The Oldbury Community Gateway

Easy Fundraising!

We now have several ways easy ways for you to help us raise funds for The Oldbury Benefice – either by simply searching or by shopping online!

See the easy fundraising section for more details.

Oldbury Benefice will be offering the Alpha Course once again and we'd love you to join us!

On Thursday 15th April 2010 there will be an Alpha Celebration Supper in the Town Hall, Calne to introduce people to the Alpha Course. The Alpha Course will begin on Wednesday the 28th April 2010 in Cherhill Village School and then continue on subsequent Wednesday evenings. Please click the Alpha Course link for further details.

This year, as part of our Harvest Appeal, each of the five PCC’s in the Benefice has agreed to sponsor a child through Compassion UK. The children will be from the same Village in a Developing country. For the princely sum of £18 a month, we contribute to the healthcare, education, vocational training, social, emotional and spiritual care of a child and give them, their family and their local community the chance of a better life. More details on the Benefice section of the website.

Compton Bassett PCC have stepped out in faith and started a new initiative called “Tea 4 All”. It’s going to be once a month on a Sunday afternoon. The idea is that people come together informally, have a cuppa and a slice of cake. The Vicar will be around and share a thought or two to add a Christian flavour to the party.

Sunday 23rd September, 4 -5 p.m. Come as you are. The event is free.

The Benefice is inaugurating a “Little Fishes Group” for Pre-School age children. It starts on Wed 19th September (9.45 a.m.-11.15 a.m).

The group are in need of a little help: Could you spare an hour or two, once a term to help make drinks for parents and children? Do you have excellent quality baby or toddler toys you could donate?

Click on the picture or link for further details.

We have received a letter of apology from the local staff of The national Trust following the unfortunate incident with our Easter Cross.

For full details please see: Oldbury Benefice Church News.

The Deanery Confirmation Service took place on Wednesday 6th June 2007.

Pictures of our 3 newly confirmed parishioners can be seen in our gallery or by following the links on the main page titled, Deanery Confirmation Service 2007.

Due to a misunderstanding the Easter Cross which is traditionally carried up the hill and placed on top of Cherhill Downs on Good Friday has been removed and destroyed by The National Trust.

They have tendered their deepest apologies for the mix up.

Heddington Amateur Dramatic Society are looking for help with back stage at the pantomime and for future productions, especially help with sewing costumes. If anyone would like to get involved we shall be pleased to hear from you. Dianne Pellow 850863 or Margaret Humphries 850690

We have a full programme of services across the 5 parishes for Holy Week & Easter. Please see the events section for details.

2day Microportals give you 3 to 4 click access to most local and global information important to your personal and working life. Enter a postcode/location and all the local links will relocate for you - try it! Click the Best of the Web tab for the best of the worldwide web! To save time and money make the 2day site your homepage (just click the 'Make Homepage' button.)

To advertise on this site, on other local or national 2day sites please click here

We also do unique accommodation and high ranking business websites - please see www.microportals.co.uk or telephone 01822 600001. 2day Microportals make church and community sites. Click www.mycommunity.2day.ws for examples and how they work.

Parish councils are making deliberations that may offer opportunities for veterinary practices. Within the next few weeks important decisions will be taken about the establishment of Unitary Authorities and Community Boards. If you have started to yawn already you may miss the whole thrust and benefit of microportals.

One of the very successful microportals is being managed by a veterinary surgeon, John Lund, not for veterinary benefit but in support of his community. Within the rural areas the central activities revolve around the church, parish council and village hall. Good, old, sleepy, activities of great relevance to a few but of less interest to many. The parish magazine, or in many areas the group parishes magazine, publishes the various activities and is supported by advertising. Entries are usually small and cheap offering plumbing and candlestick making, providing basic information with a ’phone number. Not so in Bridford.

Try and imagine something that you want to know about, or do, starting from your home. If your area has a community hub you will already have it as your home page on the computer. You will already have entered your postcode. A single mouse click and up comes the hub. Rather importantly the use of hubs is going way beyond the people who surf the web. In this area very few folk spend time accessing websites for information. They could, but they choose to carry on as before, possibly because the activity lacks personality. Whereas, everything on the community portal is relevant to their household, local plumbers, pubs, doctors, events, buses, trains, parish history, church services, whatever, and the activities and offerings of the local veterinary practices.

So, what would you like to say to the people living within five miles, or ten miles of your practice? Would you wish to list the address and ’phone number or possibly the website? Would you wish to highlight a particular activity or clinical success or participation in sport, money raising, new surgery, changes in staff or disease alerts? Would you wish to talk to the community with a piece of video? Would you wish to change what is on the hub every month or week? I hope you are beginning to see that this microportal development is very much more than having a website.

The beginnings of the existing microportals have often developed in order to involve and inform people about goings on locally and also to raise money for the church or village hall. Church based portals have been credited with increasing footfall, donations and wellbeing. Individual parishes have latched on to the idea and from slow beginnings the number of people within the area going to the portal each day increases rapidly. Thousands of hits are recorded. People go to the portal for one item but then come across other things of interest. In a holiday area, such as Bridford on the edge of Dartmoor, people are encouraged to look at the hub from their home wherever it is and very rapidly the extent of aspects of interest are able to be noted.

So, at the moment the whole idea of community microportals is known to a few but major expansion is anticipated. The current establishment of county councils and district councils is to be replaced by unitary authorities. Each county will be voting on this soon and some areas will change and others may not. However, locally, the idea of shedding five chief executives of the district councils, plus all the buildings and infrastructure, with the frustrating inefficiencies and expense, has an appeal. No doubt the single authority will absorb most of the people and sites but that is not the main thrust of interest. Underlying the large authority will be the community boards, based in this area on market towns. Each parish council will be represented on these boards and there will be a community budget for the development of, yes, communities. So it is not difficult to consider that microportal community hubs will pop up covering all the communities within a community board. The opportunities for the promotion of veterinary practices, or indeed veterinary activity in general is very real.

Moving on, there are microportals for associations and professional groups. Here again these are different from websites as such and websites with links, partly because of the one click concept and ease of access. With specific groups the quality of the portal presentation may become a bigger issue. Within a community portal there will be a variety of presentations from the simple to the complex, the plain to the colourful, whereas for an association site there may be issues of quality of presentation and appearance that incur additional mastering and expense. A list of portals is available at www.2day.ws/sites and it is easy to view a range and get some idea of the breadth of the topic.

The other aspect to consider is that veterinary surgeons and veterinary businesses are targets for the services of others. As you interact with a microportal so you are open to becoming interested in a topic you had not initially thought to access. These will range from the expected to the unexpected.

For example, it was unexpected to find the topic of workplace grievances, conflict resolution and stress management. Thinking about it where better to introduce the availability of mediation than on a microportal. To promote your abilities to resolve issues between people at a local level appears worthwhile. There is a relevance here to partnerships and one of the areas highlighted is the difficulties that arise between partners as the relationship evolves over the years. This aspect of partnerships is well recognised for accountants, solicitors and of course veterinary surgeons. The point made is that it is often the local issues that bring matters to a head, with chatter between wives, clients and third parties. If there are general workplace issues that need to be aired, it may be that local microportals will form part of the tools available to a professional mediator that handles these very local matters in a confidential manner.

The topic of microportals seems to be moving rapidly from village hall activities and church services to professional concerns. Here abouts there is a distinct thrust to buy local. A veterinary practice as part of the local community appears important.

If you have experience of microportals or wish to discuss developments please contact rgard@agmed.freeserve.co.uk.


Richard Gard

4th September 2008.
First Published Veterinary Review
www.veterinaryreview.com

We have to upgrade both the 2day servers due to very heavy daily traffic from all over the UK.

We add 22,000 community sites and 35,000 School plus University Community sites - making us one of the largest community networks in the UK!

We break the 200,000 visits a day threshold!

2day's flood beating backups. We now backup our system onto a server in the USA.

To cope with new traffic levels 2day commissions a second server.

2day daily hits break the 200,000 barrier

2day hits go over 100,000 in one day and our server is upgraded to take the new level of traffic

Three new templates are launched. One community one and two conventional website ones.

Our hits go up to over one per second!

Richard Searight - the new Fox-Talbot!
Unique window on the internet - The Microportal

A tiny village in Wiltshire, which is credited with being the birthplace of photography, is repeating history by introducing a new way of looking at the world wide web - The Microportal, or personal website!

More than 170 years ago William Henry Fox Talbot took the first photograph of a lattice window in his home at Lacock Abbey - now 2Day Microportals, headed up by Lacock-based Richard Searight, is offering communities another window, that to the World Wide Web.

The uniqueness of the system is that once users have introduced their postcode, everything they need is within three clicks of the mouse. Every day over 30,000 people use the 2Day Microportal to look something up.

The first 2Day microportal was www.lacock.2day.ws, which is now one of the most used community sites in the whole of the UK, with over 100,000 hits a year from a population of just 1,300 people.

Users can not only find contact details for everyday needs, such as the cinema, eating out, weather and local schools, but also use the site for instant access to things such as a route planner, directory inquiries and news headlines. There are also live links to train, road and airport information - all available within three clicks. People can even take their local site on holiday because it refocuses on any location in the UK.

Richard Searight says his aim is to provide every community in the UK with a personalised one-stop shop. Communities are empowered by being able to run the embedded local sections themselves and even post advertising to pay for the site!

Particularly interesting is the fact that churches have adopted the system as a means of getting themselves back into the centre of communities. 'So far we have over 200 church sites, including one in the Shetland Isles, which is receiving over 250 hits per day', says Richard.

'The vision is to create sites so complete that everyone has to make them their homepage. Once a whole community does that it starts to communicate and gel together as a social unit. The church understands this,' he said. Up until the advent of Microportals, achieving a totally comprehensive community website was completely impossible for the average local webmaster.

For further information: Richard Searight, 2Day Microportals Ltd., 01249 730439 or 07770 846450. Or visit www.2day.ws.

Home and Small Business Security

Have you ever wanted a home or small business security system but been put off by the cost? Well now is maybe the time to reconsider it. Prices have dropped dramatically over the past five years with security IP (Internet Protocol) cameras providing a cost effective, unobtrusive and effective solution. Using a wired or wireless camera, and assuming you have broadband access, you can view live video streams of your property from anywhere in the world. Cameras can be triggered into life with motion-triggered (PIR) sensors, which in turn activate recording. They can also send you mobile / e-mail alerts when activated and video footage can be recorded onto a computer’s hard disk. Other features include wide angle viewing, pan & tilt capabilities, 3G mobile viewing, homeplug connectivity and infrared LED night vision. If this is something you are interested do contact us at Geeks-on-Wheels for an informal chat.


Business Users - Goodbye Microsoft Exchange, Hello Google Apps

A bold statement yes but it is the way forward and this is why. Many businesses currently use Microsoft Small Business Server (SBS) to manage their e-mails, calendars and diaries. This SBS will usually be installed on a server at your office and will have to be maintained, monitored and looked after.

With Google Apps everything is hosted by Google - you do not have any worries about security updates, operating system patches, hardware failure, backups etc as these are all maintained by Google. Not only that your e-mail is constantly checked for spam and viruses by Google Message Security (powered by Postini) services.

You can access your e-mails, calendars and diaries from anywhere with internet access using a web browser. If you currently use Microsoft Outlook as your e-mail client no problem, integration is smooth and simple - the same goes for integration with your iPhone.

Each user gets 25GB of e-mail storage so no more messages popping up asking you to free up space because you have exceeded your mail quota.

Google also guarantee a 99.999% uptime whilst your data is synchronised across multiple secure data centres.

Practice what you preach

Well that is exactly what we do, else I would not be writing this newsletter - after much deliberation we at Geeks-on-Wheels made the transition in January 2010 from Microsoft SBS to Google Apps Premier Edition, and we have not looked back. Ok so we are an IT company however that is not the point in this instance – even we have to look after our servers and occasionally are a target for the bad eggs in our society - this is a weight of our shoulders.

What are the costs?

There are no hardware or software costs and once setup there is minimal administration. You pay an annual fee of around £33.00 per e-mail address / user. Call one of our freephone numbers and ask for Jamie if Google Apps is something you would like to investigate for your organisation.

And Now For Something Different - Watch TV On Your PC or iPhone

Head over to http://www.tvcatchup.com, complete a simple form, and you can watch over 50 TV channels including the BBC, ITV, Five, Dave, CBBC and Movies4Men. If you have an iPhone use your web browser Safari and navigate to http://iphone.tvcatchup.com. It’s great and totally free to use.

The FTSE climbed within striking distance of an 18-month high.

Nationwide reported the first fall in UK house prices for ten months.

Revised figures for the last quarter of 2009 showed that the UK economy grew by 0.3% rather than the 0.1% previously recorded.

Three more Japanese vehicle-makers – Nissan, Suzuki and Daihatsu – recalled half a million cars because of reported problems with electronics.

Santander has moved into pole position to take over the 320 branches in England being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland.

The supertax on bank bonuses will reap more than £2.5bn for the Treasury, giving the UK government an unexpectedly large windfall to spend ahead of the general election.

In September a new video was uploaded to Google Video in Italy. It showed an autistic schoolboy in Turin being abused, physically and verbally, by his classmates.

On Wednesday, three executives from Google who had never worked in Italy, or had any idea of the video's existence before it was deleted two months later , were found guilty (in absentia) of invading the teenager's privacy, and given six-month suspended sentences by an Italian court, after charges were brought by a local Down's syndrome charity.

David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, and one of those convicted, claimed the ruling "poses a grave danger to the continued freedom and operation of the many internet services that users around the world, including many Italians have come to rely on".

 

The prosecutors argued that Google had a duty to ensure that such videos complied with privacy law before they were made public, that comments beneath the video suggesting that it was inappropriate were ignored, and that it should have been spotted when it made the "most viewed" list on the site.

 

Google countered that it took the video down within three hours of being alerted by the authorities, that European (and Italian) law states that responsibility for such videos lies with those who post them, and that taking a random set of executives from its hierarchy to court was hardly the way to resolve the issue.

 

This ruling implies that Google, or indeed who operates a website is responsible for every offensive video, photo or comment that appears there.  So why does this cause a problem and why it can't material just be blocked before it is uploaded, as the Italian court wants?

 

There are two objections, one philosophical and one practical. The first is whether it is desirable for Internet companies to have the power to decide what is tasteful or ethical.

 

The practical implications are also critical. YouTube, the video service bought by Google in 2006, receives 20 hours of video every single minute, so much information that no human being could reasonably pre-screen.

 

Bill Eggers, the global director of Deloitte Research, points out that it took the Library of Congress more than 200 years to amass a collection of 29 million books and periodicals, 2.4 million audio recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps and 57 million manuscripts. The same amount of data is now being added to the Internet every five minutes.

 

Spam Comes to Twitter

The Social Media world was attacked twice last week by spammers. Twitter users were warned not to click links in some tweets, after the microblogging service fell victim to its second phishing attack in a week.

 

Users have received Direct Messages with links that when clicked, direct users to a malicious website, which looks just like the Twitter home page, where they are prompted to enter their login details.

 

As soon as they hit enter, the malicious message is sent to everyone on their Twitter friends list, helping the scam to spread across the internet. Security experts fear that cyber criminals could use this login information to hack in to other accounts, or gain remote access to a computer.

 

Twitter users were receiving direct messages that said: "This you????" and contained a link. Now another phishing message, reading "hi, i'm 24/female/horny ... i have to get off here but message me on my windows live messenger name", is also spreading across the service.

 

"It's bad enough if hackers gain control of your Twitter account, but if you also use that same password on other websites and our research shows that 33 per cent of people do that all the time then they could access your Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, eBay and PayPal accounts too," said Graham Cluley, a security expert with Sophos.

 

"Our advice is to be cautious about the links you click on, choose a strong password, and, if you find that you're spreading suspicious messages from your Twitter account, change your passwords immediately.

 

"You should also check the Settings/Connections area of your Twitter account. If there are any third-party applications you don't recognise listed there, revoke their permission to access your account."  

 

Twitter said that it was aware of the problem, and was working hard to secure the site against similar future attacks.

 

Libraries Struggles to Achieve Web.

The UK's online heritage could be lost forever if the government does not grant a "right to archive", a group of leading libraries has said.  The British Library, along with other institutions, has been archiving UK websites since 2004 but has only been able to cover 6,000 of an estimated 8m.

 

Currently, it must ask permission from website owners before archiving them.  We've got the know-how but we need the rules to say we don't need to ask permission," said a spokesman for the British Library.  "We're archiving for the nation rather than commercial gain."

 

The British Library believes the UK Web Archive could prove as useful to historians as ancient pamphlets and other ephemeral material in its archive.  The consortium, which also includes the National Library of Wales and the Wellcome Library, is lobbying the government to clarify elements of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act.

 

The act, which among other things means that every UK print publication is automatically deposited by publishers in the British Library, was extended in 2003 to cover online material. But the British Library says it never clarified what steps had to be taken before electronic material was recorded.

 

"We're in the ridiculous position where we have to ask permission of each webmaster before we archive a site," the spokesman said.  The Department of Culture Media and Sport is currently consulting on the act.

 

"We can't make a judgement about what people in the future will find useful," said the British Library spokesman.  The British Library said research showed that the average life expectancy of a website was just 44 to 75 days, and suggested that at least 10% of all UK websites were either lost or replaced by new material every six months.

 

There are other achieves, including the WayBack Machine http://www.archive.org which aim to catalogue and record websites as they change over the years.

 

Broadband Tax Condemned by MPs

A government proposal to charge people with fixed phone lines 50p per month to help fund ultra-fast broadband has been condemned as "unfair" by MPs.

 

The cross-party Business Innovation and Skills Committee said most of those who would pay the tax would not benefit from the faster broadband service.  The focus should be on providing basic broadband for all and allowing markets to deliver higher speeds, it said.

 

The government said the plan was the "best way to drive further investment".  It maintains that faster speeds are "vital to the UK's growth".  However, the committee argued: "We believe that a 50p levy placed on fixed telecommunication lines is an ill-directed charge.  "It will place a disproportionate cost on a majority who will not, or are unable to, reap the benefits of that charge."

 

The government's broadband plans outlined in its Digital Economy Bill, have two main concepts.  It wants to ensure a minimum speed of 2Mbps to all parts of Britain by 2012, and then deliver ultra-fast broadband to most of the country by 2017.  

 

The committee agreed that the government should help deliver 2Mbps to all by 2012 but said that it was "concerned" that the government had not defined what it guaranteed.  Broadband speeds rarely meet the advertised speeds, depending on the number of users online and distance from an exchange.

 

The committee believes that the government should commit to delivering a minimum of 2Mbps "under normal circumstances, to all users at all times".  But the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that the government wanted everyone to "access the huge social, economic and health benefits" that high speeds offer.

 

“We are currently consulting on the most effective way to deploy this investment with public and commercial benefits in mind, and will consider the Committee's report in our final response," said the spokesman.

 

When Gordon Brown and the Cabinet visited Exeter recently, Nigel Wilkinson from WNW Design took the opportunity to raise this matter with Justice Minister Jack Straw. With the government wanting to promote a high-skills, low carbon economy in the south west it is vital that ultra fast broadband is available outside the main urban areas. Nigel was able to highlight this point to Mr Straw, who promised to feedback these concerns to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.

 

 

Regards

 

Nigel Wilkinson, Managing Director, WNW Design

 

Visit our regularly updated blog www.wnwdesign.co.uk/wordpress

 

Stock markets rallied around the world as fears that Greece’s sovereign debt crisis eased.

In the UK, unemployment in the last quarter fell by 3,000 to 2.46 million, with the jobless rate remaining at 7.8%.

Readers Digest’s UK arm went into administration.

The Toyota saga rumbled on with the possible recall of the Corolla.

John Stumpf, the chairman of Wells Fargo, earned $18m last year to become America’s highest-paid banker.

The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group was under intense pressure to give up his £2.25m bonus after the head of rival Royal Bank of Scotland rejected a £1.6m reward.

BUSINESSES AND exhibitors alike are busy preparing for the remaining two expowest events, which are now in their 30th year.

 

The expowest Cornwall event, to be held at the Royal Cornwall Showground, Wadebridge on March 2,3 and 4 will be the next opportunity for businesses to help plan and prepare for the forthcoming season. As ever the event will feature a comprehensive range of exhibitors offering everything to meet the needs of anyone in the hospitality and catering industry and now also the care and health sector.

 

The expowest South Wales event, will follow on March 23 and 24 2010 at the United Counties Showground, Carmarthen and will feature a similar range of suppliers.

 

The expowest events have, over the last three decades, become firmly established as a crucial trading time for businesses as they look to plan for the coming season. People attending expowest will include owners and managers of hotels, guest houses, pubs, clubs, restaurants, cafes and convenience food outlets as well as people from the care and nursing home sector and educational establishments.

 

Peter Sugden, Managing Director of Truro-based organisers Exhibitions South West said '' We are delighted to be celebrating our 30th year in Cornwall and to once again be bringing forward the single biggest opportunity for businesses across the hospitality, catering and care sectors to find all the goods and services they need.

''Following a successful expowest Westcountry event, we're once again looking forward to bringing together under one roof, a massive range of local and national suppliers at both the Cornwall and South Wales events''

 

Expowest exhibitions are specialist shows for trade only. Businesses that would like to exhibit at the shows should call 01872 245220

 

Trade visitors can register for a free ticket at www.expowestexhibitions.com

Times change and technology moves on and it was time to change the layout of the WNW Design newsletter. With more people choosing to read their email on smart phones or notebooks a cleaner, more simplified layout was needed to fit the way people work.

The basic format, where we seek to highlight important trends within the technology industry and changes that may affect you, will stay the same. Only the template and delivery method will be different.

We hope you will continue to enjoy our newsletter and that 2010 has started in a positive manner for you and your business.

Technology Wars
It seems like something from a sci-fi political thriller but the activities of hackers and international government interests meant that Hollywood was behind reality for a change.

Hackers in China managed to exploit a hole in Internet Explorer that enabled them to attack Google’s infrastructure to target the email activities of Chinese political activists. Google promptly threatened to withdraw from China, expecting Microsoft, its fiercest rival, and others to back its stance. Only to be met with a deafening silence from the technology giant.

Next Germany and France, never big fans of the ubiquitous Microsoft, decided to recommend to their citizens that they change browsers to prevent them becoming victims to the potential security hole. Meanwhile the UK government downplayed the threat and said there was "no evidence that moving from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure".

Microsoft has now taken the unusual step of patching the hole nearly three weeks ahead of its regular security update. The new patch is available via the Microsoft Update site and will also be fed out to those who have their machines set to update automatically. All versions of Internet Explorer will receive the update.

"It addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and small subset of corporations, as well as several other vulnerabilities," the firm said.
"Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicised." Microsoft has admitted that it has known about the vulnerability since "since early September" 2009 and had planned to patch it in February.

The bad publicity Microsoft received has allowed rivals such as Firefox to gain market share. According to web analytics company StatCounter, Firefox is now a close second to Internet Explorer (IE) in Europe, with 40% of the market compared to Microsoft's 45% share. In Germany and Austria, Firefox has overtaken IE, the firm said, whilst Google’s Chrome browser has also gained market share.

BT Launches 40Mbps Broadband
Based around fibre optic cables, BT has launched a broadband service that offers speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps), calling their service Infinity.

Trials have been held in London's Muswell Hill, Whitchurch and Glasgow, where BT said it will give some customers an upload speed of up to 10 Mbps. Often broadband even in areas close to exchanges has remarkably slow upload times, not a problem for general home viewing but a real challenge for businesses or individuals wanting to send or share information.

BT said that four million homes and businesses would be able to get it by 2011.
The current highest speed service from BT available to homes is 20 megabits per second (Mbps), though not all homes can get this headline speed. BT Retail said the basic 40Mbps service will be offered for £19.99 per month on an 18 month contract. It will also charge an installation fee of £50 for those on the lowest tariff.

Only those who opt for BT's most expensive tariff, £24.99 per month, will get the 10Mbps upload speed. With the basic package upload speed is up to 2Mbps.
BT said the higher speed would make it easier to share broadband among multiple computers and improve video streaming and net TV services.

Of course there is a problem in that only those closest to the street cabinets that the fibre connects to are likely to get the full 40Mbps. And of course how much of the country has fibre cables anyway?

A spokesman for Virgin Media wondered why anyone would buy a service from BT that has yet to launch when it could get higher speeds via cable already. He said Virgin was already trialling future technology that could see cable speeds reach 200Mbps.

With increasing demands placed on the existing infrastructure and the rapidly changing pace of technology, speeds in excess of 100Mbps are widely seen as the only realistic way to avoid a bandwidth meltdown.

Bill Gates Joins Twitter
A new “verified” account went live last week when ex-Microsoft boss Bill Gates joined the growing number of people on Twitter. Within seven hours he passed 50,000 followers and ended the day on 142,000 people reading his comments.

Six months ago he ceased his Facebook account as he was inundated with “friend requests” but this too has returned, now in the guise of a fan page, where readers can follow his musings without becoming actual friends.

This is all backed up by the launch of http://www.thegatesnotes.com/ Bill’s own website, where you can follow his thoughts and activities in more detail than allowed by Twitter's 140 character rule.

With Gates these days focusing on his charitable foundation, rather than running Mircosoft, much of the Tweeting has been about Haiti and the relief effort, not that subjects from appearing with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show to visiting the Sundance Film Festival have escaped attention.

Follow Bill Gates at http://twitter.com/billgates

What about the iPad?
So rumours of Apple’s new product being called the iTablet or iSlate, were wide of the mark. The iPad is the next must-have gadget for the geek about town, with prices starting at $499 in the USA.

This product is likely to either revolutionise the world or be a big over-hyped “so what!” Or maybe just be useful to some people in a certain way. The reviews are so based on opinion and speculation it is hard to know what to believe.

James McQuivey, principal analyst at Forrester Research says, "That’s the challenge for Apple. They have to create a new category, and it can’t just be like the last time — in 2001, 2002 — when tablets were created and were viewed as productivity devices."

Those early tablets "were going to make us really effective at work," he said. "Heaven knows that’s not something we all care about when we wake up in the morning. What we do care about is, how are we going to spend our idle time? How are we going to keep our busy minds occupied with interesting and fun things, such as movies, TV, music and reading newspapers and magazines. That’s where the Apple tablet is going to forge new ground."

With a screen of 9.7 inches measured diagonally and weighing in at 1.5 pounds and 0.5 inch thin, Apple claim it has a 10 hour battery life, allowing you to connect by WiFi or 3G, much like an iPhone, to browse the Internet or watch video. For more detail visit http://www.apple.com/ipad/design/

WNW Design Celebrate Ten Years by Linking with West of England School
On 1st January 2010 WNW Design celebrated our 10th birthday and to mark this landmark, we have linked up with local children’s charity The West of England School and College for Children and Young People with Little or No Sight.

We will be donating £100 to the School for each new web hosting client during the whole of 2010. So if you know anyone who is looking either to start a new website or is looking to change their website hosting provider, help us help the School and contact us for a quotation.

If you would like more information about this offer or the work of the School, please visit www.wnwdesign.co.uk/WESchool and follow the link to their website.


And Finally
We would like to welcome Glenn Dalley to the WNW Design team. Working directly with new clients Glenn’s role as Business Development Manager is to help them analyse the best options and explain how WNW Design can assist them in the long term.

If you need help with your website, e-commerce or getting found on the search engines, contact Glenn at glenn@wnwdesign.co.uk


Regards


Nigel Wilkinson, Managing Director, WNW Design

Follow us www.twitter.com/nigelwnw

Visit our regularly updated blog www.wnwdesign.co.uk/wordpress

Dear 2day Reader

Below is a photo of myself tearing up a cheque for hundreds of pounds at our Chillaton bonfire party.You may remember that we have to do this in order to comply with current (manic) government event regulations. But for the regulations, which would have required us to have prohibitively expensive insurance plus a Temporary Events Licence etc… the event would have raised £529 for the local church. However compliance with all the government regulations and licenses would have cost more than we would have made. The only way to make the event legal was to ensure that no charity benefited from it.

 

I have been running bonfire parties safely for 30 years - and nobody has been injured yet. The only contribution the current regulations make is to ensure that charities don’t get any of the money. Charities are estimated to lose tens of million pounds a year as a direct results of events ‘not’ being held for them – due to government regulations.

 

This is all part of an ongoing campaign to run useless events around the country. The first was launched this summer by our MP, Geoffrey Cox, in a vintage Tiger Mother plane when he tore up a £500 cheque – necessary or the organizers would have faced a £20,000 fine or 6 months in prison. The only way the event could proceed legally was to ensure that no charity benefited – by tearing up the cheque.

 

Please see www.communityevents.2day.ws for full details and to sign our petition on the 10 Downing Street website. Our objective is to get our legislation into the Conservative Parties election manifesto

 

Please feel free to ring me any time for more information.

 

All good wishes,

Richard

 

Richard Searight

East Quither Farm

Milton Abbot

Tavistock

Devon PL19 0PZ

 

Telephone 01822 860148 or 01822 600001

www.2day.ws or www.mycommunity.2day.ws

Right now if a charity or community holds an event, it risks breaking the law, getting fined up to £20,000 or jail – just because of the enormity of paperwork and red tape!

Imagine how many charities and communities just give up? How many feel it's not worthwhile, or are fearful of the penalties they may face if they get the forms wrong???

We want to see all this replaced with a simple license as follows.

• ‘universal license’, for simple, low risk, and relatively small events.

• not limited to a single event but a general permission for small groups to operate within certain restrictions and parameters.

• Ideally, such a license would be:
1. Available for free, or at a low cost;
2. Permanent or cover a generous time period;
3. For up to 1500 people - to cover normal community sized events;
4. Linked to the organisation such as church, club, WI or community group, as opposed to an individual;
5. Flexible, allowing multiple small events at short notice, not just for a specific event.

• Enforcement would simply involve the license being immediately withdrawn were it misused.

Lets *encourage* people to hold community events rather than put them off through fear of law-breaking, fines and/or jail!

For more information and to SIGN THE PETITION please CLICK HERE


Saturday 04-Jul-2009

Press release issued 4th July 2009 for immediate use

Charities lose £thousands unless people break the law

A Devon man is to challenge the event licensing processes that he claims are stifling charities and community group fundraising.

Richard Searight of Tavistock wants to see an end to the crippling legal regulations that people face when putting on a fundraising event. He proposes replacing the myriad of forms and fines that usually put people off holding events, with a simple permanent license.

Richard claims that paperwork and forms are now are required for everything from charging for glass of wine in church, to running the village dog show.

To illustrate the issue, his plan is to run legal protest events run all over the UK when charity cheques will to be torn up. He said: “If the money goes to any good causes the organisers could face fines up to £20,000 or 6 months in prison! Basic premise ‘If it’s useless it’s legal’”

The first of these mass-cheque-tear-up events will be held in Devon on 5th, 6th and 7th July to demonstrate how the back-breaking legislation process is preventing a simple fundraising activity.

Richard Searight of Tavistock, organiser of the first event said: “Last summer we tried to create a fantastic community building event but it was destroyed by the regulations, licenses and miles of red tape. It was then that I realised the same legislation is killing thousands perhaps tens of thousands of other community events every year. For example, organisations like Christian Aid have to create specific legislation every year in order just to run Christian Aid week legally.”

“Local communities don’t have that privilege. If they want to sell a glass of wine at the back of church, play ‘My Way’ over the sound system, put on a panto, have a firework party with refreshments … they have to get multiple licenses – or dodge around them – or simply break the law. An example of what communities do NOT want to apply for is the ten page Temporary Events Notice license form (http://www.hart.gov.uk/tens_form.pdf ) - and / or be subject to a £20,000 fine or 6 months in prison if they fill it in wrong!”

Speaking about the event in July, Richard said: “It became clear that the only way to hold our event and stay legal was to exclude the community and not raise money – in other words hold a completely useless event. Hence this year we are Tearing Up Cheques for charity. It is legal because it is useless.”

According to Richard it is crucial that a simple, permanent, community events licence be created which is designed to encourage community events - not regulate them out of existence.

Richard’s event is designed to underline the stupidity of the current burgeoning law: “Our MP Geoffrey Cox is attending; we have a vintage plane providing rides on a strictly invitation only, expenses only basis. However people will be encouraged to bring along cheques which they would have donated to their favourite charities. Every single one will be torn up otherwise we will break the regulations”. The event has to be useless to be legal

Geoffrey Cox MP, QC “While health and safety restrictions and other regulations are often well-intentioned and may even be sensible enough on their own, the cumulative impact of them is to stifle and render impractical the very events that they are meant to ensure the safety for.

It is a tragedy that so many charitable and community events , often ones which have been taking place for many years, have to be cancelled because of the slightest hint of risk. If local authorities and health and safety officers always exercised as much common sense as the event organisers, it would be far better for all concerned”

Richard continues: “I don’t think many people realise the implications of this. Charity events go on every day, and frankly the vast majority of them are simply breaking the law because they have not complied with the one or other the licences that they should have lodged. We need a simple permanent licence which allows communities to carry on being community.”

For more information and to SIGN THE PETITION please CLICK HERE








For more information see: Richard Searight's Community Events Website


Release issued by: Sue Haswell, BFM, 01626 864458 or sue.h@big-future.com


Links/Background on Geoffrey Cox QC MP

• What Britain really needs: fewer beauticians and more scientists

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What’s the key to Britain’s economic future?

We’ve heard a lot about the development of high-powered manufacturing recently. Biotechnology, green energy solutions, nano-materials – you name it, we’re going to excel at it.

And Britain’s most famous living inventor, James Dyson, recently produced a report on ways to rebalance the economy towards science and engineering.

Trouble is, if you’re going to create this creative powerhouse of a country, then you need the people to do it with. That’s why a new report on Britain’s most rapidly growing jobs - the National Strategic Skills Audit - makes for such depressing reading...

 

 

Britain's most rapidly growing jobs are in the wrong sectors

In the past eight years, it seems Britain has become a nation of beauticians, town planners and psychologists. The first National Strategic Skills Audit reveals a country using its higher income to indulge in “navel gazing” rather than building the industries of the future, says David Turner in the Financial Times.

The most rapid growth has been in “conservation and environmental protection officers”, whose numbers rose by 124% between the second quarter of 2001 and the second quarter of 2009. The number of town planners has also almost doubled. Other big gains have been seen in ‘semi-professional’ occupations. These are jobs that help more highly qualified people - teaching assistants, para-legals, and the like.

Meanwhile, off-shoring has taken its toll on heavy manufacturing and factory floor jobs. The number of electrical product assemblers has tumbled by 69%. Metal workers are in steep decline too. And telesales jobs – once the much-derided replacements for these industrial jobs – are vanishing overseas as well.

There’s nothing wrong with beauticians or psychologists or town planners. (Although I don’t understand why we suddenly need so many more of the last). But they aren’t the sorts of jobs you need to build a world-beating manufacturing-led economy. We’re pretty poor at creating those. As the FT notes, “the UK’s growth in highly skilled jobs has been one of the lowest in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development since 2001.”

Britain's too reliant on sectors that don't create wealth

That probably won’t surprise anyone who’s been paying attention to the make up of British employment in recent years. Manufacturing jobs have collapsed. Public sector work has risen strongly. In fact, Chris Humphries, chief executive of the government-funded body behind the report, said: “We’re actually getting higher growth in public sector jobs than is ideal in economic terms… public sector jobs don’t create wealth, they spend wealth.”

This last quote gets to the heart of the problem. Britain is too reliant on sectors that don’t create wealth. In the private sector, bright people have been drawn away from jobs in science and engineering by the high salaries and comparative job security of the City.

I don’t know enough about the workings of the scientific research industry to comment, but I’m pretty sure it’s ripe for improvement. (If you’re a scientist and you have any thoughts on this, I’d be interested to hear them. Email me at johns@moneyweek.com). I have a close friend who’s a research scientist. She has qualifications coming out of her ears, from a PhD down, and plenty of published papers. Yet she seems to spend a great deal of time moving around the country to secure short-term posts working on a variety of research projects. It seems a waste of talent.

So you can see why science graduates might be easy prey on the investment banking milk round. But the finance industry doesn’t create wealth. It’s supposed to allocate it more efficiently. But it’s clear that in recent years, financiers have become more interested in efficiently allocating capital into their own back pockets. You only have to look at the various accounting tricks perpetrated in areas from Greece to Lehman Brothers, to realise that.

The public sector is similar. Efficient public services help the rest of society to be more productive. Good infrastructure; a healthy, well-educated population; low crime rates – all these things are worth paying for. But they don’t create wealth. And like the finance industry, a lot of the money that’s poured into the public sector in recent years seems to have gone to enriching its workers, rather than improving the service to the end users.

Can this situation continue? It’s unlikely. Annette Cox of the Institute for Employment Studies tells the FT: “the prospect of public sector spending cuts suggests that this kind of growth in local government employment is unlikely to be sustainable.” As for finance, the main reason it’s doing well just now is because it’s also backed by taxpayers’ money. When that support runs out, things won’t look as rosy in that sector either.

Life should be made easier for entrepreneurs

It’s not all bad news. As Tom Bulford points out in his Penny Sleuth email, there are plenty of entrepreneurial scientists out there. He’s keeping an eye on a couple of promising companies that could turn out to be very profitable for investors.

And we do still have successful manufacturers in this country. My colleague David Stevenson looked at one such company in a recent issue of MoneyWeek magazine (Profit from the return of British manufacturing). And this week, David looks at fuel cells (if you're not already a subscriber, claim your first three issues free here), another area where British companies are doing good work. But they could all do with more support. Given that there isn’t going to be much public money around, the best thing the government could do is to cut red tape to make life easier for entrepreneurs.

 
Until tomorrow,

John Stepek

Editor, MoneyWeek
New Business Editor of the Year, BSME Awards 2009

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- Hype can be very persuasive for investors. But if you only focus on the positive aspects of a potential investment, you're going to end up losing money, says Tim Bennett. Here, he explains six warning signs that should make you think twice before buying into any stock: Six reasons not to buy a stock.

And for yesterday’s market update, see below...

 

Market update

Click here for the latest stock market news and charts.

The FTSE 100 rose 0.5% to 5,620 yesterday as banks and commodity stocks were back in favour.

Miners bounced back from Monday's losses. ENRC was the sector's top climber, up 2.9%, while Randgold Resources added 2.5%. Antofagasta, Kazakhmys and Rio Tinto rose between 2% and 1.2%.

Energy stocks made good gains. Cairn Energy and Tullow Oil were 1.9% and 1.8% higher respectively. Royal Dutch Shell gained 1.5%, BP rose 0.5%, while BG Group was unchanged.

Banks also had a good day. Barclays led the sector, climbing 2.5%; RBS gained 1.3%, while Standard Chartered added 1.1% and HSBC 0.4%. Lloyds lost 0.1%, however.

In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 rose 48 points to end at 3,938; while the German Xetra Dax was 67 points higher at 5,970.

In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.4% to 10,685; the S&P 500 added 0.8% to 1,159; and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.7% to 2,378.

Overnight in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 rose 1.2% to 10,846 and the broader Topix index added 1% to 947. And in China, the Shanghai Composite rose 1.9% to 3,050 while the CSI 300 was 2.2% higher at 3,273.

Brent spot was trading at $80.14 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $82.11. Spot gold was trading at $1,131 an ounce, silver was at $17.50 and platinum was at $1,626.

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5221 and against the euro at 1.1048. The dollar was trading at 0.7260 against the euro and 90.60 against the Japanese yen.

And in the UK, the Bank of England's Deputy Governor, Charles Bean, warned the government on the effect of the public debt on sterling. In a speech at Cambridge University yesterday, he said: "The deficit ... is unsustainable in the medium term," he said, adding: "the recent depreciation of sterling appears to owe something to heightened fears about the UK’s fiscal prospects."

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The past is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Shares are by their nature are speculative and can be volatile and you should never invest more than you can safely afford to lose. Information in Money Morning is for general information only and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. MoneyWeek do not accept liability for any loss suffered by readers as a result of any such decision.

• Ten years after the dotcom bust, it’s time to buy tech

• Recommended article: Take a punt on the return of fear

• Yesterday's close: FTSE 100 down 0.6% at 5,593… Gold up 0.59% to $1,108.45 an ounce… £/$ - 1.5057

Remember the ‘dotcom’ boom?

It’s now a full ten years since it peaked. For many who watched the tech bubble inflate, the biggest surprise was that it survived for so long. Investors fooled themselves into paying insane prices for companies that were, in essence, completely worthless.

It’s an object lesson as to just how long markets can defy gravity. And it shows just how much damage a bursting bubble can do. A decade later, the ‘tech’ sector overall has nowhere near recovered.

Yet this may be about to change. Here’s how to buy in...

The dotcom bubble was one of the worst in history

Over the last two or three years, we’ve got very used to seeing a series of bubbles inflating fast, then bursting with very big bangs.

Chinese stocks rocketed by 3½ times in the 12-month period from September 2006. Yet a year later, they were back to where they’d started. Then oil took up the baton. By mid-2008, crude prices had spiked to a level almost twice that of today. Meanwhile house prices on both sides of the Atlantic went completely berserk. Sanity has since returned to the US – as we reckon it will soon do over here (Don't be fooled - house prices will fall again).

So it’s quite easy, then, to forget ‘dotcom’. But it was a similar story – except that it became even madder – “a bubble as insane as any in history”, as John Authers puts it in the Financial Times.

For those that don’t recall it, here’s a quick potted re-cap. Cash was very easy to get hold of, and new technology was seen as the ‘in thing’ to spend it on. But just as inflation is often described as too much money chasing too few goods, so it was with dotcom.

Companies were springing up all over the place with little scope for achieving serious sales, let alone generating cash flow and profits. But there was a mountain of hype, and investors were happy to swallow it.

Share valuations were bid up to stupid levels. Everyone with a website was a likely millionaire. Common sense went right out of the window.

Imagine how much fun it was – not – trying to run a small cap value fund, i.e. having to hold stocks in the most disliked sector of the day, as I was in the late-1990s.

It was all summed up by the Nasdaq Composite index, the world’s most widely watched gauge of technology-related companies. On Friday 10 March 2000, after rising five-fold in just four years, it hit an all-time high of 5,049 in an atmosphere of frenzied excitement.

But when markets re-opened after the weekend, suddenly it was all change. Monday 13 saw the index plunge by 4%. 2½ years later, the Nasdaq Composite had lost more than 75% of its peak value.

The dotcom bust brought down other stock markets with it. Most of these, mind you, have since revisited their old highs, even if they’ve not been able to stay there. Yet the Nasdaq Composite is still more than 50% lower than March 2000. So many investors are still nursing hefty losses – and many of the shares they bought are no longer trading.

Of course, not every tech stock has been wiped out. Amazon is up by about 50% over the past ten years. And if you’d bought some of my colleague Eoin Gleeson’s technology tips in MoneyWeek magazine last year, you’d have made that sort of profit a lot faster.

Tech stocks finally seem worth investing in again

On balance, though, surely the depressed level of the index means that the broad tech sector is still a busted flush?

Actually, no. By early–March 2009, the Nasdaq had almost fallen back to its 2002 lows. But the last 12 months have seen investors’ confidence start to return.

And here’s the interesting bit. You might have expected 2009’s rally to go hand in hand with a pick up in the number of firms being taken over. M&A (merger and acquisition) activity often fires up stock prices.

But it didn’t here. Takeovers actually fell in both value and volume terms last year. The total value of completed deals dropped by 53% to $36bn compared to $77bn in 2008. Meanwhile, the number of transactions plunged from 195 to 108.

2010 could be a very different story. The tech sector is sitting on a cash war chest of a net $200bn, says PriceWaterhouseCooper’s Rob Fisher. He reckons that “as companies around the world rekindle technology purchases, as long as the broader economy can avoid slipping back into recession, we expect 2010 to witness a return to more robust deal making”.

In other words, much more M&A could be back on the menu. And that means – at least ten years later than many punters thought – there could now be some decent profits made by investing in tech.

Clearly, though, this isn’t a sector without risk. The rather iffy economic outlook could still be the fly in the ointment. And trying to pick the right stocks won’t be easy.

Two tech funds that look good value

In the magazine over the coming months, we’ll be trying to spotlight the ones we think are the best bets this year (if you're not already a subscriber, you can claim your first three issues free here). But there’s something to be said for buying into a tech fund. The Polar Capital Technology Trust (LSE: PCT) and the RCM Technology Trust (LSE: RTT) are investment trusts that specialise in the sector.

Both are trading on discounts to net asset value of around 9%, so you’re effectively buying £110 for every £100 you invest. And both have as their largest holdings some of the biggest and richest US tech companies, who are likely to spend their money much more wisely than their predecessors did ten years ago.

 Until tomorrow,

David Stevenson

Associate editor, MoneyWeek

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Market update

Click here for the latest stock market news and charts.

The FTSE 100 slipped back yesterday as investors worried about fiscal tightening in China, and where interest rates may be going in the US and Japan. The index closed down 0.6% at 5,593.

Miners performed poorly, with ENRC the day's biggest loser, falling 3.4%. Antofagasta, Fresnillo, Xstrata and Kazakhmys lost between 3.1% and 2.9%

Banks were largely lower on concerns about new regulations coming into force in the US. Lloyds lost 1.5%, Barclays fell 0.9% and HSBC was 0.4% lower, but RBS managed a gain of 0.4%.

Defensive stocks were in demand, however. Utility Centrica was the top climber, gaining 1.6%, while pharmaceutical companies Shire rose 1.2% and GSK climbed 0.4%. AstraZeneca, however, shed 0.2%.

In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 fell 37 points to end at 3,890; while the German Xetra Dax was 42 points lower at 5,903.

In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 0.2% to 10,642; the S&P 500 added 0.05% to 1,150; and the Nasdaq Composite gained 0.2% to 2,362.

Overnight in Asia, Japan's Nikkei 225 fell 0.3% to 10,721 and the broader Topix index lost 0.1% to 938. And in China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.5% to 2,992 while the CSI 300 was 0.7% higher at 3,203.

Brent spot was trading at $77.53 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $79.60. Spot gold was trading at $1,113 an ounce, silver was at $17.24 and platinum was at $1,620.

In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5042 and against the euro at 1.0995. The dollar was trading at 0.7312 against the euro and 90.44 against the Japanese yen.

And in the UK, the European Commission has warned the government that it needs to do more to cut its budget deficit. A draft assessment of the UK's finances said: "The fiscal strategy ... is not sufficiently ambitious and needs to be significantly reinforced." But Liam Byrne, the Treasury's chief secretary, dismissed the criticism, saying: "We think the EU has got the judgement wrong."

 

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The past is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Shares are by their nature are speculative and can be volatile and you should never invest more than you can safely afford to lose. Information in Money Morning is for general information only and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. MoneyWeek do not accept liability for any loss suffered by readers as a result of any such decision.

In recent months I have been taken to areas where there are badgers and shown their signs of activity. I refer to these rural guides as ‘the badger men’. What the badger men have learned, over many years, could be of major benefit to badgers and to cattle.

The badger men literally read the ground and it is impressive to observe. Typically badgers thrive where there are hedges, streams, woodland and pasture. Baby rabbits, nesting birds, eggs, poultry and cattle feed complement the traditional earthworm diet of a badger. At a field gateway, next to a ditch, there was a clear muddy entrance where badgers were exiting a field and marking their territory with dung. Roads and streams are typical sett boundaries. These boundary markings are different from badger latrines, where many badgers from one sett will be dunging. A great deal about badger activity can be seen from a vehicle and the various tracks through hedges are easy to spot. Badgers are low to the ground and often rub the track giving it a different appearance to deer, foxes and rabbits. What concerns the badger men is when a regular track becomes disused.

Well worn badger tracks, followed on foot, lead to setts. Plenty of digging out of entrances and a clean sett area are signs of healthy badger activity. Setts that are not kept clean, have little used tracks, elongated claw marks in the mud and dung near to the sett, are all signs of an unhealthy sett and are a cause for concern. Close to historic setts will be satellite setts where females will go to have their cubs in peace. These setts will have light use but the signs of occupation are healthy and can be distinguished from unhealthy setts by those with the necessary abilities to read the signs.

The badger men indicate that healthy badgers patrol their territory and deter other badgers from entering the boundary of a sett. Anything that disturbs the social structure of a sett can allow other badgers to move in and increase disease in a sett. It is the strong patrolling badgers that are killed by cars. Every dead roadside badger, together with flooding and drought, can cause ‘natural’ disruption to a sett.

Overcrowding encourages badgers to occupy vacant setts. If the population becomes too great for the available food there will be fights. The badger men have noticed that, within a sett, any badger that becomes unhealthy will be driven out by the other badgers. The fights can be fierce and major wounds inflicted. Around farmyards badgers have been seen with a runted appearance, wounds to the forelegs, rump and head, and with elongated claws because they have been unable to dig for food.

For cattle farmers the badger men recognise that the way to keep cattle healthy is for the farm to have a strong population of healthy badgers. These badgers will patrol their boundaries and keep out unhealthy badgers. There may be several setts within a typical westcountry farm, each with their own territory. An unhealthy option is for the farm to have few or no badgers, so allowing entry to diseased badgers ejected from neighbouring setts.

It is believed that many badgers carry disease from soon after birth but it is their ability to transfer disease to cattle that appears important. The stress, of declining health, inability to forage and feed normally and loss of social structure, is believed to increase individual disease levels.

An important way forward is for each cattle farm to accurately have badger setts and badger activity accessed in November and March each year. On one local farm before assessment, within a TB hotspot area, a farmer believed that there were ‘masses of badgers’ on the farm but there was in fact only one healthy active sett, three abandoned setts and one unhealthy sett. This was a very low level of badger occupation and unhealthy badgers could be expected to enter the farm to visit feed stores, feed from cattle troughs, urinate where cattle graze and transfer disease.

The badger men have found that some farmers do not have the detailed awareness to assess setts. Active tracks have also been found near to farmhouses, gardens and buildings of which the farmer was unaware.

Assessors could each move from farm to farm and mark unhealthy setts on a map. It is the recommendation of the badger men that unhealthy setts should be treated with carbon monoxide each winter from an old smoky tractor. Following on the next day two controllers could manage the unhealthy setts on each farm. By applying a team of six assessors and twelve controllers from November this year, up to one hundred farms each week could have a healthy badger population with whole areas controlled rapidly. The setts would be reassessed the following winter and the process repeated as necessary. TB hotspot farms are expected to have the largest number of unhealthy setts.

The clear aim is to improve the health of the badger population and the health of cattle. The stress of TB in cattle for farming families is well known but the disease also stresses the badgers, who in turn suffer from disease and then back to the cattle and on and on. The badger men hope that their awareness will be seriously considered for the benefit of all involved.

Richard Gard - 16th June 2008
To comment please click the Contact button at the top of this Microportal

First Published by the Western Daily Press

http://www.wordlive.org .

Prayer : Prepare
Be still. Feel the flow of God's being in the air that moves around you.

Mark 12:35-40

'While Jesus was teaching in the temple courts, he asked, "Why do the teachers of the law say that the Messiah is the son of David?"'
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Bible passage: Mark 12:35-40

Whose Son Is the Christ?
35 Jesus was teaching in the temple courtyard. He asked, "Why do the teachers of the law say that the Christ is the son of David? 36 The Holy Spirit spoke through David himself. David said,
" 'The Lord said to my Lord,
"Sit at my right hand
until I put your enemies
under your control." ' -(Psalm 110:1) 37 David himself calls him 'Lord.' So how can he be David's son?"
The large crowd listened to Jesus with delight.
38 As he taught, he said, "Watch out for the teachers of the law. They like to walk around in long robes. They like to be greeted in the market places. 39 They love to have the most important seats in the synagogues. They also love to have the places of honor at dinners. 40 They take over the houses of widows. They say long prayers to show off. God will punish those men very much."

---------------------------------------------------------------------
Text: Main point: Because I say so.
Doesn't look like a vicar!

A man visiting a friend was walking through the friend's village when they passed a scruffily dressed man talking to a lady in the street. 'That was the vicar,' his friend told him.

He was amazed that the vicar would be seen in public dressed as he was, but in fact it was the lady who was the vicar!

Jesus doesn't conform

We easily make assumptions. Many people had very definite ideas about what they expected the Messiah to be like, but Jesus did not conform to any of their stereotypes.

Think, he challenges them: are your ideas really based on God's Word, or on what you think is in it - what other people have been telling you?

Our ideas - based on God's Word?

Does what we believe about God come from trustworthy sources? Do we know his Word for ourselves or do we rely on second hand information?

Are our ideas about what God is like really based on the Bible, or are we influenced by the popular images of God in society around us?

Actions should match deeds

Those people who look most important, Jesus tells us, are not necessarily those on whom we should rely. He also tells us that a good sign is whether their actions match their words (see Matthew 7:15-20).

His own authority may be less showy, but it is really from God, and the signs are there for those who take the trouble to look.

Jane Cornish
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Text: Respond: Think about
What steps could you take to get to know the Bible better?

Think of three, and commit yourself to doing them for a certain length of time, eg the next two weeks.

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Choose from today's activities...


Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14684&activityid=78198
Deeper study: Fine clothes; foul deeds: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14684&activityid=78201
Application: Answer me this one!: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14684&activityid=78202
How holy?: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14684&activityid=78203
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14684&activityid=78204
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14684&activityid=78205
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14684&activityid=77863
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'Questions, questions.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78184
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78185
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
Take your thoughts away from what surrounds you and centre them on divine permutations.


Mark 12:28-34

'"The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."'
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Bible passage: Mark 12:28-34

The Most Important Commandment
28 One of the teachers of the law came and heard the Sadducees arguing. He noticed that Jesus had given the Sadducees a good answer. So he asked him, "Which is the most important of all the commandments?"
29 Jesus answered, "Here is the most important one. Moses said, 'Israel, listen to me. The Lord is our God. The Lord is one. 30 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul. Love him with all your mind and with all your strength.'-(Deuteronomy 6:4,5) 31 And here is the second one. 'Love your neighbor as you love yourself.'-(Leviticus 19:18) There is no commandment more important than these."
32 "You have spoken well, teacher," the man replied. "You are right in saying that God is one. There is no other God but him. 33 To love God with all your heart and mind and strength is very important. So is loving your neighbor as you love yourself. These things are more important than all burnt offerings and sacrifices."
34 Jesus saw that the man had answered wisely. He said to him, "You are not far from God's kingdom."
From then on, no one dared to ask Jesus any more questions.

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Text: Main point: On the same wavelength
Going round in circles

In this age of instant communications we get bombarded by new ideas. What we should eat, how we should exercise, the best way of managing money: there are so many experts competing for our attention and their opinions rarely coincide.

Some people resist them all, unwilling to change their lifestyle. Others jump on every bandwagon, hoping for the thing that will finally transform their life. The trouble is that we can easily end up going round in circles!

What Jesus says.

This questioner seems to be someone who genuinely wants to know what Jesus has to say (v 28). He is interested, but he wants to know more about the ideas that inform Jesus' teaching.

He has a clear idea of what is important to him (v 33), and he wants to see if Jesus shares those values.

Ready to move on?

Sometimes we get too set in our ways. We think we have God 'all sewn up' and fail to hear the new thing he is saying.

Paul warns us against being 'infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming' (Ephesians 4:14).

But it is possible be so rigid that we do not move when God wants to lead us into something new (see Acts 10:9-16). If we really know what is important, it is easier to see which is which.

Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...


Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=78188
Respond: Speak Lord: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=78190
Deeper study: Wise - but still lacking: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=78191
Background: Let's agree on this.: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=78192
Learning love: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=78193
Reflect: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=78194
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=78195
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14683&activityid=77862
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'Questions, questions.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78184
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78185
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=77078

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http://www.wordlive.org Seeing and not seeing

Prayer : Prepare
Retune your spiritual receiver. Tune out the distraction and tune in to the attractor.


Mark 12:18-27

'Now about the dead rising - have you not read in the Book of Moses, in the account of the burning bush, how God said to him, "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob"? He is not the God of the dead, but of the living.'
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Bible passage: Mark 12:18-27

Marriage When the Dead Rise
18 The Sadducees came to Jesus with a question. They do not believe that people rise from the dead. 19 "Teacher," they said, "Moses wrote for us about a man who died and didn't have any children. But he did leave a wife behind. That man's brother must get married to the widow. He must have children to carry on his dead brother's name.
20 "There were seven brothers. The first one got married. He died without leaving any children. 21 The second one got married to the widow. He also died and left no child. It was the same with the third one. 22 In fact, none of the seven left any children. Last of all, the woman died too. 23 When the dead rise, whose wife will she be? All seven of them were married to her."
24 Jesus replied, "You are mistaken because you do not know the Scriptures. And you do not know the power of God. 25 When the dead rise, they won't get married. And their parents won't give them to be married. They will be like the angels in heaven.
26 "What about the dead rising? Haven't you read in the scroll of Moses the story of the bush? God said to Moses, 'I am the God of Abraham. I am the God of Isaac. And I am the God of Jacob.'-(Exodus 3:6) 27 He is not the God of the dead. He is the God of the living. You have made a big mistake!"

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Text: Main point: Seeing and not seeing
Visiting Japan a few years ago, we got lost in the mountains. Not speaking Japanese, not even knowing the script, we could not begin to guess at what the signposts meant. Eventually we had to turn round and go back.

We don't know.

The Sadducees have a similar difficulty with the concept of resurrection. Not knowing the Scriptures or the power of God (v 24), they lack the framework for seeing God at work. Unlike us in Japan, though, they are unaware of their ignorance.

Prepared to change?

They are able to quote the letter of the law to Jesus, but they lack the insight to hear God speaking in the Scriptures because they are not open to be challenged by him.

So they ask Jesus this question to make fun of the whole idea of resurrection, rather than being prepared to be changed by the answer. There are still too many who read the Bible not to hear God but to confirm their own ideas and prejudices.

Trust God

We can't know the details of what resurrection life will be like. But we do know from the Scriptures, and our own experience, about God's faithfulness in the past and his power to act in the present and the future. This knowledge helps us to trust him for this life and the life to come.

Jane Cornish
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Discussion: Respond: Talk together
The Sadducees, wanting to trip Jesus up, asked a difficult question. They really didn't understand, as Jesus pointed out (v 27).

Do you have some genuine, difficult questions about the Bible? Are there things you just don't understand?

Make a list of two or three of these and start investigating. You could.

● get hold of some commentaries and look up the bit that bothers you

● ask a more experienced Christian to say what they think

● ask the minister at your church.


Or, why not talk with others as a group. You could.

● get together with a small group of friends and each share your questions

● search some Bible books or commentaries together

● invite your pastor to meet with you and talk about your questions with them

● pray together about your questions
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Choose from today's activities...


Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78056
Deeper study: Catch me out if you can!: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78059
Expressions of love and intimacy: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78180
Need to know: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78181
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78182
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78183
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=77861
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Choose from this week's activities...

Editorial: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78184
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=78185
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14674&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
Detach yourself from transient things: relationships, possessions and emotions. Align with what endures for ever.


Psalm 118

'Give thanks to the LORD, for he is good; his love endures forever.'
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Bible passage: Psalm 118

Psalm 118
1 Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good.
His faithful love continues forever.
2 Let the people of Israel say,
"His faithful love continues forever."
3 Let the priests of Aaron say,
"His faithful love continues forever."
4 Let those who have respect for the Lord say,
"His faithful love continues forever."
5 When I was in great pain, I cried out to the Lord.
He answered me and set me free.
6 The Lord is with me. I will not be afraid.
What can mere men do to me?
7 The Lord is with me. He helps me.
I will win the battle over my enemies.
8 It is better to go to the Lord for safety
than to trust in mere men.
9 It is better to go to the Lord for safety
than to trust in human leaders.
10 The nations were all around me.
But by the Lord's power I destroyed them.
11 They were around me on every side.
But by the Lord's power I destroyed them.
12 They attacked me like large numbers of bees.
But they died out as quickly as burning thorns.
By the Lord's power I destroyed them.
13 I was pushed back. I was about to be killed.
But the Lord helped me.
14 The Lord gives me strength. I sing about him.
He has saved me.
15 Shouts of joy ring out in the tents of godly people.
They praise him for his help in battle.
They shout, "The Lord's powerful right hand has done mighty things!
16 The Lord's powerful right hand has won the battle!
The Lord's powerful right hand has done mighty things!"
17 I will not die. I will live.
I will talk about what the Lord has done.
18 The Lord has really punished me.
But he didn't let me die.
19 Open the gates of the temple for me.
I will enter and give thanks to the Lord.
20 This is the gate of the Lord.
Only those who do what is right can go through it.
21 Lord, I will give thanks to you, because you answered me.
You have saved me.
22 The stone the builders didn't accept
has become the most important stone of all.
23 The Lord has done it.
It is wonderful in our eyes.
24 The Lord has done it on this day.
Let us be joyful and glad in it.
25 Lord, save us.
Lord, give us success.
26 Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.
From the temple of the Lord we bless you.
27 The Lord is God.
He has made the light of his favor shine on us.
Take branches in your hands. Join in the march on the day of the feast.
March up to the corners of the altar.
28 You are my God, and I will give thanks to you.
You are my God, and I will honor you.
29 Give thanks to the Lord, because he is good.
His faithful love continues forever.
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Text: Main point: A song for the journey
A woman who went to see a Shakespeare play for the first time was less than impressed. 'Really,' she said, 'it was just a lot of quotations strung together'. In the same way, we may know several verses from this psalm without knowing where they come from.

Words for the journey
The psalm would originally have been used by worshippers processing to the temple in Jerusalem. It was a real celebration song. At verse 19 they reach the door, and carry on up to the altar (v 27), with verse 29 shouted out at the end!

Words of purpose
As Jesus rode into Jerusalem the crowds used this psalm to welcome him (v 26), as the one God had promised to send. Jesus reminds them (see Mark 12:10) that verse 22 will also be fulfilled as he is rejected, yet used to fulfil God's purpose.

Words for us
There are so many ways in which we can use the Bible. It tells us the story of how God has worked with his people over the years.

Sometimes one part of the Bible helps us to understand another, just as this psalm helps us to see how Jesus was part of a plan God had always had. It can speak to us about God, about our own life and our relationship with him.

Words of worship
And we can make the words our own in our worship, shouting out to God in praise - rejoicing, mourning, wondering, speaking with worshippers across the ages.

Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...


Deeper study: At the opera: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14673&activityid=78052
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14673&activityid=78053
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14673&activityid=77859
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'On being bullied.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
Credit crunch, negative equity, toxic debt. Leave it to one side and focus on the real value maker.


Mark 12:13-17

'Then Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."'
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Bible passage: Mark 12:13-17

Is It Right to Pay Taxes to Caesar?
13 Later the religious leaders sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus. They wanted to trap him with his own words.
14 They came to him and said, "Teacher, we know you are a man of honor. You don't let others tell you what to do or say. You don't care how important they are. But you teach the way of God truthfully. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn't we?"
But Jesus knew what they were trying to do. So he asked, "Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a silver coin. Let me look at it."
16 They brought the coin.
He asked them, "Whose picture is this? And whose words?"
"Caesar's," they replied.
17 Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And give to God what belongs to God."
They were amazed at him.

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Text: Main point: An image problem
God's or Caesar's?
So, is it really that simple, then? Divide up your life into what belongs to God and what belongs to 'Caesar' - the demands of the world, our boss at work, the government, all the things that press so heavily upon us.

Does what we do on Sunday have any impact on the rest of it?

Whose image?
Let's be clear about what Jesus is saying here. The coin he asks the Pharisees to produce is an offensive item to the Jews (though this does not stop them producing one readily when Jesus asks!).

It bears the image of their oppressor, and any image was against the Jewish law. Round the edge was the inscription 'Son of the Divine Augustus', and on the back 'High Priest'. What could be worse?

We are God's.
This is Caesar's. Let Caesar have it. But if something has God's image, then by the same token it belongs to him.

Each one of us is created in the image of God, and as believers we bear the inscription of the Son of God (see Ephesians 1:13). We are God's, and the whole of our life is his.

Does it show?
Following him will not usually mean revolution: like others we pay our taxes and do our jobs - perhaps with more motivation in fact (see Colossians 3:23)! But in all of it we are to live in a way that honours the one whose name and image we bear.

Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...


Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78031
Respond: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78037
Deeper study: 'Face' - the facts : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78039
Background: No compromise : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78040
Worthy King: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78041
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78042
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78043
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=77857
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'On being bullied.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
Terms and conditions may apply. But there is no small print with Jesus. Prepare to converse.


Mark 12:1-12

'Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place."'
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Bible passage: Mark 12:1-12

Mark 12

The Story of the Renters
1 Jesus began to speak to the people by using stories. He said, "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it. He dug a pit for a winepress. He also built a lookout tower. He rented the vineyard out to some farmers. Then he went away on a journey.
2 "At harvest time he sent a servant to the renters. He told the servant to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they grabbed the servant and beat him up. Then they sent him away with nothing. 4 So the man sent another servant to the renters. They hit this one on the head and treated him badly. 5 The man sent still another servant. The renters killed him. The man sent many others. The renters beat up some of them. They killed the others.
6 "The man had one person left to send. It was his son, and he loved him. He sent him last of all. He said, 'They will respect my son.'
7 "But the renters said to each other, 'This is the one who will receive all the owner's property someday. Come, let's kill him. Then everything will be ours.' 8 So they took him and killed him. They threw him out of the vineyard.
9 "What will the owner of the vineyard do then? He will come and kill those renters. He will give the vineyard to others.
10 "Haven't you read what Scripture says,
" 'The stone the builders didn't accept
has become the most important stone of all.
11 The Lord has done it.
It is wonderful in our eyes'?" -(Psalm 118:22,23)
12 Then the religious leaders looked for a way to arrest Jesus. They knew he had told the story against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him and went away.
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Text: Main point: Inconvenient truth
To cap it all.
Imagine you are building something: you need lots of bricks the same size and shape. Finding one that doesn't fit, you put it aside and carry on.

But you need an arch in your building, and when you get to the top of the arch you find that the standard bricks aren't right - you need a specially shaped one to be the capstone, the very top stone in the arch. And if you haven't got that special shape, if you got rid of it because it wasn't like all the others, you're stuck.

Does it fit?
Jesus definitely does not fit into the plans of the religious establishment. He is simply not the right shape for their convenience, and they would like nothing better than to get rid of him.

But as the parable makes clear (v 7), getting rid of what is inconvenient does not always help.

The 'Jesus nut'
Sometimes when Jesus told a parable he had to explain it to his disciples (eg Mark 4:10), but this one is clear to everyone who hears it. The picture of Israel as God's vineyard was familiar to them all (see Isaiah 5:1-7). They understand the parable well enough, but it does not suit them to change their ways.

Jesus may not fit into our plans. But we can only build our life properly by giving him his proper place in them.

Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...


Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78012
Respond: Speak Lord: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78014
Deeper study: Murder most foul: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78015
Application: Power corrupts : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78016
Holding all together: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78017
Farm Apprentice: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78018
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78021
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=77856
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'On being bullied.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
Follow the leader. But what leader and on whose authority? Still yourself and seek.


Mark 11:27-33

'They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?"'
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Bible passage: Mark 11:27-33

The Authority of Jesus Is Questioned
27 Jesus and his disciples arrived again in Jerusalem. He was walking in the temple courtyards. Then the chief priests came to him. The teachers of the law and the elders came too.
28 "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "Who gave you authority to do this?"
29 Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 30 Was John's baptism from heaven? Or did it come from men? Tell me!"
31 They talked to each other about it. They said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' 32 But what if we say, 'From men'?" They were afraid of the people. Everyone believed that John really was a prophet.
33 So they answered Jesus, "We don't know."
Jesus said, "Then I won't tell you by what authority I am doing these things either."

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Text: Main point: On the spot
Whose authority?
Something has to be said. Jesus has not been in Jerusalem long but his actions cannot be ignored any longer.

Of course the question in verse 28 is not designed to get information. What the priests want is for Jesus to say something incriminating so that they can turn the people against him.

God's or man's?
In fact, it is the priests' own authority that is at stake. Jesus' authority has been plain for all to see from the beginning. The people have recognised it in his teaching (see 1:22) and in his healing (2:10).

Here was something new, quite different from anything they had seen in their leaders before. But as those leaders try to seize the initiative, again Jesus turns the question round to expose the hollowness of their position.

Leave it to God!
Often we can feel that we are put on the spot when we are asked questions about our faith, some of which are obviously hostile. There is not always a 'right answer' that will convince everyone of the truth of the gospel.

Be prepared to say what you believe, and then leave the result in God's hands!

Jane Cornish
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Prayer : Prayer points
'Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone' (Colossians 4:6).

Difficult questions? How will you respond if people ask about your faith today?

● Pray through your day, thinking about those with whom you might speak. Use the words of Colossians 4:6 as a prayer, thinking about: conversations with family, friends, work meetings, telephone conversations, emails.

● Pray that God will give you the words you need.

● Ask God to help you to rely on him as you speak - leave the results with him.
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Choose from today's activities...


Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78000
Deeper study: Divide and conquer: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78003
Jeremy Paxman meets his match! : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78004
Surrender all: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78005
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78006
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78007
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=77855
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'On being bullied.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
It's a new week, a new day. What are you expecting? Stop, look, listen.


Mark 11:1-11

'As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here."'
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Bible passage: Mark 11:1-11

Mark 11

Jesus Enters Jerusalem
1 As they all approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent out two of his disciples. 2 He said to them, "Go to the village ahead of you. Just as you enter it, you will find a donkey's colt tied there. No one has ever ridden it. Untie it and bring it here. 3 Someone may ask you, 'Why are you doing this?' If so, say, 'The Lord needs it. But he will send it back here soon.' "
4 So they left. They found a colt out in the street. It was tied at a doorway. They untied it. 5 Some people standing there asked, "What are you doing? Why are you untying that colt?" 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to. So the people let them go.
7 They brought the colt to Jesus. They threw their coats over it. Then he sat on it.
8 Many people spread their coats on the road. Others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those in front and those in back shouted,
"Hosanna!"
"Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" -(Psalm 118:25,26)
10 "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!"
"Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything. But it was already late. So he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.

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Text: Main point: High expectations
Sometimes we know we are witnessing history. Through television we have the opportunity to see historic events live, but only occasionally can we say, 'I was there'. The crowds who saw Jesus enter Jerusalem knew that they were eyewitnesses to something truly momentous.

A royal welcome

About five hundred years before this event the prophet Zechariah had written:

'Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey ...' (Zechariah 9:9).

Here was a clear sign, for those who had not been sure, that Jesus was the one they had been waiting for. The palm branches, the cloaks and the shouting ('hosanna' means 'save') are a royal welcome for the king who would set them free.

Not what you expect?

Four days later a crowd would be shouting equally enthusiastically for his death. As we follow the story of those days in our readings we will see something of what happened to make them respond like that.

But as we come to Jesus today, as we acknowledge that he is our king who will save us, it is worth reflecting that his ways may not be those that we want or expect.

Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...


Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77975
Respond: Praise and worship: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77979
Deeper study: The divine imperative: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77980
Application: Size matters : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77981
Worthy of worship: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77982
The colt's tale: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77983
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77984
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77853
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Choose from this week's activities...

Editorial: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
Sometimes it is good to repeat the past. Forgetting it and moving on isn't always the right action.

Psalm 78:1-13

'My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth with a parable; I will teach you lessons from the past'
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Bible passage: Psalm 78:1-13

Psalm 78

A maskil of Asaph.
1 My people, listen to my teaching.
Pay attention to what I say.
2 I will open my mouth and tell stories.
I will speak about things that were hidden.
They happened a long time ago.
3 We have heard about them and we know them.
Our people who lived before us have told us about them.
4 We won't hide them from our children.
We will tell them to those who live after us.
We will tell them about what the Lord has done that is worthy of praise.
We will talk about his power and the wonderful things he has done.
5 He gave laws to the people of Jacob.
He gave Israel their law.
He commanded our people who lived before us
to teach his laws to their children.
6 Then those born later would know his laws.
Even their children yet to come would know them.
And they in turn would tell their children.
7 Then they would put their trust in God.
They would not forget what he had done.
They would obey his commands.
8 They would not be like their people who lived before them.
Those people were stubborn. They refused to obey God.
Their hearts were not true to him.
Their spirits were not faithful to him.
9 The soldiers of Ephraim were armed with bows.
But they ran away on the day of battle.
10 They didn't keep the covenant God had made with them.
They refused to live by his law.
11 They forgot what he had done.
They didn't remember the wonders he had shown them.
12 He did miracles right in front of our people who lived long ago.
At that time they were living in the land of Egypt, in the area of Zoan.
13 God parted the Red Sea and led them through it.
He made the water stand up like a wall.
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Text: Main point: Pass it on
Some of you might remember chanting the multiplication tables in unison, or learning a song by constant repetition.

Tell others.

This psalm was written for very much the same purpose. For a population who were largely illiterate, 'singing history' was the best way of learning.

'Hear my teaching,' says the psalmist (v 1), remember 'what our ancestors have told us' (v 3). Pass it on to your children (v 4), he exhorts. In this way the generations learned of how God had brought their ancestors out of Egypt and moulded them into a nation.

Obey God's laws

Before the account of what God has done, which starts at verse 13 (and continues for the rest of the 72 verses), the psalmist urges obedience to God's laws - obedience that comes from gratitude to God because of his mighty deeds of deliverance (v 7).

'Faith comes from hearing' (Romans 10:17)

Telling someone face-to-face about your own experience of God's help and guidance in your life can be just as powerful as preaching. It doesn't have to be 'heavy' or over-earnest evangelism, just a chat over a drink or when you bump into someone you haven't seen for a while.

We owe it to God to tell others of his 'power, and the wonders he has done' (v 4b).

Gillian Peall
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Choose from today's activities...


Deeper study: Once upon a time.: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14664&activityid=77970
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14664&activityid=77971
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14664&activityid=77852
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'We don't do God': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77900
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77901
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77078

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Prayer : Prepare
Again, ask yourself what you really need, then seek God's perspective this day.


John 6:25-59

'Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."'
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Bible passage: John 6:25-59

Jesus Is the Bread of Life
25 They found him on the other side of the lake. They asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"
26 Jesus answered, "What I'm about to tell you is true. You are not looking for me because you saw miraculous signs. You are looking for me because you ate the loaves until you were full. 27 Do not work for food that spoils. Work for food that lasts forever. That is the food the Son of Man will give you. God the Father has put his seal of approval on him."
28 Then they asked him, "What does God want from us? What works does he want us to do?"
29 Jesus answered, "God's work is to believe in the One he has sent."
30 So they asked him, "What miraculous sign will you give us? What will you do so we can see it and believe you? 31 Long ago our people ate the manna in the desert. It is written in Scripture, 'The Lord gave them bread from heaven to eat.' "-(Exodus 16:4; Nehemiah 9:15; Psalm 78:24,25)
32 Jesus said to them, "What I'm about to tell you is true. It is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven. It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 The bread of God is the One who comes down from heaven. He gives life to the world."
34 "Sir," they said, "give us this bread from now on."
35 Then Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever go hungry. And no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty.
36 "But it is just as I told you. You have seen me, and you still do not believe. 37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me. I will never send away anyone who comes to me.
38 "I have not come down from heaven to do what I want to do. I have come to do what the One who sent me wants me to do. 39 The One who sent me doesn't want me to lose anyone he has given me. He wants me to raise them up on the last day. 40 My Father wants all who look to the Son and believe in him to have eternal life. I will raise them up on the last day."
41 Then the Jews began to complain about Jesus. That was because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph? Don't we know his father and mother? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
43 "Stop complaining among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me brings him. Then I will raise him up on the last day.
45 "It is written in the Prophets, 'God will teach all of them.'-(Isaiah 54:13) Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.
46 "No one has seen the Father except the One who has come from God. Only he has seen the Father. 47 What I'm about to tell you is true. Everyone who believes has life forever.
48 "I am the bread of life. 49 Long ago your people ate the manna in the desert, and they still died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven. A person can eat it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Everyone who eats some of this bread will live forever. The bread is my body. I will give it for the life of the world."
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves. They said, "How can this man give us his body to eat?"
53 Jesus said to them, "What I'm about to tell you is true. You must eat the Son of Man's body and drink his blood. If you don't, you have no life in you. 54 Anyone who eats my body and drinks my blood has eternal life. I will raise him up on the last day.
55 "My body is real food. My blood is real drink. 56 Anyone who eats my body and drinks my blood remains in me. And I remain in him.
57 "The living Father sent me, and I live because of him. In the same way, those who feed on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Long ago your people ate manna and died. But those who feed on this bread will live forever."
59 He said this while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
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Text: Main point: Our daily bread
Jesus - our daily bread

The disciples, like all Jewish men, would have been well-versed in the exodus story and would know about the manna God sent to the Israelites (see Exodus 16:14-23). Jesus goes further - bread is essential to physical life, but he is the bread that is essential for our spiritual life, and the life we will have in eternity.

Jesus - our sustenance.

What Jesus is saying is hard for the Jews, and for us, to grasp. He himself is the bread; we must feed on him (vs 50,51,54-57). The idea of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus would have been abhorrent and shocking to the Jews, and is still very strange to us.

But unless we take Jesus as our sustenance, read or hear his words, take them into our very being, measure everything against them, and learn to live entirely his way, we will certainly starve spiritually, and our mental and physical health can be affected.

for all eternity

Medical practitioners everywhere now realise that our bodies are not just a collection of organs, bones and muscles. Research has shown that our mental and spiritual health is just as important for our complete well-being.

The manna God sent the Israelites fed them a day at a time. Jesus is our nourishment day by day - and for all eternity.

Gillian Peall
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Choose from today's activities...


Deeper study: How to be his: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14661&activityid=77961
Jesus, the bread of life: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14661&activityid=77962
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14661&activityid=77850
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Choose from this week's activities...

Welcome: 'We don't do God': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77900
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77901
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77078

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We have been doing major things on the servers over the last few days – which are now even more powerful (and therefore quicker for you to use). However this just may have resulted in things that you deleted after 10th October being restored. If they were simply deleted please just delete them again. If they are duplicated on the site please just email me and we will do it for you.

Many many apologies for the site being down of a while yesterday afternoon. Please let me know if you would like a hand re-entering data entered between 9 and 11 am.

We added have another hot template colour – Satsuma. It is a summer orange!

You can now reorder second page listings alphabetically and in data entry order – both in forward and reverse! Most useful. Jst go to the top left icon on the second page and just select the ordering that you need.

Our servers are in Gloucester and although they kept running through the flooding (the facility has its own generator) there was a break in communications out of the city. This resulted in some downtime. Many apologies all.

It is worth recording that the data on 2day is backed up on servers at two separate locations of which is in America - so it is extremely unlikely that any data that you have put on your site will ever be lost through equipment failure.

However more apologies for Monday.

Spring Green Template - changover on Monday.

Enjoy!

To find our basic and full webmaster manuals go to the bottom of Best of the Web > User and Wedmaster Manuals

However to get started quickly skim through this!

1. First login at webmaster level. You can both use and edit your site logged on. Great for checking and a quick change.

2. Go to the exact point or area that you want to edit and click the edit icon nearest it. Go to the options shown. To edit inside pages (sections) click through to them and then edit them.

3. If the option you need is not there go up! e.g. If you want to move a section, go up to the icon by the column. If you want adjust a column, go right up to the overall heading (Local / Favourites etc)

4. Not all the screens close when the operation is finished - but we are working on it. (e.g. You may need to close the screen yourself and refresh)

5. You can login at the second page level. (In fact you will need to.) Don't forget that you can add images to second pages.

6. If you are not a great photographer or you do not want to spend time changing your picture just link to the Master picture. Your site will look fantastic.


THINGS TO AVOID!
1. Always create your own areas. Never try and add to the global template ones (like LOCAL INFORMATION etc) which come with the site.
You can delete them but not add to them.

2. You are welcome to import message boards from other sites but only add to ones that you have created on your site.

3. Please avoid using inverted commas (") on the second pages.


P.S. Do support the site. If you have advertising on it it would be just great if you could use it! Every little helps!