Offering to give away the stuff I don't want to take with me to Scotland has been interesting.  Requests have come in fairly thick and fairly fast, ranging from the very diffident 'if it's not too much bother and if you still have it might I be considered' to 'so-and-so passed on your list to me and here's my shopping list for a few hundred quid's worth of stuff.'  Interesting to see the attitudes of those making requests, and interesting to be alert to my own responses to them: from disgruntlement that the list had been passed outside the intended 'circle' without anyone asking me ("how dare they offer people MY stuff withut asking me?!") to humbling repsonses ("you've saved my life I've been searching for one of those for AGES").

At the end of the day, I am encouraged that one or two HMF churches have been able to have bits and bobs for events they are planning - holiday at home in Jamaica in Nottinghamshire for example - some Brownies, GB and BB some craft equipment, a new AOG Sunday School some basics, a toddler group some cushions, a Methodist children's worker some basic stuff and a youth group some games stuff.  Seems like good Kingdom redistribution to me!

Yesterday I went to visit the Beth Shalom Holocaust Memorial centre in Nottinghamshire.  Finding it is not trivial - there are exactly two brown signs for it, right at the entrance.  Maybe it is appropriate that, located in the sticks, you have to know where it is to find it... the friend I went with had been three times before and we still got lost!

The place is very quiet, and has beautiful gardens with rose bushes planted in memory of survivors and victims of the Sho'ah, along with a massive pebble cairn to remember the child victims of this, and other, genocides - Rwanda, Kosova, Cambodia...

Having visited many other exhibitions on this theme, and having researched it as part of my undergraduate work on political theology and Biblical studies (as one does!) there was no shock value.  Indeed, to be fair, the exhibition does work in that way, most of it is understated - a single recovered shoe is more poignant than enormous cases of them in other exhibitions.

The Journey is a wonderful interactive exhibition on Kindertransport, complete with the 'aroma' of chicken soup in the fanily dining room.  A fascinating means of engaging with history using fictive characters alongside genuine artefacts and oral history.  It was interesting to compare the experiences of the kindertransport children to those of (at least some) English wartime refugees (this isn't done in the exhibition, rather in my mind).

An important resource for Jews and Minims (honourable/righteous or otherwise) alike.  Well worth a visit if you're in the area

Today my copy of the book to which I contributed arrived, and I looked up my bit... which had been completely re-written!  A salutary lesson methinks.  The title and list of further reading matched, and most of what it said I agreed with... but it had changed dramatically since it left my computer a year ago, if you put the two side by side you'll see what I mean.  Overall I am still chuffed the entry is in, and think it's positive to have the entry attributed to me...

So, you can check out the authorised version in the book, or read the Q-equivalent here!

For the record, in case anyone wonders, whilst 'applied theology' is a form of 'practical theology' the two are not, in my view, entirely synonymous.

I just discovered, via Andy Goodliff's Baptist history and thought website, that my entry on Practical Theology has been included in the new Dictionary of European Baptist Life and Thought ed. John Briggs, published by Paternoster (Authentic) price £24.99.  Finding my humble name among those of the great and good was a powerful ego-boost!  At this rate I'll soon have to join those with little lists of publications on the side of their blogs... or not!  Somehow listing my contributions to the world of reliability of safety critical hardware and software or maintenance optimisation schemes for power stations alongside those on the ordination of woman, small church life and practical theology just sounds too nutty for words! Fun, but nutty.

Suffice to say I have now ordered a copy of the book to grace my shelves and make me feel important!!!

My early morning alarm call today came courtesy of a large crane manoeuvring itself onto the site next door.  It has arrived to lift the roof trusses onto the first of the new houses, a process that is fascinating to watch (well I  think it is!).  Once the first one was in place - a process that took quite a bit of time to achieve - it seems to be more-or-less plain sailing with successive trusses being lifted and located in a couple of minutes.

This little pair of semis will have, by the looks of things, around 20 roof trusses spanning them, compared with the 5 that served the enormous barn that was the chapel.  Victorians are usually credited with over-engineering - think of the bridges they built that have few problems with contemporary traffic, compared with those built in the 50's and 60's - but not it seems on church roof structures.

As I have watched the process, I found myself wondering how they got the trusses onto the old chapel - no crane, no hydraulics, and massive spans to be bridged.  It serves to add to the wonder of ancient cathedrals that they were built without the kind of equipment we now take for granted... and it makes me wonder how many people were killed or permanently maimed in their construction.

It's good to see the new houses growing quickly, to see future homes taking shape and to see the land preparing to serve its local community in ways our forebears wouldn't have imagined!