The futures bright? Well a little anyway!

When I started this whole blog thing and called it onmebus I wrote of the irony of the name with a bus that had been off the road at that stage for around 2 months, well the final part should have arrived late last week so it should be being fixed as I write! We then still have to wait a fortnight before we can get it MOT’d and then need to tidy it up a bit but we should be back on the road by the time the schools go back Praise God!
As if that weren’t enough good news having spent just over 3 weeks without my laptop that also came back yesterday and so I am currently reinstalling all the software on that so should be back up and running properly soon. Just a shame I feel so lousy this week!

Body Piercing

Came across this idea a while ago now, I cant remember where but perhaps a slightly different approach to advertising Good Friday events? Click here to view PDF

Ofsteded!

This week I (and Stephen, local Baptist Youth Worker) am doing assemblies in the local secondary school (all but this morning), they also happen to have Ofsted in this week. Yesterday we arrived to find out the inspector would be I our assembly so we ran! No not really we carried on as normal, the inspector came to speak to us after and he seamed very nice, quite positive in what he said, he did just make one suggestion, while I could see where he was coming from I think he had possibly slightly lost touch with the real world plus responded to quickly. The main point of his suggestion was that we left a minutes silence at the end to encourage the young people to think about an aspect of what we had said. Whilst I could see the point he was making, we were bang on the button for timing, is he suggesting that we should have over run, assemblies are very rarely long enough to enable such aspects to be included.
The other point I think I would argue was that he was to quick to make his ‘informed decision’ Our theme had been discrimination, we had finished up by talking about positive and negative discrimination, ie we can look at someone for what they can’t do or we can look at them for what they can, his suggestion then was that we should have given them a minute to think about how they had discriminated against others in the past, surly with a bit more time to think and formulate comments, he should have realised that had we had the luxury of time to allow them to think it would have been more productive to get them to think about when they had been discriminated against, to get someone to think about how they treat people can be quite difficult to challenge them on why they should change, get them to think about how they felt when it happened to them and surely you have a much greater chance of them understanding the negative affect they can have and hopefully do something about it!
All the best to FCC this week.

Something to share

Ian is very good at treating us all to the occasional Calvin and Hobbes cartoon, which is great, being a big fan of Dilbert myself I though I would share this one from the other day with you to bless you all!
I did put the carton in here but it was too big and you lost half of it so you’ll have to click the link below instead sorry.
Dilbert-sayings.jpg

Good Friday

I am currently looking at the service for the evening of Good Friday, we are doing a youth service, Ian a while back had a link to a very good resource and I am planning on using some of these ideas, would highly recommend it if you are thinking around the same issues, but thought I’d see if anyone had any other ideas, the more the merrier as the say. Cheers!

Good idea?

Why is it that during any day I can have several ideas for a blog entry but when I eventually get to sit down in front of the computer I can not think of any of them?

The Passion Recut

A couple of years ago The Passion was probably one of the most talked about films, partly because some thought it would bring an end to Mel Gibson’s career, and others because of the graphic nature of the film. I have to admit I still haven’t seen it although I do want to. This year Mel has done a recut, which I guess at the moment is only going to be in America, this new edit is supposed to be more family friendly and may well make it easier for us to use as youth workers, I haven’t been able to find out a huge amount but latter today you should be able to find out more from an interview with the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN) here, you can also view a trailer for the new version here.

Light bulbs

I was just at a meeting at a friends house, as I put my coat on to leave I accidentally hit the lamp shade, not to worry, no damage was done to either party. I was asked not to steal the light bulbs, I thought this could be an interesting experiment, when visiting some ones house could you manage to steal a light bulb, even more interesting would they be prepared to challenge you on such a bizarre event taking place as a light bulb being stolen. My first thoughts are you might need to ask to use the bathroom as an easy target! Strangely enough after concocting the idea my friend refused to let me use his bathroom before I left. A bit random I know maybe it’s a comic relief thing, I’m not for one minute suggesting that anybody should try this as obviously theft is wrong, I just thought I would share my thoughts. (P.S. anyone game enough I would love to know how you get on!)

Liturgy Part 2

Do any of you have any good links to sites with liturgy, anything you have would be most greatly appreciated. Thanks

Me

I thought it was about time I got a picture of me over in the profile as you will now see, although Sarah has already been rude about it! I think I should explain, before doing youth work I was a photographer/photographic technician, therefore I like to be behind the camera and not in front. I also like most don’t generally like picture of myself, (BTY if that is you try scanning a picture and doing a mirror flip in a piece of software, the trouble is we are used to seeing the mirror image of ourselves and so we have a perception that this is what we look like, we are wrong!) I do however like to play around hence arty self portrait type ending up on site. As for the hat, you’ll have to ask someone who has known me a long time!

Gap Year

I am just beginning to do some thinking around the idea of Gap Year Students and put these down so that I can present my ideas to my respective employers. Having had one V. BAD experience in the past (a long story, wait for the book!) of trying to take on a year out I want to make sure if I do it again I do it right. Does anyone out there have any great pearls of wisdom to share, anything from the basics of what it has cost to have students to …? I don’t know other stuff. Your thought, comments, web links would all be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Liturgy

I found this link (click title) on d3pature, if your looking for some slightly more inclusive liturgy to use on a Sunday morning, whilst only a beginning this may get your thoughts going, well worth a look. I would be keen to hear what you think, should I send it to my vicar?

How much?

I have just been writing a report for tonight’s PCC and the APCM (AGM for those non Anglicans!) on my first 6 months in post (although it’s actually about 8). There I was thinking I would keep it nice a brief, just put the basics in rather than making it too long. As a result after shrinking the font size it is still 4 pages, and this is only for half of my job! I have to admit while I have found the length of the report quite scary it is really encouraging to look back over what I have been doing, sometimes I think we focus so much on the things we haven’t managed that we wish we had that we miss out on what we have done. Yes there are still loads of things that I want to be able to add in next time around but until I really sat down and thought about it I didn’t really realise what I have achieved in the past few months. Although it has taken time to write the report I would really encourage any of you who are feeling slightly disheartened by what you have not achieved to look back at what you have done, it’s incredible and it has encouraged me no end.

More food!

After last weeks discussion following on from the Programme ‘Jamie’s School Dinners’ I was going to comment again but Sarah has taken up the Baton this week so instead I shall pass you over to join that conversation!

The Bleurg has also been talking on the subject and I have added a comment there so rather than writing something more myself here go and have a read!

A bit of fun

Just found this online mountain biking game, great fun, well worth a look !

Fairtrade Fortnight

As we start Fairtrade Fortnight Tim (Sorry it's Pete not Tim) has published an interesting article in response to some chocolate he was given. Within the article he has place a link to a very interesting piece on fairtrade vs fair trading, the article raises some very good questions and really gets you thinking about what fair Trade really is, I would encourage you to take a look. The shop that the article comes from is also well worth a visit!