Youthblog

I have a new favourite game! It involves walking through our shopping centre and being accosted by the salesman for "Sky," whose opening gambit is always,
"hello sir, have YOU got Sky?" *(satellite TV company)
to which I reply, "er ... no!"
He immediately launches into a pitch extolling the virtues of the whole Sky package and I innocently ask a very relevant question?
"Will this work given that I don't have a TV?"
... and here's the fun bit, watching someone trying to comprehend someone not having a TV and struggling (but failing) to imagine that this is possible.

Last night I happened to catch a few minutes of TV at someone's house and was painfully reminded that the "drug of the nation" is still not for me and I remain in agreement with John Stott ("TV makes people: physically lazy, intellectually uncritical, emotionally insensitive, psychologically confused and morally disordered")

Ok, maybe that's over stating the case a little as there are some great programmes, BUT the self important, sound-bite driven, speculation fuelled, posturing and blatant judgemental voyeurism of TV does annoy me ..... more than a little!

So, I REALLY enjoyed Charlie Brookers' dissection of the mechanics of a news report!

Furthermore I'd like "24 Hour News" to be made to entitle themselves more accurately as "Endless speculation!"

The radio was on in the Barbers shop this morning while I was in for a trim and I heard the end of an advert from a well know fast food chain that claimed,

"There's a McDonalds for everyone!"

I've clearly misunderstood something but a business model that involves have 63 million branches of said store seems all ill conceived strategy, but could, I admit ... dramatically impact unemployment.

I was listening to an outstandingly brilliant talks yesterday by Business Guru Gary Hamel
(recorded at Willow Creek) and in which he was exploring leadership that can innovate and adapt. The whole talk/analysis was phenomenal* (may have to blog more of it) but there was one line that leapt out:

"You have to remember that success is a self-correcting phenomena!"

This was musing that the methodologies that brought success become trapping, and an organisation often continues on the same tack even though the culture/world has changed rendering the previous method increasingly ineffective.

* use of superlatives deliberate and accurate

Just about to head off to Douai Abbey where my colleague, Yvonne and I are leading a retreat for Youth and/or Children's workers.

As part of the framework for the retreat we've bought everyone the Pearls of Life resource (kind of a protestant rosary) as a prayer framework and something that could be used with young people. Anyone tired using this with children or teens?

Douai abbey has patchy phone coverage so I'll not be on t'internet, but I look forward to catching up with YOU on my return.

I had to do a double-take when i got the church notice sheet this morning, containing as it did this edgy contemporary (hip but offensive) headline of "Screw tape - We have CDs!"

Ok on closer examination it turns out to be a bit of a pun on the fact the library has "The Screwtape letters" by CS Lewis on CD but the headline still stands in its own right and made me laugh. Idle speculation on my part wondered whether this effective attention grabbing methodology could be used for our re-ordering project, "Screw the pews, we've got comfy chairs!"

Just a thought :-)

Full time job in the Diocese (Binfield): Job Specification Youth Children Minister.docx The Parish Church of All Saints and St Mark's advertisement.docx

Part time Job in the Diocese (in Burnham), details in the extended entry (or below if you've come from the link)

If you live within commutable distance of Redcliffe college in Gloucester you might want to know about these Youth Ministry training events

The quirkily briliant Dave Walker was very fast off the mark last night and posted this almost before Steve had finished talking! Made me laugh. (This cartoon reminded me a little bit of the characters in James Thurbers' scribblings, wonderful)

Cartoon by Dave Walker. Find more cartoons you can freely re-use on your blog at We Blog Cartoons.

PLEASE note that this event for Saturday 30th has had to be cancelled. Apologies for this but there were not enough people to make it the event it needed to be.

The fund is still a key priority though and I'm happy to come to your church/parish/deanery to talk about it.

I'm all geared up for a second Diocesan trip to Taize. This years trip will be leaving England on the 24th July returning on the morning of the 2nd of August.

I have just finished the flyer and this seemed as good a place as any to put it: booklet 2010 low res.pdf

If you want to know more then it'd be great to chat
ALSO: Brother Paolo (of Taize) is coming to England in March, anyone interested in hosting a service/promotional event?

After spending a good deal of last night upside-down underwater I did FINALLY manage to pull off three credible Eskimo rolls righting the kayak on each of these occasions!!!

Enormous thanks to the wonderful Adventure Plus team for their patience with my inversion submersion confusion, and apologies to anyone I may have deafened with my victory whoop!

Yer can indeed have yer kayak n' reet it

(*laughing* Someone on Facebook says my success is proof that you can teach an old dog, new tricks)

I have a very pleasant evening ahead of me whereby I shall be spending a large proportion of it upside-down under a Kayak.

If all goes well, as the evening goes by I will be spending less and less time inverted and immersed having FINALLY learnt to roll a boat back to the right way up. I am hopeful rather than confident ... but I am hoping that by utilising a nose clip and a pair of goggles (how cool will I look!!?) I can get the hang of this tricky technique.