In the leaflet that they sent out as part of the consultation exercise  they point out that the population of Solihull is set to increase by 20,000 by 2028.

The reason for this increase:

• More people staying single longer.
• More couples and families separating.
• People living longer.

These figures / reasons are going to present a challenge to local services and to our churches.

It is no longer a case of churches providing activities for families, it is time for churches to become family for people who are single, separated or older.

What does this mean for those of us in churches – how do we make this happen?

A few starters for you:

• Make friends with people of all ages and backgrounds – purposely engage people in conversations, find out about them.
• Treat people as your brothers, sisters, aunts, uncles, neices and nephews.  (See Matthew 12:50)
• Purposely include others in what you do, e.g. BBQs, meals, walks, hobbies, DIY.

We celebrated with family on Sunday Evening.

On her birthday, we had a day out at Hidcote gardens followed by a visit from her Mum and Dad, Sister and Fiance, then a nice M&S meal and as you can see fom the photo a couple of glasses of wine

Here are some photos of the occasion:

Pleased to report that 2 days later she doesn’t feel any older

It has felt very strange at home as our youngest daugther started a new job on Monday working away from home.

I spent a night away for work. Another project is coming my way and we are working on getting funding for all the other work we have next year.
Rather than have a 6am start in sub zero conditions and run the risk of problems on the road, I travelled the night before and stayed overnight at a hotel.

While at the hotel I needed to iron some trousers, so I borrowed an iron and ironing board.
(No Corby trouser press).

As instructed, I placed the ironing board outside the room, only to have the door slam shut on me.

Fortunately I had been ironing a different pair of trousers or this could have been me.

This morning I took the Father-in-law to the doctors for an appointment with the Nurse, I dropped him off and he tells me the waiting area is round to the right.

I parked the car, enter the centre and head around to the right to find myself surrounded by pregnant ladies.

It reminded me of spending 40 minutes trying to find Cardiff hospital, with him providing directions.
We had problems with left and right then.
Me: “Do we turn left here?” Father-in-Law: “Right” (meaning yes).
I did wonder wether he would appreciate a loan of my socks with Left and right on them?

Final thought for the week.  Tonight’s Newsnight program was thought provoking – they discussed this  news item  about how loneliness can kill people.

And tomorrow we get a visit from Liz

I have had an email from a service provider. They have noticed I am not using a box/service they provided a while back. The good news is that they are offering to provide help get it working again.

The down side is that they have not bothered to ask why the service is not being used.

A reply email fails because they do not monitor the email address. They direct you to a “Contact Us” page, but on that page they have already assumed what you want to contact them about.

I can assume with a fair degree of confidence that all of us who tried contacting organisations find that they have assumed what you want to contact them about.

• Pick what your enquiry is about from the following list.
• Press 1 for a long wait listening to music….
• Press 2 and we will pass your call to a completely unrelated system….

Interestingly when we try and contact God about something, we can get through direct and say what we want or need to say.

This is pretty cool because He already does know what our enquiry is about.

Isaiah 65:24

The idea of issuing guidelines or summaries to people was suggested, which sparked a debate as to whether guidelines were  “legal”.

The problem here is that perceptions of what words and phrases mean have changed.

e.g. “quite good” or “satisfactory” are seen as less than good, when “quite good” actually means completely good and “satisfactory” means all criteria are met.

The perception is that guidelines are guidance – but these words do not mean the same thing.

There are thousands of pages of Health and Safety laws and legislation. An impossible amount for the average person just doing a job to memorise or understand.

A situation made worse by conflicting rules and degree of interpretation needed – e.g. how would you define “reasonable”.

In the minefield that is Health and Safety law and legislation, some kind people have marked out a path to keep you safe – these are “guidelines”.

Stay inside the lines and you will be safe.  Treat them as optional guidance and you run the risk of it blowing up.

This has now been taken over by the Harris Corporation.

There IS a Family connection. Jim Leitch, the now deceased company founder was my Uncle.

Some photos from our holiday in October 2011 in Corfu.

It was the last week of the season and we were staying in Agios Gordios.

Taken Autumn 2011 near Broadway

September 2011 marked the 40th anniversary of when I started work with BT.

BT chose to recognise this with a modest presentation in a meeting room in Coventry, where I received a certificate and letter from the Managing Director and a £500 gift voucher.

A glass clock followed a few weeks later.

Originally posted October 18, 2011

I read the story of someone’s final days this morning in a discussion forum while listening on YouTube to the song that was played at his funeral.

This was someone I had never met but we had interacted via the forums as we discussed the programs we were testing and using.
I was moved to hear of his passing and also by all the comments from others in the forums, words of support and offers of prayers.

There are those who say that on-line friends are not “real” friends, perhaps because there are those who boast of having thousands of on-line “friends”.
After what I read this morning I disagree.

One of the dictionary definitions that I like is “A friend is someone who is on your side”.

Through the media of Facebook and other internet forums we get to interact with people who we may never ever actually meet.
There is no reason that we cannot be real friends with those we interact with regularly, simply by being on their side, by being encouraging, by being supportive, by taking a genuine interest and sharing a bit about ourselves.

It is also a reminder that we are not just interacting with forum or website but with real people, most of whom deserve our respect.

Originally posted August 26, 2011