cover one of them introduced one of the team as Silly Simon and offered the opportunity to see him dance on the table, the lady in question responded with a comment something like, oh hello Silly Simon, I’m Mrs Silly Simon, I think it was at that point they realised they weren’t going to get any money out of her, the other thing that helped to add to the moment is that fact that the person introduced as Silly Simon would have known it was my wife.
So what can we learn from this? Identity theft can happen anywhere, any time, but without careful planning and research you may get caught out sooner than you think.
I have added an events page to the site to advertise a few of the things that are going on, some of these are fun things you might want to know about, maybe even come along to! Others are things you might like to pray for! We’ll see how it develops, let me have any comments etc or suggestions as to what else you think could be on the events page or added to the site.
Cheers
This week myself and my colleague from the Baptist Church are taking assemblies in the local secondary school, Monday was cancelled due to exams, so yesterday was our first one. The theme we have is peer pressure, we start the assembly with me being hand cuffed and talking about how pear pressure can trap us and that whilst sometimes it can be good quite often peer pressure is a negative influence as I talk about this Stephen (my Colleague) pokes me with a stick while suggesting several things I might like to do, all good fun (for him). The idea is that I then talk about the need to break free from peer pressure, however yesterday I failed to get out of the cuffs, I don’t know why I just could not get out and in the end had to get the keys out of my pocket (not easy with hands cuffed behind back and keys in front pocket) and then get Stephen to let me out. This morning I practiced a couple of times before the assembly to make sure it didn’t happen again. WE arrived at the school and went through to the hall to wait as usual but no-one turned up, we got up to leave and discovered that the hall we had walked through to get to the gym where we do our assemblies was being used for a different year group assembly so we couldn’t get out that way. The only trouble is that was the only way through to the gym block without going out of the building, but because no one had come into the block yet the other exits from the block were still locked Trapped again! We eventually got rescued when a PE teacher turned up.
This week, the theme of the week for my sons class is clowns, so yesterday afternoon I went in to talk to them a little bit about the history of Clowning and do some clowning for them. I personally am more of a Jester than a clown, although to be awkward I refer to myself as a fool (yes I know thank you for that!) But like a Jester I tend not to paint my face (this is for 2 reasons,1. I am lazy 2. a painted face can be quite scary for little children). However my performances tie in a bit of clowning, a bit of illusion maybe some balloons etc. So yesterday I talked with them a little bit about the history of clowning and the different types of clowns. I showed them some of the props I use, including stilt trousers and several of my hats + wigs etc, did some juggling a couple of little magic tricks and then got a couple of them to come up and have a go at making balloon dogs. It all went very well, I had a great time and I think they did too, I finished up by making about 30 balloon dogs in around 20 mins so they all had one to take home while they tided up ready for story time and did some work sheets I had prepared getting them to think up their own clown names and design their own clown faces.
I have to say it was such good fun I think it is something o could offer more widely if I had the time to do it!
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