A blog about blogging

I managed to put a visitor counter on this blog (see below). I think bloggers all need encouragement.



It looks like I am advertising some sort of diet web site, can't I do chocolate, don't I get a choice. Chocolate or some sort of fatty substance would be so much more appropiate.

Here is a picture of my biscuits to compensate.

Guidance for Annual Appeal 4

Our team all sat down the other day and discussed our experience of Annual Appeal. War stories if you like, below are some of the highlights. These all happened this year.

My Dad knocked on a door and was made to make the dog sit before they would give him some money. For those who know my dad, this is extra funny, in fact I would have paid to watch this.

My Dad was also asked if he was a musician. He replied, rather nervously, that he was, he got an extra pound for playing the cornet.

Heather got chased from a house by a bat. (She got all unecessary).

Ray knocked on a house where a little girl opened the front door. Ray asked if her mummy or daddy where in and she said "yes". She went to a door at the end of the hallway and opened the door to reveal her dad in the bath.

Ray also helped a woman who was having a hypo-glycaemic attack (I would like to thank my doctor friend for the spelling here). Ray himself is diabetic and new exactly what to do. Sadly, it was the woman having the attack and the bloke in the bath.

I have a great job ...

As part of the programme I run, I went with a group of students up Moel Famau. Great view from the top but it was extremely windy.

On the way down looking at the fantastic view my colleague said "We get paid to do this!!

http://www.denbighshire.gov.uk/LL/LifeLong.nsf/13f6c51bd2f1ca8a80256a8f003de1b9/8902d2d6bbcd907d80256c77004506d3!OpenDocument

I'm off collecting tonight, if my legs stop shaking.

Guidance for Annual Appeal 3

Thanks John for the suggestion of looking at the rebuffs. I have come across some misunderstandings mainly:

Firstly there was the typical misunderstanding. "Sorry, I thought you had come to read the meter". Funny thing here is that I did was not wearing my uniform, just chinos and army polo shirt. Perhaps she was waiting for the gas or electicity man.

Secondly there was the unusual misunderstanding. "No I won't contribute, I support a lot of charities. You can't join the lot can you?". I didn't ask him to join the band or sing of the songsters just some of his small change. The level of his committment is implicit in the question "Would you like to help the Salvation Army in their annual appeal". Perhaps I should need to make sure the question is more explicit. "Would you like to help the Salvation Army in their annual appeal by putting your lose change in this money box." Perhaps I could add "Although we do have an opening on B flat Bass if you fancy a blow."

Thirdly there was the lady who said "Oh! can I give it a miss today, thanks". It appears that she thinks the Salvation Army will be knocking at her door every day until she gives in and donates some money. Sadly I won't be able to do this as tomorrow I am out in another area - doing door to door collecting.

Guidance for Annual Appeal 2

Last night whilst out collecting I have been challenged with the following questions:

What words do I use to ask strangers for money?
If I did not give this any thought the following words would come out of my mouth, "Umm, money, erhhh, put in box, No? OK Bye"

So, I have settled on the following "Would you like to help the Salvation Army in their Annual Appeal?", smile and wait for the answer. The thought here is that its a closed question which prompts the answer yes or no, so either way I am away quickly from the door or someone can start a conversation if they want.

The problem is that as the evening goes on, "Would you like to help the Salvation Army in their Annual Appeal?" becomes more and more indistinct, especially when it becomes cold (it was worse in February).

The other big question raised in door to door collection is how long do you wait outside a door after you have knocked and rung the bell. Especially when you know the occupants have seen you approach the house and are ignoring you. Well I have been giving this some thought.

The obvious approach is to sing on the doorstep (out loud or in your head). You could get through a couple of verses of:

• Guide me O thou great Jehovah


• Shine Jesus Shine


• or When the music fades

Depending on your age etc.

Although this has its draw backs. I have found myself surprised by someone answering the door (why that should be, especially as it has been me who has rung the bell and knocked on the door, is strange) and am not ready with "Would you like to help the Salvation Army in their Annual Appeal" and it comes out as "Oh! would you like to help the Pilgrim through this barren land, No! Sorry, Doh!".

Play a game on your mobile phone (No, not a good idea)

So I recommend the follow approach, Don't go near music, too dangerous:

1. Approach the door


2. Knock and ring the bell as already discussed


3. Notice how the door could do with a lick of paint


4. Oh! I really don't like simulated wood effect double glazing


5. Where is the spider in that cobweb


6. Is Arteta best placed on the right or left of that diamond formation or is his best position in the centre of the pitch where he bosses the game, but they do get good results with that formaiton and Andy (sorry Andrew) Johnson does well on his own especially support by Cahill coming late into the box. We have spent a lot of money for Beattie and he does try really hard......


7. Oh my goodness how long have I been here, where is Gill is she back at home eating my chocolate biscuits.


8. Time to go to the next house.

I assure you the time goes so much quicker this way.

Guidance for Annual Appeal 1

I have changed the title of this blog to Annual Appeal since I found out that I am stupid.

September is always a busy month as us Sallys find ourselves raising money for the "Annual Salvation Army Appeal". If you are not a Sally then this will not make any sense, but if you are, here is some guidance.

Do and Do nots

Always

1. Smile and say "Thank you very much, Good night" even if you do not get any money.


2. Wonder why so many families are called "Friedland"


3. Knock on the door and ring the bell.


4. Always ignore stickers on the door that say "We don't buy anything from salesmen"


5. Be careful when knocking on glass doors (mind you, I have not broken one yet)


6. Try and beat the Littlewoods Pools or the milk man when he is on the same "round".


7. When collecting with a partner on the same side of the road, try and make sure that they get to the house with a) the person cleaning the car b) the gang of lads smoking at the front door c) the house with the Fiesta rather than the BMW or Mercedes.


8. If collecting in a uniform always smile politely when mistaken for a policeman.


9. If they drop their money, always let them pick it up.


10. Address the man of the house as "Sir", if he is wearing a shirt and tie.

Do not

1. Leave the gate open or kick the milk bottles if your request for money is denied.


2. Leave the house by one garden gate go to the next garden gate and end up back at the same house (did that yesterday).


3. Get stuck miles from the car when it starts to throw it down with rain (did that on Tuesday).


4. Run away from the house cheering or doing "high fives" when you get given twenty quid.


5. Get caught picking you nose when the house holder answers the door.


6. Fall into garden pond.


7. Try to keep a count of how much you have so far.


8. Walk across a prize lawn.


9. Scale a garden wall to get to the next house


10. Don't say "Cheers!" when you leave.

The best house

1. Christian literature in the hallway.


2. Doors answered by older people.

The worst house

1. Knock on the door, a light comes on, nobody comes to the door


2. The householder watches you come up the drive whilst they are watching television and refuses to open the door.


3. Houses with dogs (no matter the size).


4. When the children answer the door.


5. When you have to do those intercom things at the gate before you get to the front door.


6. No lights on at all in the house.


7. The house when the man answers the door with no trousers on (happened yesterday).


8. When the occupier says they can't give because they are eating their dinner. Usually we have come straight from work and missed dinner.

Worst response

1. Sorry the is nobody in


2. Sorry my wife is out


3. My Dad said there is nobody in


4. Do the Salvation Army save fallen women? Save one for me (Always laugh politely)


5. If someone asks you to sing a song for a donation, make sure you know the amount before starting to "Shall We Gather" (Gill)

Games to play

1. Guess the age of the house holder, based on the type of car, type of house, number of small toys lying around the garden.


2. Chasing your partner collector down the street when he does not wait long enough for people to answer the doors.


3. Don't walk in the cracks in the pavement.


4. Create a blog entry whilst collecting.


5. Wonder how much time some people must have by the extraordinary tidiness of their garden.


6. Admire double glazing.


7. Watch bits of Eastenders, The Bill, Emmerdale as you go round.


8. Guess what people are having for dinner.


9. Guess what the appeal is going to be called next year (Self Denial, Red Sheild, Annual Appeal)

I plan on creating an exhaustive list above if you have any additions please let me know and I will update.

Your results:
You are Superman

Superman 75% The Flash 65% Hulk 50% Iron Man 50% Spider-Man 45% Robin 45% Green Lantern 45% Supergirl 40% Wonder Woman 40% Batman 20% Catwoman 15%

You are mild-mannered, good, strong and you love to help others.

Click here to take the Superhero Personality Quiz

Signs and Notices

"We really need to get a chartered accountant"

I have a thing about public signs and notices. We often have a laugh in the car on the way home. As we go round a corner near home, there is a sign on the wall which is lit with a light that changes from blue to green slowly. The sign is for a chartered accountancy company, which prompts the question, what do they want to achieve by doing this sort of marketing? Are they looking for passing trade or is it subliminal advertising.

In our local chippy, underneath the menu there was a sign which said "Sorry, No Dogs!". This is ambigous in several ways. Did they serve sweet and sour dog, and they are sorry they have to let customers down. Or do they not serve dogs as customers so dogs need to go to the slightly more seedy chippy across the road.

I have also noticed that Asda now say they are a member of the Wall Mart family of companies. Did mister and misses Wall Mart have a baby Asda?

It must be a boy thing

Last Saturday morning Will and I drove down to Deeside to meet with more mates for Daves pre marriage morning out (formally stag do, in the morning without the staying out late and drinking lot's of alcohol, then leaving Dave naked in a field in Scotland. We have not been invited to that one).

The morning involved karting, great time was had by all. I spent the first practise laps trying to expell my "Drive to Survive course" (run by Cheshire Police) out of my head. I did manage to pursuade myself that a cement wagon wasn't likely to crash into me around the next blind bend. This is not an excuse for not winning. In fact I played my bit to let Dave (the groom) win but sadly Will, Wes, Steve, Paul, Chris etc didn't (Well done Stuart for coming last).

When I got home I tried to explain what fun we had to Heather but I noticed the same "interested" face she has when I come home from playing or watching football and so I decided....

it must be a boy thing.

I'll try and post a picture when I get home

Being a Dad

I have often wandered what it was like to be a Dad. I suppose traditionally it is proud dad with new son or daughter (see Will at eatspoosandsleeps.blogspot.com),but there are other times as well. I have two boys, tens years apart and its eldest sons GCSE day.

2 Bs in Music (hurrah!) and Graphics
4 Cs in Science, IT and English Lit
2 Ds in Maths and English (have to do those again)

Well done, mate.

Do we have to do this again in 10 years time!!!???

Your turn in 16 years Will.

Start of the new season ...

Friends beware....

Don't talk to me on Saturday afternoon if we have lost. Check the score first.

Do you feel strongly about random things?

I was on a car journey the other day/week/month, talking with some friends, when we came across some strong views held by Dan on some fairly random topics. For instance, he thinks that fruit or nuts have no place in any sort of chocolate. So, Marathon bars are bad but Mars bars are good, Topics are bad but Twirls are good and so on.

Even more specific, there are wrong a right ways to eat chocolate. It is not allowed to nibble the chocolate off Mars bars then the bottom, leaving the sticky gooey bit to finish last. You need to enjoy the bar as it is meant biting through the whole bar and enjoying all the elements in the mouth at the same time.

[I tried to load a Mars Bar image here but failed.]

Thinking about that I do have some firm views on some things, for instance white uPVC windows are OK on the right house (mine for instance), but there is no place for brown uPVC windows with a wood effect, its just wrong (I'm sorry if you have spent a lot of money on yours, but its just wrong).

I don't like stickers in my car "My other cars a Fiesta", etc, unless it came with the car (dealers name etc).

I get annoyed with other drivers when we are in a 40mph area and they slow down to 30 when they pass a camera, they are not paying attention.

I like mint and I like lamb. But, I don't like mint on lamb.

I dislike front doors without a letter box in September. (other SAers will get that one)

I am not particular about where physical things are stored around my house, but I am particular about where stuff is stored on the computers at home, they have to be in the right place (so I can find them). I can spend a while sorting out the file structure on the computer whilst sitting amongst chaos in the real world/living room. I don't know what this says about me?

Have we scored, Dad

I took the oppurtunity on Saturday to take my 6 year old son to his first football match. I was really excited (I don't know if he was). The game was Everton versus Athletic Bilbao (The Howard Kendall testimonial). The idea was to cement his support for ever and to thwart the plans of the evil uncle Murray who is trying to turn him to the dark/red side.

I don't think he is going to be too bothered when it comes to football (is it something I did, it must his mothers fault).

After the first few minutes excitement of being inside a football stadium it wore off. Every few minutes, I had the annoying question "have we scored, yet". "No" was the first reply eventually getting to "NO!!!!!!".

He slept most of the second half. And we still didn't score.

(This posting is left with no depreciating humour relating to supporting Everton, because I know that if anyone reads this they are sure to do better than I can possibly manage)

Confidence building

I have recently changed job and I now work for a large local college. As part of the course we encourage the teenagers to go on the high ropes. This week I decided that I could not ask the learners do something which I had not done.

So, I volunteered to have a go. It sounded a good idea to start with. And it does not seem very high from the floor. But when you have climbed to the top and asked to walk along the top, I remembered how much I disliked heights. But with a fellow tutor and 8 students watching there was not much else to do but to complete the tasks. Surprisingly enough, the most difficult part was to trust the other person at the end of the rope when I jumped off the top.

The last task was to jump of the pole in the middle of the picture and hit the orange ball. Jumping off was easy, the difficult bit was climbing up the pole and standing on the top. Of course when I jumped off, the tutor holding the rope left the ground also. Must lose some weight.

Fortunately I saw the caution about serious injurt note after I did the jumps

Moving on..

Youth Alpha has finished for a while, but seeing as I have this blog space a feel a responsibility to use it.

I don't think I shall do anything too profound. But I have been reading Wills, Heathers, Matt Leeders and links from their sites and feel bad for posting on theirs when I don't contribute myself. Don't know if anybody will read this.

But here goes.

(Sorry Lynsey for highjacking this)

Its been a while

The Youth Alpha is still on going. How does God guide you? this week. So they have been around the church blind folded guided by each other in different ways. Which is the most efficient? Not guided by Lynsey (perhaps). Personal injury in her haste to get around the quickest.

Kevin

Well, can I just note I didn't injure on purpose...we've recently finished our thoughts on Prayer, resulting in the group preparing and leading the prayer time during our service. Expressing different ways in which we can communicate with God and ways in which we can worship him. Hopefully they'll be able to take something from these next few sessions on looking at the Holy Spirit and share them wiht memebers of the church again - as well as others they may meet.

So, we're looking at being guided - how God does it and why we need it (a lot, some of us!)

More next week.

More Prayer

Didn't get much done this week.

The challenge for the week is to say a two sentence prayer everyday and then wait for some period of time. We'll see how it goes, and the feedback next week.

Maybe we'll have more to report next week! (if we all do our homework!!)

Prayer

This is the first week after a couple of weeks break. We continued with Prayer.

Been through the first bit. How is prayer seen by the wide world, media etc. How do we pray, when to pray why we should pray.

The we have looked at the boiler room, 24/7 stuff on the internet. Boiler room internet site is difficult for the youngsters to read. But we are going to visit one next week, so hopefully things will fall into place.

The subject of prayer seems easy at first - it's just talking with God, isn't it? But when you look at it further, there's so much more to it. The whys and hows influence what it means to us and why we do it...we see in films etc people praying when they're in deep trouble, or when we haven't revised for exams, but we know this is the only reason why and when we should pray.

But, over the next fews weeks (we may even need longer!) we will be working out how important prayer is to us and how and when we can do it.

See ya!

The Bible

Not long this week to get through the work to be done.

We are looking at the Bible. We have decided that the best way to communicate a lot of information is through a book rather than other means of communication (email, talking etc) We have played a whats in and out of the Bible (squelch won the chocolate delicous Pop Milk)

We have looked at the type of Book the Bible is.

History
Guide to Life
Songs and Poems
Prophecy
Beards
Stories
God talking to people
Smiting
Rules
Jesus's Life

We have looked at a old map and tried to compare it to the Bible is it relevent does it tell us what to do. We have decided that the Bible is like a compass which always tells us the truth.

It's there as a general guide: we appreciate sometime it may not feel relevant or give us answers that directly realte to our lives in this day and age, but if we look hard enough we can see that the general principles it promotes and teaches us are as relevant today as ever. We just need to try and understand what it is telling us and act upon that.

That's all for this week, but we'll be discussing it again next week. One challenge for this week is to try and read a psalm every day and come back next week and share what they've taught us...here goes!

First post

After encouraging all the youngsters to create a blog for their Youth Alpha course, perhaps I should create one as a leader. This is Kev and Lynseys blog.

We are already through about three sessions which we have split over about 10 sessions. The blogs seem to go down really well and we have started to comment on them.

We're using them to record what we've talked about each week and to invite anyone to make their own comments on our thoughts and discussions.

So far, we've look at who Jesus is, why he died, and how we can be sure of our faith (if we have one yet!).

It's been interesting to get different viewpoints from the group, as all of them have different ideas on what this faith thing is all about and how it affects tham (and us!)

We'd welcome any feedback, comments and suggestions on anything you think we could cover, suggest and discuss with the youngsters...our next seesion, over the next few weeks, is all about why and how we should read the bible.

Ideas welcome!

We'll let you know how it goes!

Kevin & Lynsey