42

More on a lighter footprint

I have written before about the opportunities created by our move this summer, for example in 42: A lighter footprint. Our move is coming close now with about a week to go.

So today we took a big step in lightening our footprint. We have moved from two cars to one. One step further to a longer aim of one day becoming car free.

Key to this was finding a car that would have much of the economy and costs of our small Citroen C1 while providing as much of the capacity of our large Citroen C8 as is needed by a family with 3 tall sons.

In the end we managed a two for one part exchange (sadly a considerable top-up was required) and now have a Citroen Berlingo Multispace with family pack (h'mm pity the name is so long). So this gives us 7 seats (room for Mum and/or girl friends) or a generous sized boot. Yet the running costs and environmental impact (Fuel, Vehicle Excise Duty, Insurance, ...) are all much closer to the C1 than the C8.

It would have been hopelessly costly (financially as well as environmentally) to run our C8 as an only car with the prospect of many short city journeys (eg from one side of Leicester to the other in order to take mum out for a while). On the other hand we could not all fit in the 4 seat C1 and it could not have a towbar so caravanning would have been impossible.

The Berlingo might look ugly and is not going to be exciting to drive but neither of those are high priorities (indeed quite the opposite, given the goal of driving much less, a car that you want to show off or that is fantastic to drive would have been positively unhelpful).

Two key things have made this change possible. 

Firstly, downsizing from our big twin axle 6 berth caravan to our small five berth folding camper (Dandy Designer). So we moved from needing to tow about 1600kg to around 400kg.

Secondly, the move from Raunds in the Nene Valley Circuit to Syston in the Leicester North Circuit coupled with the changes in the needs of the family. We no longer need to get a son to and from a 6th form and county music service both 20 miles away. Jane no longer needs to work somewhere that makes getting a son to a distant school convenient. The Leicester North Circuit is far more compact and so means I should be able to cycle rather than drive (for example I have had 2 Churches 10 miles from home in opposite directions. After the move nowhere in the circuit is more than about 7 miles away and the Churches I serve are much closer).

We have had our Citroen C8 for 6 years and it has been a great family workhorse, superb for holidays and carting around lots of people and stuff. But with nearly 100,000 miles on the clock and different needs it was no longer appropriate.

We only had our Citroen C1 for 2 1/2 years. We bought it to be a cheap (environmentally and financially) way to get to and from Northampton far too many times a week. Having bought it with only 10,000 on the clock after one year, we did rather more, averaging about 1,500 miles per month. Beyond the original need we used it whenever we could, even for longer journeys as it was so much cheaper to run than the C8.

Now we hope the Berlingo will provide good economy (something over 40mpg overall) with the space and flexibility we need. First signs are good it is the smallest and cheapest 7 seater car we found that fits our two younger sons in the back row. Some of the alternatives were amazing (not in a good way though) for example Jane and I nearly killed ourselves trying to climb into the 3rd row of seats in a Toyota Verso.

It certainly feels a lot lighter to be able to go back down to only one car. However, we do recognise that in absolute terms it is far from a great environmental example that we are setting. I would love it if we were able to take the further step of this being our last ever car. I hope that improvements in public transport, dramatic improvements to the cycling infrastructure and options for car pooling over the next few years might allow that dream to become a reality.

 

New hope for Trident?

It seems to me that the transfer of the costs of the Trident nuclear system to the Department of Defence (Future of Trident in doubt as ministers row over budget | Ekklesia) is right and offers new hope.

Unless the Ministry of Defence bears the cost of everything related to defence/military expenditure it cannot be expected to make the decisions based on cost effectiveness. If they do not pay for Trident then it should be no wonder they want it as it will appear to be fantastically cost effective.

By putting the costs into the MOD it will have to be justified as cost effective against the alternatives. Personally I am confident that in any fair comparison the full costs of Trident will not be cost effective and so on those grounds alone it should be abandoned.

My own view is of course that it does not matter at all if Trident is cost effective, it should still be abandoned and all our Nuclear weapons decommissioned immediately. That to be followed as soon as possible by ideally a complete demilitarisation of the UK.

Step one in all this should be immediate progress on banning all arms sales to anyone anywhere by any British company, any British passport holder and anyone on British soil. That will then need to be extended to include all forms of transport for arms and all supporting equipment, good and services.

22 years and counting

Today (Friday) was our 22nd wedding anniversary. It does not seem like it but I met Jane nearly 25 years ago at the Manchester University Ecumenical Society. Our 22 years together have been and continue to be a joy.

We had a lovely day. Jane finished her job as a Learning Support Assistant yesterday and it is my day off. So once our youngest son had disappeared for his last day at school in Raunds we went back to bed ;-)

Sometime later we emerged and after a very short token attempt to do a few jobs we went out for lunch together at Stanwick Lakes, it was extremely romantic sitting outside on the decking over the lake eating Jacket Potatoes with Tuna Mayonnaise :-)

As it was the last day of term School finished early so we dashed off to Syston, just north of Leicester, where we will be moving very soon now. On the way we collected Mum from the Methodist Home in Oadby and just about arrived in time to meet Pete, the Circuit Steward who is looking after the moving process.

We saw the very rapid work being done on the manse to prepare it for us. Particularly adding a loo downstairs so Mum can visit (I think it is essential anyway if you are going to have visitors that they should not have to go upstairs into the bedroom area to use the toilet). The old drive is gone and the new one will be put in this weekend. In the study there are 6 new Billy bookcases, freshly assembled !!! :-) The wiring is going in (at our expense obviously) so that I can safely use a MIG Welder in the shed we will be putting in. Our predecessors have left the whole house looking very clean and nice, the boys enjoyed planning their new rooms - much easier now they are empty. while there we were also able to collect a whole load more boxes to pack :-(

Then we all went out for a meal at the Hobby Horse to celebrate our anniversary, not been there before but will go again I am sure.

After that we took advantage of the long light evening to have a quick look around to see if we can find a cycle route to Wanlip Sailing Club. We left hoping they can allow access through the locked gate on Meadow Lane (running west from Syston) as otherwise it requires you to ride on the A46 dual carriageway. Otherwise Roundhill Sailing Association is also handy but they only seem to sail on Sundays which is not much good.

Anyway, we then went for a nice walk in the northern part of Watermead park (round King Lear Lake), very wheelchair friendly and looks like a really nice place to go that is very close to home. I can see it being a very popular place for a gentle evening bike ride as well as a route I'll be using a lot to get to Leicester City Centre and to Rachel's manse (the Superintendent minister) at Birstall.

Then we dropped Mum off, never a quick operation :-) still we were home by 10:30pm.

The result is that I am looking forward to the next 22 years with Jane.

The joy and pain of goodbyes

One of the facts of life for a Methodist Minister in Britain is goodbyes. As an itinerant minister you expect to move on, as a Circuit Minister (Methodist Ministers in Britain are not appointed to a specific Church but to a Circuit of Churches) that means a lot of goodbyes.

So I am now well into the seemingly endless parade of "Last Services", for a while now I have had last services at Churches in the Circuit that I visit less regularly (ones I don't have "pastoral charge" of). However, yesterday was the first real set of last services for the Churches I have been most closely connected to.

Irthlingborough

In the morning was Irthlingborough Methodist Church. I have only had pastoral charge of Irthlingborough for a year since when my friend and colleague David Kemble moved out of the circuit. We have had an exciting year which began with the opening of the refurbished Church. 

During the year we have had lots of things happening such as the restarted and very popular weekly "Little Fishes" for parents/carers and pre-school children on Thursday mornings. Plus new things such as Wednesday Lunches and special events galore. 

We have seen the whole Church complex being used much more by the community. We have seen the prayer life and Bible Studies continue to be central to the Church and a widening collection of members being involved in different aspects from worship, preaching, catering, welcoming, ... We have launched a project to refurbish the rest of the Church buildings (given that the main refurbishment was done to an lovely standard and with superb management of quality, time and cost [yet all with a clear and prayerful focus on mission] I am very confident that this will go well too).

We have also continued to strengthen our links with the Infant School (I was there for my last assembly in the week and was presented with a wonderful book of memories).

One of the most exciting things about Irthlingborough is that all this great stuff is led by the lay people of the Church. As minister I have been welcomed and included but never made to feel that people are waiting for me or dependent on me in an unhealthy way. It is not surprising that with all this we are seeing growth in Sunday worship.

Raunds

While not my last service at Raunds (that is on the 25th) it was my last Sunday Lunch (and I timed it perfectly, arriving at 12:29 just as the food was ready to serve.. The lunch happens every month and is typically for over 50 people. The regulars include a group of widows who support each other in many ways, I have got to know them well over the years and have conducted many more funerals than I would like for their husbands and friends. Anyway many good friends so it was good to be able to spend time with them and say our individual goodbyes.

Thrapston

So from the lunch at Raunds it was straight to Thrapston for their huge 125th anniversary. The small congregation had worked very hard to put on a Flower Festival and invite many people to join them for the weekend. So the Church was pretty full for the anniversary service, seemed to go well with some great hymn singing (all chosen by the congregation with Andrew our guest organist from Hope Methodist Church doing a great job).

We had a lot to celebrate and a lot to remember nit also time spent looking forward (I used Ephesians 1: 15-23 and Revelation 21:22- 22:5).

It was great to see friends from other Churches in Thrapston, from the Circuit as well as people with connections from the past (such as the choir from Sapcote who used to be regular visitors in the late 70's and then the 80's).

Of course we followed that with a tea (including a very fancy birthday cake). Plenty oif yummy grub to keep me going for my next service.

Old Weston

Despite being one of the very smallest congregations anywhere, the folks at Old Weston are always welcoming so it was good to have a couple of visitors this week.

When your congregation is small, elderly and deeply connected with the local community you get to experience highs and lows quite intensely. So we have had good celebrations over the last 5 years but also many losses and challenges. It got a bit tearful at some points. Leaving them is going to be hard.

Onward

I think I have about 5 more "last services" left over the next couple of weeks (Wollaston, Irchester, WOT, Raunds, Circuit farewell). Plus of course other groups such as Churches Together. Circuit Leadership Team and Circuit Staff. Hoping not to be a quivering wreck by the end. It is certainly very much a bereavement process which does include celebrations of what God has done but also much sadness over the people we will leave behind. It is quite different from when we moved here before, as the separation seems more definite (Methodist Ministers are strongly encouraged to fully disengage and separate from the Churches and places they are leaving - for at least 12 months).

In all that I have of course only mentioned my own Church based goodbyes. As a family there are many others for us to work through, all the while while we pack and busy lives go on. 

Anyway, time to go back to some boxes.

Methodist Church adopts carbon reduction policy

From Church adopts carbon reduction policy: The Methodist Church of Great Britain | 29 June 2010 we see the multiple benefits of reducing our Carbon Footprint. Theologically, environmentally plus as an added bonus:

Cutting the carbon footprint has the potential to free up money that can be used for mission.

Cutting your carbon footprint = win, win, win

Tough but fair?

BBC News - Budget: Osborne rejects Labour 'carping from sideline'.

But Mr Osborne told the BBC Labour were "carping from the sidelines".

 He is putting the case for the coalition's "tough but fair" Budget - which will leave households on average £400 a year worse off - in a series of media interviews on Wednesday

I Just do not understand at all.

What is fair about this budget? As this tweet illustrates: Twitter / Liz Kendall: Richest 10% pay £1 in evry ....

Richest 10% pay £1 in evry £25 on VAT, poorest 10% £1 in £7. Budget raises £13bn frm VAT, £2bn frm bank levy, £1bn frm CGT - that's fair?

Do they believe that people do not understand the basics of taxation and fairness?

VAT is a highly regressive tax. That means if you earn less money you pay a higher proportion of that money in VAT. It is exactly the opposite of a fair taxation system.

In terms of raising money to reduce the national debt (a principal that has some merit) we see three simple things:

• a tax that hits poorer people harder is set to raise 13x more money than one that raises money from those with more money (capital gains tax is not paid at all by most people, certainly not by anyone who could be considered poor). Not fair and bad for the economy and society. If you want to stimulate the economy then give more money to the poor, they are going to spend a much higher proportion of it so it will feed quickly into local economies having a multiplying effect. Give more money to the rich and it will be saved, "invested", spent abroad, spent of foreign luxuries all of which will have a minimal effect on our economy.
• A tiny tax on the banking sector which caused the recession through entirely reckless behaviour (essentially lending money they didn't have to people/organisations who would never be able to pay them back, all while paying huge bonuses to the people who did this). Again the tax that hits the poor hardest is to raise more than 6x the tax on those who caused the mess and who are still paying silly salaries and bonuses.
• By taking money from the poor and cutting both jobs and spending in the public sector there is going to be a huge multiplier effect (just as we saw with Maggie Thatcher's first budgets). The problem is that this is a negative multiplier. Tax incomes are going to go down as people are paid less and many lose their jobs. That gets multiplied as they don't just pay less tax, they don't spend money in the local economy on goods and services (everything from gardening services, builders, diy, eating out will get cut). That means others get less money, pay less tax and in many cases claim more benefit.

My summary of this budget

• We will go into another recession, the cuts are going to remove enough money from local economies that recession is inevitable.
• Due to the recession tax income will fall and benefit payments increase. As a result costs will rise faster than cost reductions (which are never as big as forecast and have a big time lag). Hence, national debt will not fall by the predicted amount and may even rise.
• Britain will become an even less equal place. It will become less happy and crime will rise.
• Through all this the rich will get richer and the poor poorer.

What a huge failure. Not "tough but fair" but "stupid and unfair".

Reached my first Line Diet goal

I have mentioned The Line Diet - The elegantly simple diet on twitter. I have now been following it for 29 days and have reached my first goal a day early.

The result is that by BMI I am now no longer obese, simply overweight. Somewhat good news. Note that I don't entirely accept that BMI is accurate for me as clearly most of my weight is muscle not fat (at least in my dreams it is).

I have now set my next goal and decided to make it a shorter period so that I can line up the Line diet with calender months.

It is going to take a long time to get past the overweight category as I set my targets based on a very simple target of losing 0.1kg per day, that is 1kg every 10 days. From what I read a loss of 0.5 kg to 1kg per week is sustainable so turning this into a daily target of 0.1kg makes it very simple to remember and monitor. It also neatly fits with the display of most digital scales.

It is also a lot more than a decade since I weighed what BMI would consider in the normal range.

I am by no means any kind of expert when it comes to dieting and am fanatic about not following any weird diets. So I have only made a few specific changes, they seem to work for me but you will be different so sort out what works for you rather than copy me:

• Green Tea instead of instant coffee at home. Switched for health and environmental reasons a few months ago, but think it is actually helping with the diet too.
• Proper porridge for breakfast. Cycling magazines are particularly positive about oats at the moment and I am sure it is better for me than the fatty/sugary breakfast cereals I used to eat. Before I got bored very quickly with the cardboard "healthier" cereals such as shredded wheat and weetabix.
• Trying to avoid late night snacks . The best technique for me when desperate for a late night snack is to weigh myself first, if I will still meet the next days target I allow myself something. Also trying to got to bed earlier helps a lot.
• Trying to ride my bikes more. In one sense not difficult, I love riding my bikes, but it is very hard to fit the time in at the moment and I don't always manage it.
• No puddings when eating out. Even so meals out are a real problem. We went to a pizza hut to celebrate the end of significant GCSE's the other day. I had no pud, and the healthiest things I could find on the menu (peppers stuffed with cous cous, a side salad with nothing that had mayonnaise or sauce, salmon pasta something). It cost me a 0.6kg bump and has taken a couple of hungry days to recover.
• No cake at coffee shops (unless I cycled there) and no biscuits at Church events

The good thing about The Line Diet is that it does not care about these changes, it simply measures the effect, the result. For me this acts as a powerful and simple motivator.

So 29 days, 3kg lost (down 6kg from a horrifying peak earlier in the year). Planning to continue.

Feminist beneficiaries attacking feminism

Suzanne writes an excellent post in Suzanne's Bookshelf: Passionately outspoken for Christian feminism I particularly like the last paragraph:

I am sorry that Mary Kassian cannot say thank you to the first Christian women who went to university, paving the way for her.

There is this huge irony of educated women attacking feminism. Who do they think gained them the freedom to have a full education? Feminists of course. Who do they think gained them the freedom to write for the public under their own name? Feminists of course.

Some of the achievements of feminism are detailed in three comments on the original post by Alex: Exploited Miss America. Empowered Miss USA. : Girls Gone Wise which Suzanne quoted in her post.

I am not going to repeat them here. Go to Girls Gone Wise (if only the author of the post Mary Kassain had also gone wise) and add your support to Alex who has made an excellent argument that has been ignored.

What Disney Princesses teach girls

Hat tip What Disney Princesses teach girls - Boing Boing.

Speaking up for Women’s Equality

From Speaking up for Women’s Equality « bWe Baptist Women for Equality's Blog.

Do you know what the people around you are thinking about female equality?

It seems to me that there is often a huge gap between what people immersed in a particular Church think other people believe (both people in other Churches and people outside Church).

Somewhere, somehow we need to connect with people and hear their beliefs.

It pains me that on many issues of justice and equality the Church gets left behind. That does not fit well with the gospel I read.