Let
me start with church, last one was written just afters Sarah’s leaving
service, there was six inches of snow on the ground and yet maybe 200
people turned up to bid her farewell. Now I let the cat out of the bag,
that was not her last service. Her actual last service was a week later
and was Easter Communion. I was table elder 1, which means I was in
Anglican speak master of ceremonies. That is I have to make sure we have
everything we need and that everyone knows what they are doing and is
happy doing it. Saturday set up was very quick indeed particularly as we
were in, in the morning and the polishers were not in until the
afternoon. That however did mean that we needed to be early to setup on
the Sunday. For some reason wine decided it was not going to behave.
The open bottle of non-alcoholic was off, I then managed to pour an
extra tray of it (had to be chucked) and finally the chalice got over
filled, and a wine glass got dropped. I was just glad we were as low a
tradition as we were. Having to wash the large linen table cloth in cold
water and then dispose of water reverentially is beyond the lengths
that I am ready to go to. There was of course the formal farewells to
Sarah after communion with things being presented. One incident to
recall, St Andrews had decided to give Sarah a bread knife as a reminder
of her time in Sheffield. However Sheila who was doing the presentation
was not prepared to give it to Sarah unless Sarah gave her something in
return so that the knife would not cut through the relationship. Only
thing is that Sarah like most ministers in clerical gear did not have
anything on her. so I ended up lending her 10p! I then had to send the
10p up to the collection as Sheila started wondering what to do with it!
The
Sunday after was quieter, it was low Sunday and Sarah had left the
previous week. There was still a good turnout and I was able to get a
decent number of people for a greetings video to be sent to Southampton
for Sarah’s induction. It was as if only once she had gone that people
were ready to do that. There being only one week between that meant I
suspect a number of people who would have liked to did not get to make a
recording because they were away that week. Organising it was very
simple really, there were obvious opening and closing shots and then I
tried to arrange things so that things were well mixed up between, so
mix of greeting lengths, persons and styles. I also only had to edit one
video more than cutting off my prompt at the start, and that was for a
double reasons: it was too long and it was too personal. Anyway thanks
to NCH Videopad I was able to combine them that afternoon and send them off to
various people I knew were involved in the arranging of the induction.
The
following Sunday was the date Sarah was inducted to her new charge at
Southampton. It was also the first thesis weekend I got in five weeks so
I missed out both on going to Southampton and on the video locally.
However as the Video link was to the Jesus Centre just across the road
from my flat when I looked out at 3:30 pm the carpark opposite was full!
Today I heard that they had around twenty to see. The link was not as
good as it could have been.
Today
it was quiet, with a small congregation. We will see what the weeks
ahead bring. At present our Management Team have lots of enthusiasm, in
some ways I am happy for them to have their head as long as they do not
expect me at present to do anything really substantial. We will see what
the weeks ahead bring.
The
next thing I will turn to is work. This has been busy, even more so
than usual as I have been teaching a course on Statistics. I do not
usually even claim to teach statistics.I advise but I leave the teaching
to others. It also involves me in learning a new statistics package.
Now that is something I do do, but this time the package is R. I know on
the surface I should get on with it. I do like programmy packages and
there is part of me that still hankers for the interface of GLIM. Heck I
was so fluent in Glim that I basically did monte-carlo tests in it at
one stage. That is so far out on the left hand side that most people
just would not think to do it. Then give me Genstat and I will manage to
get it to dance actually I can get SPSS to but that is due to
familiarity. R as I said should suit me. However the more I investigate
the more cautious I am coming. The pressures on Open Source packages
have sometimes led to them implementing non- open source options.
Anyway the first session I was just not communicating and was trying to
think why. The second session I got a lot further with.
I
am also starting to work out how I will work with the chaplaincy at the
University. There is a difference between before Sarah and now both in
the structure of the chaplaincy and also in how I am appointed. I am not
keeping a seat warm for someone else this time. There is no sign that
there will be someone else, so it is in part up to me to try and sort
out how things happen. Otherwise I have at least one paper where I need
to sit down and sort out what happened. Hopefully I will get chance to
do that in the second half of this week after I have done the third
session of the teaching.
Then
there is thesis. I am working at the rate I expected but there is more
redrafting than ideally I would like. My supervisor was slightly
surprised with the time I quoted between going from draft unproof-read
to full proofread draft but then I gave him what I was basing my
estimate on. He then realised that simply because I am so much more used
to getting my pieces proof-read thank you James and Ruth, that I may
actually have a time advantage. This reminds me that at some stage I
have got to look up the details of how the files need presenting for
submission. I have quite deliberately also not done much styling within
Word, as I know that when I come to do the final submission I will need
to style according to the way the University of Birmingham wants it. Now
this is where my computer literacy comes in. I am used to applying
styles to the whole document and therefore I tend to first write the
document and only bother about layout at the end. Anyway I now have a
possible names for my examiners. I think I am going to see if I can
celebrate my Birthday by submitting on it.
