Monthly Archives: October 2005

Church

New Family Service Take 1

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So this morning we had the most major change in our new service pattern, the additional family service, for which all the other changes have been made.

It is probably fair to say that whilst Rev Richard put a lot of time and effort into the revamped 11am Family Eucharist service (targeted at a slightly more all-age congregation), this was the one he was most nervous about, and possibly the bigger gamble – a thirty minute Family Service of the Word at 9:30am targeted squarely at children.

I thought we should show support in the new venture, so got up somewhat before my usual wake up time for a Sunday, and arrived about 9:20am. It has to be said that on arrival things didn’t look overly hopeful – there were only two or three cars in the car park, and when I walked into the church the place was empty, and I half expected to see a tumbleweed rolling down the aisle. I then spotted a rather worried looking rector pacing up and down.

I have to say that I wasn’t massively worried about it, one observation that has frequently been made about our Family Service congregation is that they are usually pretty last minute. As neither the choir nor servers were on duty at this new service there wasn’t the usual number of people turning up early. I’m exceedingly glad to say that I was right. In the space of about ten minutes from 9:25am to 9:35am we had over 100 people come through the Church door, going from a totally empty, to a packed out Church.

The service was a simple Hymn/Prayer structure, that pretty closely followed the first part of the old Family Service. Rev Richard did a great talk to the kids, complete with puppet assistant (I did suggest bringing the puppet along to brighten up an Evensong at some point…), and the Fledgelings ‘Band Box’ was raided for cymbals, drums and so on to play during the songs. The service ran for almost exactly 30 minutes, and was followed by drinks over in the Parish Centre for which unlike normally the majority of the families went over. There were lots of positive comments, and many families saying that they would come back next month.

More than that, having the 9:30am family service and not running Sunday Club didn’t seem to affect the numbers at the 11am service, that seemed to be about normal – on a Sunday with Matins at 9:30am, there is a sometimes noticable dip in the attendance at 11am, as many people will attend Matins instead. Hopefully that is an indication that we are doing something in the new Family Service that is attracting new people, rather than splitting existing congregations. It also makes a nice counterpoint to George Carey’s opinion, reported by Ekklesia last week that the Church has “lost its vision and is becoming a club for the elderlyâ€? – whilst I’m not saying that it is easy – it seems that there is a market for fairly traditional services that attract young families without turning services into something that would be unrecognisable to people who have been members of the Church for many years.

Computers/Technology

Typical Part 3

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Isn’t this just always the way. Within a month of getting a new iMac, Apple update the range.

Looking over the specs of the new machine, they have merged the bottom of the range 17 inch CDRW machine, with the middle of the range 17 inch Superdrive model that we got. However a look at the technical specs makes interesting reading, although the headline is that they now only do a Superdrive equipped machine, the detail is a slightly different, so whereas we got a 17 inch screen with the top of the range processor speed, bus speed and graphics card, to get all of that you now have to go to the £1199 20 inch model. Indeed although the processor speed is increased compared to the old bottom of the range model, it is actually slower than ours. There are some new toys, like supplying the Mighty Mouse instead of the classic single button Mac mouse (maybe I should frame our mouse as a collectors item or something), plus a built in iSight, and a fancy media interface and remote.

So moving on from the annoyance at the upgrade, putting the realistic hat on, at the time we had to buy a new Mac anyway, as it was our main machine for e-mail and the like. Looking at the new toys, the Mighty Mouse would have been nice, but the built in iSight and media interface probably wouldn’t get much use from us. The updated graphics card would also be good, but again, the main use we make of the Mac is not for stuff that really needs it. The regular upgrade cycle is pretty normal, however it was still a bit of a surprise as the processor speeds had only fairly recently been tweaked. The new Mac isn’t suddenly going to cease to work just because the new model has come out, and to be honest it would have ended up costing me more had these been around when I upgraded as I probably would have gone for the higher spec 20 inch model.

Looking at the other new release, the video iPod, it has been long denied, but again is another example of Apple trying to throw the competition off the scent. In the UK the availability of legal video is probably going to be limited for a while, however I expect with that and the iPod Nano they should keep their place at the top of the media player market.

General

A Small Business with Global Reach

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I have to say that the main reason I have Hugh MacLeod’s blog at Gaping Void bookmarked is for the pictures! However, he is also involved in marketing, and like Robert Scoble regularly talks about the power of the blog, in his case as a tool for marketing.

I was particularly interested in his posting about the rise of Global Microbrands, and not just for the picture (and it’s a good cartoon too….). Here he discusses how the power of the internet means that you no longer need to get stuck on the treadmill of working to keep living in the place you need to be to get to work. The internet, by giving him the means to create his own ‘Global Microbrand’ has allowed him, and others to present a global face, whilst allowing him to live where he wants to live, and be more productive in his career as well. Now even after a couple of days in the big city he is feeling stressed out. Definitely an interesting read.

General

Travelling with a Geek

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As a regular reader of Scobleizer, I was quite interested when he posted the news that Maryam, his wife had also started to blog. She came along with Robert when he came over for the first London Geek Dinner, and made a couple of pointed comments about the amount of time she saw him compared with the amount of time he spent blogging!

Anyway, last week Scoble apparently sneaked away to scoop her on a blog item, however this morning we had what could be considered the comeback, with a really quite funny description of going through an airport with her husband, and further evidence of quite how much time he spends browsing the web! It also is her living up to her promise to make fun of him, but not to make him look bad.

Of course, one of the reasons it is so funny, is because most techies can see elements of what they do in Maryams description, certainly browsing the web over a wireless link is one of the things I did whilst waiting at Calgary this last trip to Canada!

Cars, MobLog

The Golf Wants Servicing Again

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Needs a Service Again

Whilst my experience with the Golf has been a lot less annoying than the Focus, with an engine that doesn’t misfire, works absolutely fine on the regular fuel, and a windscreen that can survive a stone chip without cracking, there is one thing that is starting to get annoying, the variable service intervals.

The theory is great – the car with it’s specially developped oil needs an oil change less frequently, so on board sensors will monitor your usage and driving style, and also the oil quality, and then at some point between 9000 and 20,000 miles will request a service. It is beneficial for people who use the car for primarily long trips, rather than lots of short hops that don’t give the car a chance to warm up, so sounds ideal for someone like me whose main use is for trips to work, 44 miles away. However the practice is a bit different. The car has just announced that it needs a service in 1200 miles, with the mileage on about 25,000. Not too bad until you realise that this is the third time it has done so. The first time the garage just reset the indicator, but right on cue, at the minimum interval level, it came on again – when they did the first service and reset it, and here we are after the minimum mileage again, with it asking for a service. Incidentally, after the mileage, it then gives you a number of days before the next service – in this case 238 – 8 months time!

My assumption is that when I phone the dealer tomorrow, they’ll just ask me to bring it in, and they’ll reset the interval again, the assumption being that it is a problem with a sensor. The question that bothers me is what if it isn’t a sensor, and this is just a symptom of something bigger? (Of course maybe that is because I watched a documentary about the Columbia crash yesterday, where they did exactly the same thing – assumed that an unexpected reported fault was a faulty sensor….)

Update: Chatting to a friend who owns a Seat with the same engine today, he said his service indicator does exactly the same, and his dealer has just told him to ignore it and bring it in on a regular fixed length service interval!