Is God a DJ?
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Category Archives: Zzzz … Old Stuff
The Garden grows
So far the potatoes look good, carrots (purple and orange), beetroot, parsnips, lettuce, spring onions, spinach and cucumber are all popping out the ground. We are hardening off the corguettes, squashes, peppers and tomatoes, and have wild strawberries scattered around. Now the issue is to try not and let the slugs near or lose the veggies. My issue is that i have been quite disciplined this year with weeding so far but the idea of slug hunting by torchlight or keeping weeding is not my idea of a good night out. As a weak completer/finisher in personality type I see this now as an area for personal growth as well as veggie growth, but even typing about it fills me with horror. i fear the challenge is beyond me, can we overcome my nature with a little nurture?
I love detached work – informal education works
great night out on detached, about 30 young people who we knew. people hanging out in the early evening sun, good conversations, important support and ongoing contacts.
One lad we had passed on the details of a possible job too, had rung the boss to arrange an interview. the boss in turn rang my co worker to say how impressed he was by the telephone manners and confidence, and was looking forward to meeting him. This lad was so reluctant to ring the councillors when we were fundraising for the skate park and took lots of coaching and support, and always in the back of mind through that process was that it was the informal education not getting the money from the councillors that mattered, and 3 months later it all clicks together.
i want to fly
A course for community development workers and activists
Exploring the Impact of Travel / Transport on Communities Course code B2
A course for community development workers and activists
Monday 2nd June 10.30 am – 4.00 pm (Tea and arrivals from 10.00 am)
Venue: The Resource Centre, 356 Holloway Road, London N7 6PA
The Federation for Community Development Learning are in partnership with TWICS as part of the Every Action Counts programme.
The Every Action Counts programme promotes collective actions and work within the voluntary and community sectors. Our overall programme aims to unlock learning, transferable knowledge and greater understanding of how to promote inclusive and accessible environmental actions for community groups and organisations.
This course is designed as an introduction to the impact of travel and transport on communities.
Aims:
· Introduce the principles an processes of community development as a way to challenge social exclusion and injustice
· Explore the themes of environmental and social justice as approaches and principles to travel and transport issues for communities.
Participants will have the opportunity to:
Identify the key themes and issues around transport affecting communities they are part of or are working with
Discuss the relevance of environmental and social justice approaches to taking action on travel themes with communities.
Identify opportunities for taking community action in response to themes raised during the course.
How to book a place
For more information and to reserve your place please download a form from our website at www.fcdl.org.uk or contact FCDL at admin@fcdl.org.uk or call us on 0114 253 6770 for a booking form and more information.
Branded Christians
Some recent encounters with young people from different churches came to mind as soon as I saw ASBO jesus’ latest offering.
Being there costs fathers
I haven’t really talked much about the personal effects the current government system has on me and how it penalises people particularly fathers who try and be there for their children. I want share from my own perspective, – Tuffty and Clive are great kids and I want to be around them as much as possible, so they stay with us three nights a week, and at their mums four nights – it is the closest we can get to genuine shared care. So I am in an enviable position for many fathers who have restricted or no access. The issue here however is that although I have the children for almost 50% of the time, I cannot get access to working families tax credit, or share the family allowance and still pay maintenance. Based on our family income (which working for a charity is modest) if tuffty and Clive were registered at my house or stayed here for four nights instead of three we would qualify for working families tax credit of £256 a month and get family allowance on top another £120 a month.
Now I have no issues with fathers being expected to pay maintenance or that there some poor examples of men out there who try to duck their responsibilities, but I have already had to sell one house due to the child support agency fiasco – which does not truly recognise equality, and impinged such high maintenance costs on me and didn’t take into account that in order to see my children regularly I had to make long journeys to work. What was worse was that Tuffy and Clive didn’t receive any of this money as their mum was claiming benefit.
the 10 pence tax rate was not the only issue that government did not examine the detail on.
What are todays social evils?
check out this from JRF
New way of being church
I was asked today to join with a meeting the new way of being church The Passion of the Christ rip community. A mixed bunch of faithful radicals that have been exploring new ways of being church long before the term emerging church became trendy. Lots of connections, it was interesting how we shared many links, basic eccelesial communities, friere, alinsky, jim punton, fyt. They have lots of resources online and worth a visit.
Web lecture
Today I did my first web lecture. From the office in my bedroom I ran a session in Sweden on detached youth work. I could see the class in front of me and we were able to do some group work and one to one questioning. It was strange to say the least but generally went quite well. I had the window open and was very aware and self conscious that as i lectured, people outside could be wondering what was going on, especially when i heard the postman delivering mail. Although I reasoned later that as they couldn’t see me they would think I was just talking loudly to someone in the house. I was able to run most of the session as usual, and use slides etc, but really missed out on picking up some of the body language, and non verbal cues, even though when idividuals responded they zoomed into who ever was talking. Hope i didn’t bore them stupid. It is always hard communicating in different cultures but it really made me realise how reliant I am on reactionary work, and going with the direction the group seem to need to go. I havent much of clue yet how it worked from their end, the fact that they had my face to watch over the projector was probably off putting enough!