Thank you for sharing your blessings …

The words of a Tanzanian delegate at the Lambeth conference – we bought a belt in the colours of their flag from a group of women selling craft goods. Sharing our blessings – many of the Bishops and their spouses are experiencing their first trip outside of their home Country – and for so many what we have here is undreamt of luxury – from disposable income, quantities of food, TV, cars – you name it.

So, sharing blessings – we paid for the belt, and hope that the money will be a blessing for their community when they get home.

Jan is at the Conference (which is at the University of Kent, Canterbury – Lambeth Palace is no longer big enough or flexible enough to meet the needs of a major conference) as a musician. There’s a small team helping to lead the worship at the morning (7:15 am) and evening (5:45 pm) services. Today saw the official photos being taken – of staff, spouses and Bishops. Spouses, of course, included a handful of men – a number of lady bishops attended the conference.

Lady Bishops

Whilst the Church of England is only slowly moving to accept women Bishops, a number of Provinces of the Anglican Communion have had them for some time – indeed we met one from New Zealand just prior to the last Conference in 1998.

The staff team is almost 300 strong – admin staff, translators, musicians, “techies” – you name it – the skills needed to help make the conference a success – and here they are …

Jan - waiting for everyone else

Staff Team

For the Bishops, of course, this is a working conference – yes, they may have had tea with the Queen on Thursday, but its a time to meet, for prayer, bible study and taking the Anglican Communion forward. But at the same time there’s a spouses conference – they also have a call to mission – its not possible to be married to any priest and not be involved. There was also a photo call for them -

Bishops' Spouses

It took some time – on a warm (for us) day – of course, for many it was only just not being cold. So, what did they do? Well they sang – and in harmony as well …. we all wondered whether the Bishops would do the same! And harmony?

The media has been making much of the possible schism in the Anglican Communion – the decision of the Church of England to plan to take women Bishops, and the issue of homosexual priests, “marriages” and Bishops have been blown up as major problems. The Bishops, though, clearly think there are other major problems – they wouldn’t have all walked through London on Thursday to reinforce the message about world poverty if not!

To see them all talking, meeting in small groups (and not just from the same Province), and good heartedly waiting for their group photo – that’s not an image of a group of people who don’t want to work out a solution.

Bishops

What was also a very clear message was the tremendous welcome and applause for Rowan Williams and also his wife Jane when they joined the group photos – a very real message of support for them both.

And yes, they did sing – and whilst they may be in harmony, they didn’t quite manage the male voice choir harmony!

Self fulfilling prophecies

Twice this week I’ve come across self fulfilling prophecies – and I just wonder whether the people involved notice!

Firstly, Post Office Closures – sorry “Post Office® Network Change Programme“. 6 Post Offices, including one in Impington, are under threat of closure. It’s purely a numbers job – the network is losing money, so they need to cut the numbers. IF one PO is saved through consultation responses, its more than likely that another will be selected.

Of course, not all the business from the closing POs will transfer to the remaining ones. People and businesses will change the way they work, the services they use. More will use internet services (did you know that you can even print stamps online?) – some will even switch to competitors.

The current PO network is losing £3M (or £3.5M – Cambridge Evening News yesterday quoting Post Office Minister Pat McFadden). Having closed 2,000 sites, leaving a network of 12,000, they’ll still be losing money – and will still have more than they need to meet the Government criteria (eg 95% of the total rural population across the UK to be within 3 miles of their nearest Post Office).

Of course, if you look at it the other way, as an investment for UK plc, the arguments are quite different. The changes will lose the Post Office (and probably Royal Mail) business/money; will increase carbon footprints for those who have to travel further, and eat into community life – something the government (with another hand) wants to support. And in the grand scheme of government spend, £200M (say) is small beer – and a good investment.

How much would you bet on another round of closures in a few years time?

Use it or lose it!

Secondly, crime reporting and the Police. We’re fortunate, we don’t have many serious crimes – but petty crime and anti-social behaviour can eat into confidence and people’s lives. The Police, however hard they try, can’t always find the perpetrators and deal with them – and even if individuals are caught the punishment may not meet the expectations (or hopes) of the public.

So, are we under-reporting crimes? That was certainly the case earlier this year – and prompted a rapid response from the Police which produced real results when a clearer picture was visible. Is it the case now? Perhaps – or definitely the case according to a local resident I spoke to on Thursday.

He told me that residents didn’t feel anything would be done if they did report incidents – so they didn’t bother.

Well, if they don’t report problems, they certainly won’t be sorted.

Mediaeval Windsor

Today was City of Cambridge Bowmen’s (CCB) 17th Open Windsor. CCB is the archery club I shoot with – and a Windsor is one of several possible archery rounds. It consists of shooting at total of 9 dozen arrows – 3 dozen at 60 yards, then a further 3 dozen at 50 yards and the final 3 dozen at 40 yards.

Shooting starts at noon – and finishes around 5pm.

A splendid day – totally dry (a real surprise after recent weather) and almost totally still – no wind to speak of. Ideal archery weather.

The “Record Status” part of the shoot takes place on normal targets:

Targets & Arrows

but the Mediaeval round takes place on a different, simpler target:

Mediaeval targets & arrows

Longbow archers aren’t all in the Robin Hood league – and therefore some arrows fall short, and others go long.

Medals won

CCB isn’t a strong longbow club, though a number do practice the art. Others are far stronger – so we were fortunate to get a 4th (myself) in the individual (men’s) competition, and a 3rd for the team, myself, Vic Todman (also an Impington archer) and Alan Norton.

CCB’s recurve team did well – coming first, though archers from Ely Archers & Cambridge University Bowmen took the individual top places.

Numbers were down on last year – a pity – its a great way to spend a day in the fresh air, enjoying a sport and having fun. According to Graham Harris from Clickers, who is a regular with his mobile shop, this drop off is happening at all tournaments.

As with the Olympics in 2004, perhaps further successes from our archers will prompt a renewal of interest!

Giving birth …

Gestation started in late 2001, and lots of people have been working on it, making it happen, enjoying it (or not), and with just one last push we’ll have given birth to ….

A new Parish, and new Council, for the residents of Arbury Park.

The amount of effort is incredible – we started with the planning application in December 2001, and there were monthly meetings to look at all sorts of topics. Then there were the meetings full of lawyers (including one for the Parish Council, but funded by the developer) to discuss the Section 106 agreement. That’s the legal agreement that covered what the developer was committed to do, pay for etc. Nine Councils and businesses were signatories, so getting agreement wasn’t easy – even signing it, in multiple places, and with a master for each, took a few hours.

Planning permission, with lots of conditions, was finally granted in June 2005 – since when the roads, drains etc have been installed, and lots more planning applications (more than 60) giving the details of housing, schools, business, community facilities have all come through.

And then the “community governance review” – ie the look at whether it would be a separate Parish or something else. That started last year, met a pause last October whilst South Cambridgeshire District Council started to worry about the Cambridge City boundary, and finally got to Electoral Arrangements Committee on Tuesday with a recommendation to create the Parish.

Full Council needs to confirm that (and they did on July 17th) – and then its just the details, when (as soon as possible was agreed), who (9 Councillors to find), name – Orchard Park Community Council – elections, find a Parish Clerk, hold the first meeting and elect the Chairman. Papers & money to transfer – and they can have my 4000+ emails if they want ….

The right decision, a new community that ought to have its own Council and Councillors representing it.

Well done everyone ….

Plain English

A quote from the Plain English website: “If we all wrote in plain English how much easier – and efficient – life would be.“

Well, I try – I don’t always succeed, but I do try.

Recently, the Local Government Association published a list of 100 words that should be regarded as “non-words” – here they are:

Ambassador; Agencies; Beacon; Best practice; Bottom-up; CAAs; Can do culture; Capacity; Capacity building; Cascading; Cautiously welcome; Champion; Citizen empowerment; Community engagement; Conditionality; Consensual; Contestability; Core Message; Core value; Coterminosity; Coterminous; Cross-cutting; Customer; Democratic mandate/legitimacy; Distorts spending priorities; Early Win; Empowerment; Engagement; Engaging users; Enhance; Evidence base; External challenge; Facilitate; Fast-track; Flexibilities and freedoms; Framework; Fulcrum; Good practice; Governance; Guidelines; Holistic; Holistic governance; Improvement levers; Incentivising; Income/funding streams; Initiative; Joined up; Joint working; LAAs; Service users; Level Playing Field; Localities; Meaningful consultation/dialogue; MAAs; Menu of options; Multi-agency; Multidisciplinary; Outcomes; Output; Participatory; Partnerships; Pathfinder; Peer challenge; Performance Network; Place shaping; Predictors of beaconicity; Preventative services; Priority; Process driven; Quick hit; Quick win; Resource allocation; Revenue streams; Risk based; Scaled-back; Scoping; Seedbed; Shared priority; Signpost; Single point of contact; Slippage; Social contracts; Stakeholder; Step change; Strategic/overarching; Streamlined; Subsidiarity; Sustainable; Sustainable communities; Symposium; Synergies; Tested for soundness; Third sector; Top-Down; Transparency; Transformational; Value-added; Vision; Visionary; Welcome; Wellbeing

Please – if you catch me using them – do say!

Is money everything?

Histon Parish Council colleagues are concerned about the threatened loss of a public telephone in the centre of the village. I guess that many youngsters today have never used a public telephone box – having the advantage of a landline phone at home, and probably their own mobile. How many remember pushing buttons A and B is another question altogether!

Not everyone does, and the public telephone box is a vital service to those who don’t – but money seems to rule all – and so it may be lost. We’ll put up a fight, but we may lose.

A bigger loss will be Impington Post Office – information has been leaked ahead of time (it should have been published on Tuesday) that it’s threatened with closure. We, and residents, have until late August to marshal our case that it shouldn’t be closed, but there has to be a question as to how real the consultation is.

Impington (and Histon) are blessed with a fair number of shops. but the loss of Impington Post Office will remove one of just two at that end of the village, and a vital service to residents of all ages and businesses in the vicinity. Of course there is a thriving post office (and postal delivery office) in Histon – but parking is difficult and there’s no scope for more counters to cope with business transferring from Impington.

But its the service component, the impact on communities, where the loss of the local post office/village store has a real impact on the community, on community cohesion that seems to have no value in today’s world. Of course, Post Offices are now less viable, in part because the Government has transferred their business elsewhere. But when the community is becoming more valued, carbon footprints are beginning to matter – is this actually the right thing to do?

No it isn’t – and we’ll try to change that – and plan for what may be inevitable as well.

Can you, will you, help?

Histon Feast

The end of June/early July is always Histon Feast – a week long celebration in the community.

The feast goes back many years – there’s an extract on the community website from an excellent hisoty produced by the Village Sociery. It describes events in 1902 – and clearly it was an established event even then.

Traditional Feast events include the parade through the village, when floats decorated by groups and businesses are a wonderful site to see, matches and games of all types – fishing, cricket, tennis etc. One of the final events is the Feast Market – where village groups and organisations put up stalls and sell themselves and produce.

Since the late 1990’s the Parish Councils have been going – and this year was no different.

Parish Councils Feast Tent 2008

As usual, we were in the corner of Histon Village Green, under the trees, and somewhat away from the action – but nevertheless had 200 plus visitors, looking at displays, asking questions, making their views known to Parish Councillors.

The Scouts were doing a roaring trade in bacon sandwiches, and even ran out – and Councillors, many who’d been at the Green at 7:30 to erect tent and displays were plied with coffee and even ice creams at one stage.

The weather didn’t help, with some periods of rain, which surely deterred visitors.