Saturday, March 27, 2010
Time Banking
Came back from Residents University all fired up about the idea of time banking. I later found this video on Rushey Green Time Bank. I probably like it for all sorts of selfish reasons (I spend so much time doing stuff outside I never have time to do housework). I also love the idea that everyone's time is equally valued.
Friday, March 26, 2010
Residents University
Just had a great day at Residents University learning about Co-production and Total Neighbourhoods and getting re-energised about blogging and social media. Also got to meet loads of interesting people, which is just great.
As I understand it Total Neighbourhoods is a response to Total Place. Total Place is a government initiative aimed at getting more for their money by providing holistic "joined up working" approaches to problems, with all the services involved working together. (Why does it take so long for Governments and Authorities to get these revelations of the blindingly obvious?)
Total Neighbourhoods on the other hand is more about local groups getting together to make their neighbourhood as a whole a better place to live in and getting the support from Total Place to do that. The trick is to get communication flowing between the two and local authority support for Total Neighbourhood projects.
I am very much looking forward to tomorrow's offerings, particularly on Time Banks and learning from stories.
As I understand it Total Neighbourhoods is a response to Total Place. Total Place is a government initiative aimed at getting more for their money by providing holistic "joined up working" approaches to problems, with all the services involved working together. (Why does it take so long for Governments and Authorities to get these revelations of the blindingly obvious?)
Total Neighbourhoods on the other hand is more about local groups getting together to make their neighbourhood as a whole a better place to live in and getting the support from Total Place to do that. The trick is to get communication flowing between the two and local authority support for Total Neighbourhood projects.
I am very much looking forward to tomorrow's offerings, particularly on Time Banks and learning from stories.
Tuesday, December 15, 2009
Tuesday, November 21, 2006
old memories
Reliving the past can be a horrible experience, but sometimes we have to go through it to put things to rest, or to enable someone else to do that. I have expierenced this again recently following a contact through friends reunited.
My first job was in a home for teenage girls in Gravesend, Kent. It was not a good place to be - at all. They had terrible ways to "deal with the girls behaviour". I left several years before the place was closed down, and spent most of that time trying to find a new job with no qualifications and no other experience. In the end I re-trained as a secretary and tried to put the horrors behind me.
I put the house down as a "workplace" on friends reunited years ago, in the hope that one of the girls would get back to me and confirm that at least some of them had come out of it all intact.
At last someone did. Her name is Teresa and she has set up a website for survivors of abuse - www.no2abuse.com She is writing a book about her experiences there and wanted to know some of the story from a staff's viewpoint. Recording and recalling some of that stuff has been powerful and scary.
She has spent years researching what really went on there, most of which I had no idea about. I would love to see the files she has got hold of. Apparently the book is coming out sometime in the new year. I'll keep you posted.
My first job was in a home for teenage girls in Gravesend, Kent. It was not a good place to be - at all. They had terrible ways to "deal with the girls behaviour". I left several years before the place was closed down, and spent most of that time trying to find a new job with no qualifications and no other experience. In the end I re-trained as a secretary and tried to put the horrors behind me.
I put the house down as a "workplace" on friends reunited years ago, in the hope that one of the girls would get back to me and confirm that at least some of them had come out of it all intact.
At last someone did. Her name is Teresa and she has set up a website for survivors of abuse - www.no2abuse.com She is writing a book about her experiences there and wanted to know some of the story from a staff's viewpoint. Recording and recalling some of that stuff has been powerful and scary.
She has spent years researching what really went on there, most of which I had no idea about. I would love to see the files she has got hold of. Apparently the book is coming out sometime in the new year. I'll keep you posted.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
Big Steps
Callie has graduated.
She had her last day at Babywood Nursery on 1 September and in the evening they had a graduation party where they all came up to the stage (complete with cap and gown) to collect their certificate and have photos taken. It was quite a sad time. She's been at that nursery since she was just a few months old, and they have been so good to her there. She has got really attached to them to, because most of the staff have been there since well before she started. She left saying that she would come back and visit them. We will.
Callie is now at Big Nursery. We've been going on about it for so long. "In September you'll be a big girl and you'll be going to the big nursery at Barford School."
Callie always asks in the morning what day it is - just checking we know. On September 1 I told her and said it was the first day of September. She stood up on our bed with her hands right up in the air. "Are we in September now mummy?" "Yes" "But I don't touch the ceiling."
First day at full time nursery went smoothly and although I stayed for about 1/2 hr to see her settled in and to make sure she knew where everything was, she didn't really need me. She loved it, and came back covered in stickers. They score really high on the priase and positive discipline bit at that school.
Her day also went amazingly cleanly. Her white blouse stayed white, and the jumper only had a little splodge of something that dabbed off easily with a damp cloth. Bless her. Day 2 (today) wasn't quite so spotless, but I am still very impressed. She never came back from her old nursery without being covered in dinner. I don't know how they keep her so clean, but their efforts are greatly appreciated. Well done Barford. Callie is well impressed with her new school.
Having said that at the moment there are only dozen or so of them in there. That's about the number she was used to at her old nursery. The nursery she is now in has 60 places, but they start the children a few at a time to let them settle in before the next batch arrive. Apparently they won't be at full capacity until nearly the end of September. Let's see how it goes when she's competing with all that lot!
She had her last day at Babywood Nursery on 1 September and in the evening they had a graduation party where they all came up to the stage (complete with cap and gown) to collect their certificate and have photos taken. It was quite a sad time. She's been at that nursery since she was just a few months old, and they have been so good to her there. She has got really attached to them to, because most of the staff have been there since well before she started. She left saying that she would come back and visit them. We will.
Callie is now at Big Nursery. We've been going on about it for so long. "In September you'll be a big girl and you'll be going to the big nursery at Barford School."
Callie always asks in the morning what day it is - just checking we know. On September 1 I told her and said it was the first day of September. She stood up on our bed with her hands right up in the air. "Are we in September now mummy?" "Yes" "But I don't touch the ceiling."
First day at full time nursery went smoothly and although I stayed for about 1/2 hr to see her settled in and to make sure she knew where everything was, she didn't really need me. She loved it, and came back covered in stickers. They score really high on the priase and positive discipline bit at that school.
Her day also went amazingly cleanly. Her white blouse stayed white, and the jumper only had a little splodge of something that dabbed off easily with a damp cloth. Bless her. Day 2 (today) wasn't quite so spotless, but I am still very impressed. She never came back from her old nursery without being covered in dinner. I don't know how they keep her so clean, but their efforts are greatly appreciated. Well done Barford. Callie is well impressed with her new school.
Having said that at the moment there are only dozen or so of them in there. That's about the number she was used to at her old nursery. The nursery she is now in has 60 places, but they start the children a few at a time to let them settle in before the next batch arrive. Apparently they won't be at full capacity until nearly the end of September. Let's see how it goes when she's competing with all that lot!
Greenbelt
We're back from Greenbelt.
It was good, but it turned out very different for me than I was expecting. First off I had never imagined how long we would have to stand in queues waiting to get Callie into the children's festival. I'm sure last year we just went straight in. This year the queues were enormous. On one morning I queued over 40 mins just to get a ticket to be sure of getting in, so I didn't have to stand in another queue later only to be disappointed!!?? If you add to that the queues to get into the venues you have a lot of waiting around. We also had a lot of mud and some quite heavy rain. Fortunately I managed to not be in queues during any downpours.
I had some lovely times with the children of a friend from way back, who I had only met briefly at Greenbelt last year. Callie quickly made friends with Pearl (5) and Robin (3), and we left with promises to visit each other. That's what Greenbelt's about. Brining people back together.
More by "chance" than judgement I ended up going to talks rather than music. God seems to be saying a lot at the moment about inclusion in the church. How can we be relevant to the people around us, and help them to find God in a way that is meaningful in their everyday lives? How can we get churches together to show the neighbourhood what Jesus meant when he talked about us being one? I really don't think that means having big meetings together to prove that we can literally sing from the same hymn sheet.
I came back with more questions than answers. But perhaps that's what God's about. How else can he make sure we rely on him step by step and don't run off on our own and muck it all up?
It was good, but it turned out very different for me than I was expecting. First off I had never imagined how long we would have to stand in queues waiting to get Callie into the children's festival. I'm sure last year we just went straight in. This year the queues were enormous. On one morning I queued over 40 mins just to get a ticket to be sure of getting in, so I didn't have to stand in another queue later only to be disappointed!!?? If you add to that the queues to get into the venues you have a lot of waiting around. We also had a lot of mud and some quite heavy rain. Fortunately I managed to not be in queues during any downpours.
I had some lovely times with the children of a friend from way back, who I had only met briefly at Greenbelt last year. Callie quickly made friends with Pearl (5) and Robin (3), and we left with promises to visit each other. That's what Greenbelt's about. Brining people back together.
More by "chance" than judgement I ended up going to talks rather than music. God seems to be saying a lot at the moment about inclusion in the church. How can we be relevant to the people around us, and help them to find God in a way that is meaningful in their everyday lives? How can we get churches together to show the neighbourhood what Jesus meant when he talked about us being one? I really don't think that means having big meetings together to prove that we can literally sing from the same hymn sheet.
I came back with more questions than answers. But perhaps that's what God's about. How else can he make sure we rely on him step by step and don't run off on our own and muck it all up?
Publisher
Well, this is it. The holiday between jobs is over and my new life awaits. Callie started nursery full time yesterday and I start my new job tomorrow.
Today however I am left with a dilemma. I am trying to open documents I produced at work on Publisher. But that I don't have publisher at home. I really don't think that is a good enough excuse to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a DTP package when I've just taken a cut in salary. If anybody happens to be flying past this blog and reads it, can you let me know where I can get something cheaper that will open Publisher files and works well?
Today however I am left with a dilemma. I am trying to open documents I produced at work on Publisher. But that I don't have publisher at home. I really don't think that is a good enough excuse to spend a ridiculous amount of money on a DTP package when I've just taken a cut in salary. If anybody happens to be flying past this blog and reads it, can you let me know where I can get something cheaper that will open Publisher files and works well?
Saturday, July 29, 2006
The Power-point of God Unto Salvation?
My husband recently posted a blog about the emerging church and a comment the blog ended “The word of God, not power-point or flashy music is God's power unto salvation.” Good point. When we find a fun and exciting method of communication it is easy to get caught up in showing it off and letting people see how clever we are with it. Or not as the case may be. A badly done power point presentation is even more distracting. It is easy in either situation for the Word of God to be completely lost, or presented in such a way that it becomes a side issue for most people watching.
But with practice it is not hard to create a presentation that will compliment and enhance the message we are getting across. As I understand it the emerging church is about being culturally relevant, just as Jesus was in his day. Let’s use every tool at our disposal to make sure that God’s word is presented in a way that the people we are talking to will understand and enjoy, so that what they will remember will be the message and not the messenger.
All Change
My dad told me once that his mother's family can be traced back to the Romany tradition. I find it very easy to believe this, and have been saying for ages that I'd love to have time to find out more about it.
I guess it is because of this is that I hate being cooped up indoors and get "itchy feet" very easily. If things stay the same for too long I have to make something change. Often though, as now, change comes just at the right time without too much prompting from me.
Actually I thought it would be nice to move house, but we can't afford that so I'd given up on the idea of a major change. In September Callie starts nursery full time, which she is really looking forward too. I've also decided to re-start my studies with Open University. Perhaps that should be enough changes to be getting on with.
Anyway another, unprompted, change has just come my way, which will have a big impact on all of this. I told a friend "I've got to tell you before you hear this from anyone else" and she said "You're pregnant" - No, I'm not. But my job is going. The post I am in is not funded any more, and the charity I work for is redeploying me to it's regional office. It's about an hour's travel each way (as opposed to 20 mins walk) and I will be only working 2 days a week.
My initial reaction was to start job hunting again, but I' don't think that's what God wants. There is certainly nothing around that would suit me any better. There will be some challenges in the job, but all within the comfort of the sort of admin work I've done on and off for donkey's years. Anyway, even that job's only funded 'till March, so I'll take the opportunity to top up my experience in fund raising and data management until then. It fits in perfectly with Callie's new timetable. We are currently trying to work out how to cover the drop in salary, but it should be possible.
It could all be quite exciting actually. What will God have for me to do with that "spare time"?
I guess it is because of this is that I hate being cooped up indoors and get "itchy feet" very easily. If things stay the same for too long I have to make something change. Often though, as now, change comes just at the right time without too much prompting from me.
Actually I thought it would be nice to move house, but we can't afford that so I'd given up on the idea of a major change. In September Callie starts nursery full time, which she is really looking forward too. I've also decided to re-start my studies with Open University. Perhaps that should be enough changes to be getting on with.
Anyway another, unprompted, change has just come my way, which will have a big impact on all of this. I told a friend "I've got to tell you before you hear this from anyone else" and she said "You're pregnant" - No, I'm not. But my job is going. The post I am in is not funded any more, and the charity I work for is redeploying me to it's regional office. It's about an hour's travel each way (as opposed to 20 mins walk) and I will be only working 2 days a week.
My initial reaction was to start job hunting again, but I' don't think that's what God wants. There is certainly nothing around that would suit me any better. There will be some challenges in the job, but all within the comfort of the sort of admin work I've done on and off for donkey's years. Anyway, even that job's only funded 'till March, so I'll take the opportunity to top up my experience in fund raising and data management until then. It fits in perfectly with Callie's new timetable. We are currently trying to work out how to cover the drop in salary, but it should be possible.
It could all be quite exciting actually. What will God have for me to do with that "spare time"?
Saturday, July 15, 2006
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