Tuesday, January 31, 2012

A #teenager picked up a snooker ball and just smashed it through the club window.




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Before I was called to work at
The Mayflower Family Centre
in East London E16
there was a legendary Youth Worker there.

George Burton
untrained
passionate
Lover of young people
Lover of God
as evangelical as you could be.

I only read his book
and once heard him speak I think?

One day in this beat up youth club
a teenager picked up a snooker ball
and just smashed it through the club window.

George picked up another snooker ball
and threw it through another window!
and said
"I guess you are having a bad day....."

I love that identification with the emotions
of that young offender.
Connecting with the feelings
not the property.

That sort of GB behaviour
would stop a young person
dead in their tracks - seems to me.
The empathy with his feelings -
that's what connects with those who

live in or
on the edge of violence daily.


I must reflect on it further.

He wrote a book
appropriately called
'People Matter more than Things'

I love this about him
"GEORGE BURTON challenged the assumptions of many of us.
By what right did we assume that middle-class values
were necessarily Christian values?
Why should we assume that people from a non-reading background
could not become thoughtful, deeply committed Christians?"
David Sheppard


A book about him HERE


ABOUT THE BOOK
George Burton wanted his life story to be written and left to us all his films, papers and letters for this purpose. In addition we have had access to the Mayflower Family Centre's library of tape recordings, so that quotes from his speeches are verbatim.
We are indebted to many sources, oral and written, in particular to the late Lt-Col. Percy Coriat's 'Soldier in Oman'. The short quotation on page 32 is taken from 'Bugles and a Tiger' by John Masters (Michael Joseph). We are grateful to William Heinemann Ltd. for permission to quote from Allan Bullock's 'The Life and Times of Ernest Bevin'. We would like to acknowledge help given by many people through personal interviews and correspondence. [David and Jean Hewitt, Southport, January 1969].

"GEORGE BURTON challenged the assumptions of many of us. By what right did we assume that middle-class values were necessarily Christian values? Why should we assume that people from a non-reading background could not become thoughtful, deeply committed Christians? Why should we not expect leaders to emerge from our community in Canning Town as much as anywhere else? This story includes some great disappointments among young people he tried to help; I believe that some of these will one day come back to deep Christian committment as George himself did. But it also includes some who are continuing with great ability the work that he began. [David Sheppard]
powers-opinion

Angela Powers: Super League predictions

Just a little input about my team here ....... note they are at Number 1 below !!

Just a couple of days to wait and then it’s back – hello there Super League 17. It’s time for us all to to spout our opinions about who’ll do what and why. So, bolstered by my pretty impressive predictions for last season, here’s my tuppence-worth.

1 St Helens
Injuries notwithstanding, this is the year St Helens will get a grip on the comp and top the table. They have continuity in terms of the core of the team with solid input from newbies Lance Hohaia, Mark Flanagan and Anthony Laffranchi to bolster it. Add in the momentum gained from the new-stadium enthusiasm, and they’ll be a tough act to beat.

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Parents who failed to put their children to bed on time are accused of causing London riots

and I would NEVER read the daily mail ........ but they say .....

Parents who neglect basic duties such as preparing meals and enforcing bedtimes are breeding a feckless ‘underclass’ who cause mayhem on the nation’s streets, it was claimed yesterday.

Charlie Taylor, the Government’s behaviour tsar, criticised homes with ‘little conversation’ where children as young as eight are left to fend for themselves at mealtimes and play on the computer late into the night.

Many of these youngsters end up ‘out on the streets’ by their early teens, he said. Some of the rioters responsible for wreaking havoc during last summer’s disturbances in cities around Britain came from homes where mothers and fathers fail to perform ‘the most basic of parenting duties’, he added.

Riots: Mr Taylor claims bad parenting is to blame for the scenes in London last summer

Riots: Mr Taylor claims bad parenting is to blame for the scenes in London last summer

In a speech today, Mr Taylor also claimed that centres meant to educate school drop-outs were ‘little more than holding pens’ where youngsters play pool and surf Facebook.

He said some poorly-run alternative education units left youngsters prey to the lure of local gangs who provided a ‘sense of belonging’.

My Stylist Sheila.

Real Lancashire HOTPOT at Wilson Mansions over the week-end.

Saturday, January 28, 2012



I HATE protest - with Violence.

I hate this picture
REALLY HATE IT

I saw this on facebook and read some of the comment below

    • Pitching in ....... I am solidly with protest.
    • Physical too BUT NOT VIOLENCE.
    • I believe that you are beautiful/but sometimes your behaviour and mine/is not OK.
    • I don't like the picture because it is violence against a human doing a job.
    • If that policeman was breaking the law I still don't believe that returning violence with violence is the right way.
    • Gandhi and MLK showed a different way.
    • A BETTER WAY. ....
    • I don't believe in being a REACTOR but
    • I decide how to behave and then,
    • no matter how another behaves,
    • I will follow the way.
    • If we are not part of the solution
    • we are part of the problem
    • PEACE and
    • you are beautiful.
      2 seconds ago ·

Raymond Aubrac: How I tricked the Gestapo

Raymond Aubrac, 97, on his encounters with Resistance leader Jean Moulin

The capture of French Resistance hero Jean Moulin is one of the country's darkest chapters of the war. The last surviving Resistance leader, Raymond Aubrac, recalls that night and the audacious escape that followed.

Of all the momentous events that helped build the legend of the wartime French Resistance, one episode outstrips the rest for its combination of tragedy, mystery and high-octane drama.

In France they refer to it simply as the "raid on the house in Caluire". To the rest of the world, it is the story of how the Gestapo finally laid hands on Jean Moulin.


I read this because of my interest in the second world war and the horrors of the exterminating camps but

ALSO read in it

some LEADERSHIP STUFF

about the leader of the French Resistance -- and I believe in this:: "But it was his way of discussing matters that was so interesting. Never once did he use the way of authority. Don't forget he had real power - over money, over communications, over all the agents.

"And many in the Resistance could have seen him as an enemy. But he never forced his ideas on people. Instead he used a kind of Platonic discussion method, so that all views were aired."

wow


Someone I know said


"That shall not be the way among you ..........."

Friday, January 27, 2012

I capture and listen on my iPhone to

LATE JUNCTION BBC Radio3

lots I don't like

some wondrous

I discover new music

so I love it.

The last track here/below

by Steve Lawson/I know him

wondrous stuff. - Fiona Talkington

Listen :

Listen now (90 minutes)

Last broadcast on Wednesday, 23:00 on BBC Radio 3.


Episode image for Wednesday - Fiona Talkington

Music played

  1. 00:00

    Håkon Kornstad Sansula

    Symphonies in My Head, Jazzland 2786027
  2. 00:03

    Iain ChambersDe Mussenden

    Private Recording, soundcloud.com/iain-chambers
  3. 00:06

    Laura Marling Laura Marling Goodbye England (covered in snow)

    I Speak Because I Can, EMI CDVY3075
  4. 00:10

    CAN CAN Oh Yeah

    Tago Mago, Mute 40SPOON6/7
  5. 00:17

    Andrew Shapiro Duet No. 4

    Colors and People, Airbox Music Airbox11
  6. 00:20

    Sanna Kurki-Suonio Polska Release

    Musta, Northside NSD6021
  7. 00:24

    Kronos Quartet Philip Glass: String Quartet No. 3 (Mishima) - 6th movement

    Glass: String Quartets Nos. 2-5, Nonesuch 7559 79356 2
  8. 00:27

    Okkyung Lee (cello) / Ikue Mori (electronics) / John Hollenbeck (percussion)Steely Morning

    Noisy Love Songs, Tzadik TZ7724
  9. 00:34

    Fay Hield Grey Goose and Gander

    Looking Glass, Topic Records TSCD573
  10. 00:38

    Le Poème Harmonique Anon: Callinoe

    Love is Strange, Alpha 081
  11. 00:41

    Tord Gustavsen QuartetCommunion

    The Well, ECM 278 5896
  12. 00:46

    Steve Lawson Inner Truth

    Believe in Peace, www.stevelawson.net

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*
*
"He jests at scars
who never felt a wound"

... William Shakespeare
*
*






Fascinating
behaviour.


When we are not relaxed
there is all sorts of distracting stuff
to take us away.

Culture wise ......it is so different ..........
the people I work with can be so erratic
and not stay in a room for long.

I had a session/developmental
as usual - discussion/opening up
informal education you could call it ......
about life skills ..........
I had five in the room
but about 15 were present
in and out or at sometime ......

I have to handle this and want to.
I want to include even though
they exclude themselves ....

yet ......so impressed by the depth of sharing
EVEN when it is so painful to disclose.

I have been using the:-
I'm ok-you're ok stuff ........

I am doing this
with a group of extremely
wounded
hurting
insecure
needy humans
and it may
scratch where you itch too?

LIFE POSITIONS
(think about a difficult relationship
you are experiencing at the moment -
read these four with that relationship
in your mind.)

I am not ok ...... you are not ok
I am not ok........you are ok
I am ok..............you are not ok
I am ok..............you are ok

Which one is you in the relationship?
Be honest - no-one is listening -
where are you right now
feelings?
attitudes towards that one person?
1 2 3 or 4?



......so impressed by the depth of sharing
EVEN when it is so painful to disclose.




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YOUAREBEAUTIFUL
Greenbelt Festival / Blog / Tales from the Aquarium

Tales from the Aquarium

goldfish

Here's an interesting Greenbelt story… At Greenbelt 2011, we had an infestation of the crochet goldfish seen above. Though these little animals are quite harmless, they are an adventurous species, and went out from the festival into the wider world. Now, the Tales from the Aquarium blog is collecting stories of their journeys.

With one fish becoming part of an artwork, and another being placed in a geocache in Bristol, they're certainly getting about. Read the blog for more fishy tales, and if you were one of the lucky ones who received a fish, do let the Tales from the Aquarium team know what they're up to…

(Huge thanks to the fishes' extremely creative parents, That Roger and Sanctus1.)

Wednesday, January 25, 2012

I am learning ....

What I have learned last year
1 How to spell colleague/intelligence/precious
2 That when humans feel rejected the same part of the brain lights up when they feel physical pain.
3. That I cannot tell when someone cannot read because I get distracted by their distraction strategic behaviour.
4. Emotions and spiritual capacity are both stored in the same part of the Hard Drive - commonly known as the brain.
I could not, at any age,
be content to take my place
by the fireside
and simply look on.
Life was meant to be lived.


-Eleanor Roosevelt”

At last, a documentary that presents social work in all its complex glory

The BBC's Protecting Our Children series is an authentic portrayal of the difficult decisions and situations social workers face every day


Protecting Our Children, BBC2 series
In Protecting Our Children (above), social workers have let the cameras in to show the profession at its best, says Harry Ferguson.

For almost four decades, social workers have had to endure a relentless bombardment of criticism, blame and downright abuse because of child protection cases where children have died. Given the ease and confidence with which such criticisms are made and policies are reformed, one would think that the way social workers go about protecting children is well understood. But it isn't. What is surprising is how few attempts there have been to show how complex the work really is and what it is like to be a parent and child on the receiving end of it.

A brilliant new BBC2 series, Protecting Our Children, is set to change this. The three programmes are based on 12 months' filming child protection social workers in Bristol. The degree of access the programme-makers got to the families and social work practice is remarkable. They repay this by providing a vivid depiction of what it is like to be a social worker going into family homes, checking for signs of neglect, being confronted by dangerous dogs, and poor, sometimes disgusting, home conditions. The authenticity of the programmes and sheer difficulty of the work is brought home in some highly tense encounters between angry parents and social workers at which on-the-spot risk assessments and decisions are made about whether or not to take the children into care or not.

We get to see the families without professionals present and are given glimpses of how they are coping – or not. The struggles of these parents are often achingly sad.

What shines through is the integrity, skill and emotional resilience of the social workers and their managers, and the depths of their passion for helping children and their parents. One social worker ruefully remarks on how tragic it is that social workers' countless routine successes never make news. Others comment on how they feel "hated" and how relatives avoid admitting there is a social worker in the family.

The programmes are insightful because they tell the story of selected cases over the course of a year. As well as tragedy there is joy, as abused children are shown to thrive in response to skilled interventions by social workers and the entire child protection network: paediatricians, children's guardians, health visitors, family support workers and wonderful foster carers.

The complexity revealed by the series should challenge the public and politicians to rethink easy assumptions about feckless social workers who miss "obvious" signs of harm to children, and stop scapegoating. And it should push academics and researchers harder to find ways of deepening understanding of child protection practice. The series provides fantastic training material, and the Open University is to be congratulated for supporting it.

Meanwhile, the programme makers should win awards and Bristol social workers deserve Oscars – not for being good actors but for being themselves and having the courage to allow the public to see social work at its best.

• Harry Ferguson is professor of social work at Nottingham University. His book, Child Protection Practice, is available now. Details at www.palgrave.com. Protecting Our Children begins on 30 January on BBC2 at 9pm.

Tuesday, January 24, 2012

greenbelt_blog

2427 Aug 2012 Cheltenham Racecourse
Greenbelt / Blog

Beit Arabiya demolished

salim

In May last year a number of Greenbelters visited Beit Arabiya as part of an alternative pilgrimage to the Holy Land. The house has become a symbol of resistance against the occupation and more specifically against house demolition. At around 11pm last night, Beit Arabiya was demolished for the fifth time, along with other nearby residential [...]

Read the entire post





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Life Mission.
I am involved in a ever changing scene.
Mainly I am involved in Training Staff who work on the Frontiers of life.
Youth Workers, Homeless Hostel Workers,
Managers and the Corporate Sector.
I am employed as a Training and Development
Consultant or some times a one off event.

All demanding design and preparation.
Life Mission has included Conferences and week-ends,
leading and stretching myself as I conduct workshops
about the development of the whole person.

Always with a principle of "Motion changes Emotion".
Activity and exercises abound.
New Blob pictures.
New Structured Experiences using masking tape on the floor
or models on the Keynote slides.

Designing the new ways of communicating excite me.
I commute like a rabbit under London Town.
Disturbed and moved deeply by the London scenes of poverty.

My most powerful and personally satisfying course
I have led in the past is the one called
"The Road Less Travelled"
which is geared to life management,
Managing the emotions, assertiveness,
communication and relationships at home and work.

If you are interested in hiring me - please contact.
I need the work to pay the bills of life BUT
also because I need to do all this stuff - for being and ......
..... and becoming.


eMail me via www.pipwilson.com

Zig on a cold day

I believe in every part of my life that CHANGE IS GOOD



Margaret Thatcher, former prime minister of England,
once said,
"One of the great problems of our age
is that we're governed by people
who care more about feelings
than they do about thoughts and ideas."






Quite so, and it is equally accurate to say that
"one of the great problems of our age
is that children are being raised and educated by people
who care more about their feelings
than they do their thoughts and ideas."
John Rosemond

Legacy Lingers on




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Giant Blob Tree Poster


£10.00 + VAT

ISBN:
9780863889356
Published:
January 2012


Description

A ‘no word’ tool to aid communication.

The original Blob Tree was created in the early 1980s by Pip and Ian as an effective way of communicating with young people and adults who found reading difficult, and quickly proved to be accessible to children and young people of all ages. The Tree stands for a group, a family, an organisation, in fact any gathering of people. The Blobs are representative of two languages used by people throughout the world – feelings and body language.

Have fun using this effective and innovative tool when working with groups or individuals!

All ages

Monday, January 23, 2012


Adrian Sherwood / 6mix / Great programme / I will keep forever

You can listen for 6 days from now

Listen now (120 minutes)

Adrian Sherwood takes over the 6 Mix to celebrate 30 years of On U Sound Records, playing early label classics and some brand new releases.

Primarily associated with the sound of dub, the label's heritage is far broader, with many of its artists having backgrounds in punk & post-punk, industrial, hip-hop and funk.

In this special programme label head-honcho Adrian Sherwood digs deep in to the imprint's back catalogue to bring a selection of classic On U Sound releases, some rare unreleased tracks and exclusive material from Adrian's new album, which is coming out later in the year.

Music played

  1. Contemporary Dubplate Selection

    1. African Head Charge Take Heed and Smoke Up Your Collyweed

    2. Lee "Scratch" Perry Lee "Scratch" Perry God Smiled (Moody Boyz Remix)

    3. Caspa Caspa Where’s My Money (Adrian Sherwood Dubplate Version)

    4. The Disco Boys / Codec & FlexorTime Has Changed

    5. Mark Stewart & Primal ScreamAutonomia

    6. Primal Scream Primal Scream Ju 87

  2. Mellowed Out Dubwise Mix

    1. Lee "Scratch" Perry Lee "Scratch" Perry Like The Way You Should (Digital Mystikz Remix)

    2. Adrian Sherwood Adrian Sherwood Untitled 1 (From Forthcoming Album)

    3. Adrian Sherwood Untitled 2 (From Forthcoming Album)

    4. Bim Sherman Bim Sherman Golden Locks (Original Version)

    5. Bim Sherman Golden Locks (Acoustic Version)

    6. Adrian Sherwood Adrian Sherwood The Law Of Man (From Forthcoming Album)

    7. Harry Beckett Harry Beckett The Storyteller

    8. Harry Beckett Something Special

    9. Crispy HornsMetropolis

    10. Gary Clail Two Thieves And A Liar

    11. Jeb Loy NicholasTo Be Rich (Should Be A Crime)

    12. Samia Farah & NeyssatouWar (Cover of Bob Marley’s “War” In Arabic)

    13. New Age SteppersThe Scheisse Song

    14. New Age SteppersConquer Feat Ari Up

    15. Andy Fairley Jack The Biscuit

  3. New Age Steppers My Nerves

  4. Mark StewartGang War

  5. Lee "Scratch" Perry Lee "Scratch" Perry Jungle Youth (Congo Natty Remix)

  6. Max Romeo Chase The Devil (Congo Natty Dubplate)

  7. Adrian Sherwood Adrian Sherwood A Piece Of The Earth feat Little Roy

  8. Adrian Sherwood U Are Sound

  9. Mark StewartJerusalem