Neil McCleod blesses new Olympic Tsar

I thought Neil was busy with ICP but it seems he is part of the commissioning team for the new Olympic Tsar...

Olly Mears wins Vicar X Factor

"Three cheers for Olly Mears. The flock lucky enough to have him as their shepherd will be blessed indeed." is the concluding comment of Amanda Lynch's article on Trinity college's preaching teams in The Times, January 26, 2008. The whole team gets a mention, as does the Rev Symmons.

To read the whole article go to this link.

Archbishop delivers ‘Holy Grail’ to Pope

This was the headline from the Yorkpress news today. I was very excited - after all it would be remarkable if, after Indiana Jones et al couldn't find it, the grail had been in York all this time and the Arch- Bishop had decided to hand it over to Rome for verification. Unfortunately it turns out that this holy grail is of the beer variety, brewed in Yorkshire at the Black Sheep brewery. What a laugh the Bishops must have had as the cracked open the crate. The mental image of the moment is forming in my mind as I write.

Eco group - report back

As you may know Trinity students and staff have formed an eco-group to discuss ecological matters and how we might live more gently here at college. The purpose of the group is to spend prayerful time talking about what we already do and what we might do to be greener. The point of this is to be more intentional about the way we live, to encourage the community to consider living more consciously – “of our environment, of our fellow global citizens, of our own health, of our presence on this good earth – we might start to become a real force for good.” (see living Generously)

The group is open to everyone, it will meet every two or three weeks, meetings will be approx 1hr and you don’t have to be a hippie to attend. Present at the first meeting was John Bimson, Emma Bray, Ian Cook, Kenneth Cross, Ellen Loudon
We had apologies from: David Carrington and Catherine Gillham. A number of associated interested parties are also involved in the group: Adrian McConnaughie, Fran Brealey, Emma Ineson, Andrew Lucas, Marion Williams, Gordon Wenham.

Being good Anglicans we began in prayer. After brief discussion we decided that we would break the Trinity tradition of printing everything off and putting paper notes in pigeon holes and try to work electronically using email. We felt that our initial prime purpose was to take realistic practical steps to make the College more eco-friendly in the ways outlined below. However, medium and long term goals may include a wider education programme, exploring environmental spirituality, bringing in people from A Rocha and undertaking a full environmental audit with recommendations of the whole college, staff, students and premises. At this stage, it is best to do a few small things well and go from there.

We talked round a number of issues which we felt were attainable as short term goals:

• Encourage replacing endless paper memo's and information with e-mail.
• Explore 'green living' in college houses.
• Review the need for a soft drinks dispenser, another fridge for a few cans.
• Use 'Wholly Trinity' as a medium for eco-awareness
• Kitchen waste to be explored, and what and how we eat - this is already in process (see below)
• Paper/cardboard and other recycling awareness to be raised not just in Carter but throughout college
• Develop better publicity and look to developing policies.
• Lighting use of low energy bulbs and turning off unneccesary lights
• Produce a personal Carbon Footprint test
• Transport and car sharing

One of the issues raised at the Principals forum was that of food waste. Catherine Gillham reported virtually to the group (from her room in Carter!) on how these issues might be addressed:

Food portions (both Fran and I have talked to Henry about reducing amounts sent to the tables in trays) - in essence this sounds simpler than it is as Henry generally has to order meat etc often over a week in advance - meaning that he is constantly guessing the numbers who'll be here as most people haven't signed up so early. And, I'm not sure if it is practical to get people to sign up so soon - still thinking about that one!

Composting - Dave and Nigel Terry were in discussion about where a larger compost heap might go (Dave currently has 3 already on site for garden waste and is happy to have another for food etc), and Dave is checking exactly what can be composted. This might mean that part of the responsibility for the food servers at meals to sort food into three bins (eek!) - one for compost waste, one for non-compost food waste, and one for other rubbish ( e.g. marge containers etc)... and then possibly to take the compost waste to the site (it won't be far from the kitchen).

Council collection - Fran is chasing up cost for collection of some food waste alongside other recycling.

Squirrel Origami

For those of you who would like to have a go at folding your latest copy of Wholly Trinity into the shape of a Squirrel here is the squirrel link The first person to present their folding to Ellen or Liz gets a prize!

GOVERNMENT HEALTH WARNING - don't swallow gum

thanks for the advice Kenneth!

Brentry context - Christmas review

If you missed Brentry Context group's offering to the Christmas review or you might like to see it again...well, here it is

Trinity Blogs

Two new links to Trinity blogs.

Philip Cochrane (who left June 2007 and was student president) has recently started a blog, "Curate's Egg - Reflections on contemporary life, politics and Christianity by a Church of England curate who used to be involved in politics. Like the egg, I hope this blog will be good in parts!


Jonathan Swales has a theological blog "The Theological Ramblings of an Anglican Ordinand"

Both blogs are very interesting. Do take a look.

If you have a blog please let me know...

new year - slow start

Sorry to be so slow about posting anything useful, funny or dumb. Blogging is an art and as such needs time to ferment and distill. So, here goes...a sparkling wine full of useful tit-bits (steady Geoff!).

If you are an Anglican blogger you may be interested in joining this little on-line group which has been set up by Dave Walker (AKA the Cartoon Church). Anglican-bloggers hopes to draw together some disparate blogging addicts into a tidy pile. I joined and so far nothing terrible has happened to me...

Those of you Anglicans who are busy emerging might also like to join Anglimergent (yes it's really true a group is there for you). I was in a joining mood so joined that one too. Again nothing bad has happened and I don't feel I have compromised by joining both Christian blogging networks at the same time. Yet.

If anyone has any useful websites they would like to recommend do pass on info and any details and I will post them up here.

Happy new year!