School trips and Retreats

In school at the moment I am in the process of organising 3 different trips. A trip to Flame Congress next weekend, a Yr 10 Retreat to St Vincent’s Whitstable, and a trip to see the NFL Game at Wembley Stadium in October.

This year the school has become a “cash-less” school will all payments in school made through a form of electronic payment. There have been a few teething problems in getting the system sorted and easily applicable to all payment to the school, but I think it is fully up and running at the moment. The school is also a “paper-less” school when it comes to letters to parents with all communication being carried out via an email/online system. The overall system has some positives and negatives:

The trip to the Flame Congress has proved to be one with positives and negatives. As it is a new event the desription is hard to convey through a simple letter and I know many parents assumed that their pupils would not be interested and did not tell them about the trip. Each pupil who was spoken to in person has shown a great enthusiasm to attend but at least half of those are “still waiting for their parents” to pay via the payment system. It will be a wonderful day, but it has taken a lot of verbal chasing and reminding to get the numbers required. It has also meant that the payments and sign ups have been dealt with centrally so I don’t have to worry about pupils handing me forms and payments at all times of day.

In contrast the Yr 10 Retreat to the SCYS at St Vincent’s , Whitstable; and the NFL Game at Wembley Stadium are proving very popular. Both of these events have happened over 4 times before, and the word of mouth from pupils has been enough for the sign up by pupils to be really good. I expect both to be sold out this week.

I am still learning the best ways round the systems – but the lesson seems to be that new events will need more of a push and if the overall demand is there amongst the pupils the system is not used as an excuse at all.

Snowy Suberbowl Sunday

Overnight last night we had around 6 inches of snow in Coulsdon. In August last year I bought a snow shovel after heavy snow the previous too years and today gave me the opportunity to use it!

I worked for half an hour clearing the steps and path to the house, and then cleared the snow away from around the car and gave myself enough room to turn the car around.

I made it to tesco and dud the weekly shop and headed back home. Getting near to the house the road was blocked by another car who was unable to ascend the hill to the house. I let him reverse past me and had a go myself – but only succeeded in getting the car stuck in the snow!

I prioritised my shopping bags and carried the essentials the final walk home. Where my lovely cleared parking space was waiting for the car. I have now learned that all the snow shovels in the world will not help with getting the car back up a snowy icy hill.

Tonight is Superbowl Sunday – for those that don’t know – New England Patriots (my team) are playing the New York Giants. I will as always be staying up for the game. Then getting up extra early so I can get the train to school!

The growth of the NFL in the UK, the International Series games, and the banter around school have really got me excited about tonight. I am as emotionally involved with the game as I have been for any sports fixture that I can remember.

As any sports fan knows the worst feeling you can have is the loyalty, faith and hope you have in your team combined with knowing that statistically and player skills show that the other team should win. I have that here. The Giants have the edge with the running backs, the receivers, the defensive line and the defensive secondary, and the Patriots most valuable offensive weapon is carrying an injury.

Yet I have a history with the Patriots, I want them to win, and I have faith in Belicheck and Brady to pull if a miracle which will see them go down in history. Make no mistake I am not exaggerating – I really feel it will take a miracle – a Belicheck genius plan and a trade mark Brady perfect performance to pull this game off.

If they can pull it off it will make the early rise, the trudge through the snow, the train journey, and the 2 hours sleep completely worth it.

Go Pats Go!

The rise and fall of Tebow

Happy New Year to you all. My apologies for the extended blogging break – no real excuses but hope to return with a minimum of 1 post a week in 2012.

 

Through my absence Tim Tebow has risen to new heights and brought the NFL with him. His raw playing style, his work ethic, his emotion, and his overtly Christian nature make him appealing to most people, (provided your team isn’t playing him at the time). The Tebow bandwagon has been rolling with big media hype in North America and gradually spreading to the NFL-ites over here.

 

The NFLuk biweekly podcast frequently debates about whether their are driving the Tebow bus, it is all over social media especially Youtube and Facebook, you criticise Tebow on twitter at your peril, and I have even have pupils in school doing “a Tebow” in the playground. I used the numerous simplistic arguments in the american media about whether God answered Tebow’s prayers last week in my A2 Philosophy of Religion lesson to debate Omnipotence,  Omniscience and Free Will and the example really helped the class.

 

For me the real evidence of his influence came early this morning.  I had watched the 1st half of Saints vs 49’ers game and then Sky+ the rest of that game and the Broncos vs New England game. I then intended to watch the games whilst doing the housework today. This morning I went to read the blogs in my feedreader – I avoided the news blogs, I avoided twitter and facebook all to try and not learn the result. Unfortunately, it was all in vain. The result was led on by not one, but two religious blogs I read. Such is the way off things.

 

Tebow’s run for this year is at an end, however, as one of my A2 pupils pointed out “whether God answers his prayers or not doesn’t really matter, what he has done is make it easier for those in the public eye to show their faith, and he will get rewarded for that in the end”.

 

I wish him luck with that in the furture, but for now Tom Brady and the Patriots rumble on. Following on from the awesome Saints vs 49’ers game the Patriots win, whilst pleasing for this Pats fan, was a bit underwhelming. But roll on Houston or Baltimore – both of whom have me very worried.

 

Two Religious Blogs who mentioned Tim Tebow this week, and are very good reads are Deacon’s Bench and WDTPRS. Deacon Greg and Fr Z write some really good stuff on there.

Enjoyable Weekend

I had a very busy time last weekend, but it was also very enjoyable.

Saturday
On Saturday I led a retreat to the Emmaus Centre in West Wickham for the Confirmation Group of St Matthias Church. Some of the boys go to my school so I was familiar with them, but I knew none of the girls and was not involved with their confirmation programme apart from the retreat day. The main goal of the day was for them to start taking responsibility for their faith.

I had divided the day into three parts to enable them to develop their understanding of:

• Who God is
• Why does God allow evil and suffering to happen
• How, why and when to pray

I prepared different thought tasks, creative tasks and group work for each section and mixed in a few short (5 minute), video clips. We ended the day with prayer and meditation in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament in the Chapel.

The programme was well recieved and I was struck by the enthusiasm and positivity of the candidates. They were engaged, they showed maturity and thought, and they wanted to become adults in the Church. It left me feeling moved by their faith and hopeful for the future of the Church.

 

Sunday

On Sunday I took a group of pupils from school to the NFL game at Wembley Stadium between the Chicago Bears and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. This was the 4th time I had taken a school trip to one of the games, but the 1st time I had driven them up in the minibus, as we had gone by coach on previous years.

It was  a long day. We left at 10am and were back at school at about 11.15pm – however, none of it dragged.

When we arived we went to the pre-game entertainment – the Tailgate Party. This takes up the entire green car park at Wembley – and is filled with skill tests, computer games, exhibitions, merchandise, competitions and shows. The school has built up a tradition on this trip of people winning things.

• 1st year – Year 8 pupil won/was given a signed Cheerleader Calendar by one of the cheerleaders, – to much jealousy from the older pupils.
• 2nd year – Year 8 pupil was given a game ball by Tom Brady and Bill Bellicheck
• 3rd year – Year 11 pupil won a brand new pair of Reebok Trainers – 3 weeks prior to their release
• 4th year – My turn!

I was one of the volunteers selected to go up on stage (a mock football pitch) to take part in a competition. You stood at the 20 yard line and threw the ball to hit the cross bar of the goal posts. I missed my first throw, (although my pupils said I grazed the bar), and then hit the cross bar on 4 of my next 5 throws. I won! My “mad skills” won me a replica game ball – and I think the respect of the pupils watching. It was an amazing feeling.

After the tailgate party we went into the stadium. Prior to the match we saw the Goo Goo Dolls perform, and Catherine Jenkins sang the National Anthem.

The match itself was slow to get going – Chicago – the away team- built quite a lead by the half. There were some great plays – but the game was overshadowed at times – 2 pitch invasions – 1 human and 1 squirrel!, and a mexican wave. Once the game picked up its momentum the crowd really got into it and the atmosphere was electric.

The atmosphere was made even better as our school group ended up sitting next to the Chicago Bears Drumline (who play at all Bears home games), and as most of us were supporting the Bucs as the “home” team we got quite a banter going. The Drumline were really good sports with the pupils – shown at the end of the game by the pupils high 5ing them and shaking hands despite the Bears win.

 

Half term so far as helped me enjoy the three sides to my life:

• Confirmation Retreat – Chaplaincy
• NFL at Wembley – Sports
• Half term at home with Hazel – Family

1st Day of Blogging

I spent more time this afternoon tweaking my blog than I had planned -I had to get it *just right*. I think I have it sorted now, but can’t leave the bins, ironing and dinner much longer.

Have had a lovely day. The weather has been so good – we have had the back doors open with both of us in the craft room. Hazel knitting to a mixture of Amanda Palmer music and Lie To Me episodes; and me working on the blog and compiling the attendance list for Friday’s Table Tennis trials.

Each Friday afternoon I run the school table tennis club and it is great fun. Last Friday, as it was the first meeting of the year, and because we have a borough tournament coming up, we held school trials. I was amazed that 65 pupils turned up! and they all were patient for their chance to get “rated” and then waiting for their time to play. It was hectic but the good nature of the pupils made it fun.

I enjoyed Mass this morning – Fr Joe’s homily was spot on as usual and really gave a new perspective to quite a familiar parable, and we have such a lovely choir with talented musicians, altos, and sopranos, but it was quite a challenge being the only tenor and having no basses – especially for the recessional hymn, Christ Be Our Light, the soprano harmony is so beautiful and powerful.

I also watch the Blu-Ray of “Monsters” the Gareth Edwards film – it was really thought provoking and enjoyable. It was about time I watched it, it’s been lying on the dining table for about 3 weeks after being sent it by LoveFilm.

I am off to do those jobs that I mentioned earlier, fingers crossed for a New England Patriots victory later although it will be a tough trip to the black hole with the Raiders on a real resurgence of late. If they do it will be 3 of 3 for my teams this weekend, with England Rugby and Liverpool FC also winning (Kenny Daglish can’t complaining about being on the wrong end of refereeing decisions for a few more weeks).

I wonder if my blogging renewal has been inspired by the first meeting of the Guild of Blessed Titus Brandsma … probably.

Hello world!

Welcome to my blog.

I am a Husband, Teacher, and Lay Chaplain. I am also a Liverpool FC, New England Patriots and Sci Fi fan.

This is my 4th attempt at blogging. I hope it will be more successful than my previous attempts.