Extended schools

Tomorrow I am away for the day at a conference on extended schools, I have been invited by the local secondary school to join a team looking at what this new initiative means for them and how to move forward, not exactly sure what to expect I think we are going to be hearing a bit more about the scheme and supposed to be spending some time at looking at what we can do at the local school and beginning to formulate ideas and things, it’s great to be invited to be involved in this although I am concerned about the time but I think it should be good and hope it is a really productive day. I shall let you know something more about it after.
Speaking of which I am supposed to have done some stuff of the Kenda Creasy Dean day last week, I shall try and get it done for you at some stage.
Cheers for now.

Crusaders no more

Apologies I wrote this yesterday but then didn’t get to post it for various reasons!

So I know I’m late with this as it has already been discussed by Youthblog and HolyPhil and they raise an issue that yes I think does matter. The new name as I’m sure many of you know is ‘Urban Saints’ an interesting name and in some respects I like it but at the same time as a Rural youth worker it makes me think that anything Urban Saints are providing is no longer going to be relevant to my work and that they may not be that interested in supporting the kind of work I do. This is not a major problem as I have not had a lot to do with them within my work although where as I might have looked to them for certain things they probably would not figure now, not because I have anything against them, I know what they have done in the past has been good quality but the new name to me is exclusive rather than inclusive and I don’t fit in with the group they are aligning themselves with. The idea that they have suggested “We don't work together because of what we are called - we work together because we are 'called'” is all very well and a fair point but I can’t see many of the young people I work with wanting to be an ‘Urban Saint’ some of us are rural and proud to be rural, we feel called to be ‘Rural Saints’ this name change just reminds me of the big thing that wound me up about 10 years ago when all we heard was about the church needing to work in Urban Priority areas, yes we do but we can’t focus on one group at the expense of the rest, once again rural Britain is being marginalised by the church as well as the rest of society. I’m going to stop writing now as I am TOO passionate about this and will end up going over board I think you get the gist!

Yesterday

Great day yesterday hearing Kenda Creasy Dean over in Oxford, very challenging and thought provoking, I took some notes but haven’t had a chance to go through them yet, if I get it sorted in a reasonable time scale I may add them here but in the mean time check out youthblogs thoughts. It was also great to see the above mentioned Youthblog, and Deep Thought, plus to meet Easyrew and Holy Phil and another possible future blogger but I’m not allowed to mention that. I must apologise to both Easyrew and Holy Phil as I have discovered that nether of you are on my blog roll although of course Easyrew hasn’t been updated for a couple of months! I really should go thought and update that section of the page, I will do that also! i did find it every encouraging to discover that I am not the only blogger with a list of subjects etc to blog about on my desk next to the computer that I just never get around to, how about you do you have a list?
Lastly just to say the bus is going for MOT tomorrow morning, please pray that it goes through ok and also as we look to how we keep this work going as the current bus is becoming increasingly expensive to run but a newer bus is a LOT of money, something we are short of at the moment.

What a week

Last week seemed to fly by with loads going on all the time, it was great to be at CRE on Thursday and catch up with many old friends, Dave’s free postcard was absolutely fantastic, if you haven’t seen it click here. I think Dave you have the makings of some good posters here especially with this one and the kitchen cartoons!

Also last week had two conformation services (only to be trumped by the Bishops 6) Thursday evening saw three of my youth group being confirmed at a deanery conformation service and then on Friday another of my young people at her school, both great occasions, it’s always so encouraging to see members of your youth group take these steps of faith, whatever your theology of conformation the fact that they want to make a public declaration in front of friends and family (one of them eve had non Christian friends come along). It was also great as it meant o got to hear Bishop Stephen preach twice which is always a blessing as he is a very inspiring preacher. Then on Sunday it was first communion and welcoming into the church and I was preaching which was good, I don’t get to do that as often as I would like at the moment, not that I have the time to prepare for preaching too often anyway.

Well anyway it was a busy week but a great week. This week off to hear Kenda Creasy Dean tomorrow in Oxford the author of Practicing Passion (supposed to be very good but as a non reader I haven’t actually read it, I would like too but I’m not going to go into all of that now!) really looking forward to that, was supposed to be going to a rural funding day on Thursday but by the time I got commitment from others to go I had missed out on all the tickets! My wife is pleased I may not be going though as it’s also my Birthday, I shall be ??. so looking like a good week, I may even get to write hear again!

Vicar school

This is a post from yesterday but blogger was down when I tried to post it, so hear it is a day late.

Today I was supposed to be meeting up with some students from vicar school on the bus to tell them about the work I do, this was a day out to learn about rural ministry and multi parish benefices, but needless to say the bus is off the road and so it had to be a power point in my office rather than a hands on bus experience. Anyway it seemed to go well and it’s great to see collages looking at this side of ministry, so much talk and action within the church is around suburbia and urban priority areas, there are very few curacies available in rural parishes and I think many ministers for whom there experience has been one large church are frightened by the idea of a few small churches, I believe this can lead to both the churches and the ministers missing out. So it was a great session and good to see them taking an interest in this much overlooked area of ministry not to mention a great pub lunch which is also a very key part of rural ministry!

Technology is great

Technology is great, I recently upgraded my mobile and pda to one device the O2 XDA mini s, i am now sitting in my office and am able to access my wireless network and through the mobile Opera software write and upload to my blog, something which cannot be done through mobile explorer due to it not handeling graphical buttons well and therefore not able to log into blogger. The only thing i haven't managed is to do is download an image to upload with the entry.

Eggsiting update

After Thursdays eggselent eggsample of how to do an assembly that will leave at least one pupil shell shokced, today (i am writing on Friday but have no internet access at the moment!) we decided to try something a little different hoping it would work out all white. So today we had little yoke suggesting I was going to throw a dart into an apple being held above someones head, whilst I was blind folded. Needless to say I didn't throw the dart but after the assembly the year head said how disapionted she was that I had not done the egg juggling after hearing about Thursdays assembly. Oh well next time.

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Save the SPCK!

you could even visit www.spck.org.uk to find out more about this organisation.

A bad assembly idea?

This week I am doing assemblies with another youth worker in the local secondary school, the theme is trust and starts with getting a victim/volunteer to lie on the ground while I juggle eggs over them, this has been done several times before with no problems however this morning a bad throw meant a bad miss and led to another miss and two broken eggs and one egged student lying at my feet. I’m waiting for the call asking me not to go in tomorrow or ever again!