09/26/11

Morrissons, Fairtrade & Ethical Practices

So it was the turn of Morrissons to receive an e-mail from me. Much like Sainsburys the response came quickly (unlike McDonalds who I e-mailed a month ago asking why they have Fairtrade coffee in Switzerland but not the UK and have had no reply)

Here’s what I e-mailed:

Hello, When shopping in your store today in Brough and looking for hot chocolate I noticed that you are now the only supermarket not to have made their own brand hot chocolate Fairtrade. Is this something you are working on in the future? What is your policy towards making more of your own brand products Fairtrade? Thank You

And here’s their reply…

Thank you for contacting us regarding the Fair Trade products which we sell in our stores.

Morrisons were among the first major food retailers to sell fairly traded goods in 1994, including those of our own Morrisons label. Our current range includes tea, coffee, chocolate and bananas, and I am delighted to report that the company actually increased the number of Fair Trade products in the range by 27% in 2008, and we are continuing our efforts to expand the range further. For example, we have recently introduced 10 varieties of own-brand Fair Trade Ground Coffee. We also offer Fair Trade tea and coffee in our customer cafés.

In addition to selling ‘Fair Trade’ we have also have implemented our own Ethical Trading Code with suppliers in countries such as Asia and South America. The Code is designed to protect the rights of employees and covers areas such as employment being freely chosen, freedom of association, safety and hygiene, payment of living wages, working hours, and the prevention of discrimination and inhumane treatment. We were also the first major UK retailer to implement an inspection initiative with Fair Working Conditions (FWC), an organisation promoting, measuring and formally accrediting best employment practices worldwide.

In conclusion, we are firm supporters of fair-trade and are currently offering our support wherever possible.

Thank you once again for taking the time and trouble to write to us. We find feedback on such issues immensely valuable in our efforts to improve the products and services we offer.

For further information regarding our policy on Ethical Trading or any of our current policies please visit our website link http://www.morrisons.co.uk/Corporate/Corporate-Responsibility-2011/Policy-Guidance/ and there you will find our Policy Guidance list. From there you can also down load our full CR review which you may find useful.

The link they posted makes interesting reading…looks like they’re heading in the right direction.

09/17/11

Windows 8 – Developer Preview

So for the last few years I’ve been sold to the world of Apple…not because of the hype but because it works. Despite what others say the operating system (once you adapt) is far easier to use and far more logical than Windows and especially for the web-design, music creation, video editing, extreme multi-tasking and variety of things I do on my laptop my Mac beats Windows every time…add into the mix that I restart maybe once every 2 weeks and have never re-installed my operating system compared to a daily restart from Windows and at least a re-install every year or so I have to say I like my Mac a lot.

That said because of the amount of Windows users I know it’s inevitable that I will at some point be sat on the latest version of Windows as I fix something for someone. I left Windows at XP and so it’s took me a while to get used to Vista and in turn 7 when I’ve had to use them mostly because things have had their names changed for the hell of it (seriously Microsoft…why re-name everything in control panal?).

So when Microsoft announced the release of a developer preview of Windows 8 I thought I’d download it and install it as a virtual machine on my Mac and I’m really not impressed.

When Apple released OS X Lion in July they talked about it taking the features that worked from their mobile devices and bring them to Mac and generally features like opening a programme where you left it, Mission Control and the optional ‘Launchpad‘ are very nice and good features to move from mobile to computer.

However Microsoft’s attempt is a bit of a fail!

The installation for Windows 8 is quick and easy and that’s always nice however it all goes downhill from there. When you first login you are greeted with the screen pictured at the top of this blog. On one hand it looks modern and clean but on the other it looks like someone’s simply played around with squares and text boxes in publisher!

Then you come to the desktop (pictured right) which looks pretty much the same as Windows 7 (ignore the black bar at the top it’s from my virtual machine programme and not Windows 8). The only real change is the shape of the start bar which has lots it’s circular shape and dimensions added in Vista and gone back to being square and flat…which is a shame cos the circular bit was probably the nicest change that came in with Vista!

The only other change is to the Windows which look more like the style of Microsoft Office which is nice because it keeps things consistant.

However here is the real reason I think Windows 8 is the worst operating system I’ve ever used…

Windows is known for being the most widely used operating system. Minus a few name changes you can go between versions of Windows no problem. Even after not using a Windows OS for 3 years I can stil go on the latest version and understand how to use it…but not so with Windows 8.

The new programs are difficult to exit (I have no idea how to close the control panal or twitter apps I’ve opened) and I had to google how to shut down!

The shut down process in Windows 8 requires hovering in the big screen start menu until a start thing appears and clicking through 2 menus to find the word ‘Shut Down’….why? Why not just put a ‘Shut Down’ button in the start menu? If I have to google how to shut down a computer when I’ve used them my whole like how is this going to be accessible to someone who isn’t?

Windows 8 is awful. Whilst I know this is a developer preview and therefore not complete or maybe even how it’s going to look I think it’s difficult to use, non-user-friendly and the contrast in styles between the new start menu and the desktop is inconsistant.

I’m keeping my Mac…or Windows XP!

(I fully appreciate that Mr Jones will disagree with this entire post!!!)

09/1/11

Write To Your Supermarket!

Recently we’ve tried shopping at Sainsburys*. If you didn’t know Sainsburys are the biggest stockest of Fairtrade (and also the most ethical of the big 4) in the UK and really simple things like basics (33p a box) tea bags are Fairtrade plus their own brand chocolate and alongside this there’s all sorts of other Fairtrade products cropping up throughout however a lack of fairtrade chocolate biscuit (KitKat type things…other than the Fairtrade Kitkat which is stupid and shouldn’t be purchased – Blog 1 on this & blog 2) and so I dropped them a message which suggested the that they consider making their Double-Take biscuit things Fairtrade or stock Tradecraft’s super-tasty ‘Fair Break’ bars and less than 24 hours after my e-mail here’s their response:

Dear Mark

Thanks for your email about our Fairtrade products. I’m glad to hear that you’ve been impressed to see a wider range of Fairtrade products in our stores, including our own brand chocolate.

We currently offer over 800 Fairtrade products across our stores. We’re constantly looking for new ways we can convert more of our products to Fairtrade suppliers, but with over 30,000 products for sale in store and online you’ll understand that this takes time. We want to make sure that the suppliers are genuinely paid a fair wage for their produce and their working conditions are good, and it takes some time to make sure that this is the case before we start selling any of their products.

We stock over 30,000 products so we can’t possibly have every requested item in all our branches, however if there is a high enough demand for an individual item, we will always strive to find space for it on our shelves. With this in mind I’ve passed your request to our buyers who will look into the feasibility of stocking Tradecrafts fair break chocolate biscuit bars in our stores. Your suggestion that we convert our Double take chocolate wafer biscuits to Fairtrade has been logged on to our system and this will be passed on to the relevant department for consideration.

We’re grateful to you for contacting us as your feedback helps us to understand the needs of our customers better. We look forward to seeing you in store again soon.

The point is this blog is to encourage you to e-mail your supermarket (whichever you choose) about making more products Fairtrade. Give specific examples of products you currently buy which you’d like to see Fairtrade and encourage them to stock more Fairtrade (E.g. when Cadbury made Dairy Milk Fairtrade ASDA removed Divine from their shelves…Sainsbury’s has divine side by side with their own brand and Cadbury!).

Oh and I know my blog has been pretty quiet lately…we’ve been on holiday and I’ve been busy with a little project which I’ll blog on soon!

* Sainsburys – If you’ve bothered to read this * then perhaps you’ve thought that Sainsburys expensive…well actually I don’t think that’s true…Tesco have been sneaking up their prices and still ride on the back of their reputation for being cheap from the 90′s, ASDA are cheap but some of their Smart Price products lack quality whereas often Sainsbury’s Basics range is the same quality (or better) as ASDA’s own brand/’Chosen By You’…In comparison to Morrissons they’re about the same…oh and naturally cheaper than Waitrose!

06/21/11

Youth Club to Church – A Journey?

About 4 months ago after much debate as a church we started an open youth club on a Tuesday night. It started with 6 young people and over the past 4 months has grown to an average of about 20 a week…it’s nothing revolutionary…it’s a simple youth club: somewhere to hang out, tuck shop, pool table, table tennis, table football and a Wii but it’s brilliant!

Ethos

The ethos behind the youth club was always to be something run by us as a church and therefore with Christian leaders with the aim of not babysitting but building relationships with the young people we get along. My link in school meant that a lot of the young people recognised me anyway and add into this Christian assemblies which I do and all the young people know I’m a Christian and even ask me why I had an egg smashed on my head (an Easter assembly on sacrifice!).

Bridging the Gap

Of course ultimately it would be fantastic if each of these young people ended up with a relationship with Christ however there is no faith-based input within the youth club other than the occasional conversation based on things that have been left in the hall from church or something I’ve done or said in assembly at school it seems unlikely.

The jump between our unstructured youth club and our faith based groups is huge and so the question that I remain with is:

How will these young people make the jump between coming to a church-run youth club and a relationship with God?

I don’t really have the answers but I do know there are some fantastic inbetween events which I’m hoping to encourage young people along to…by this I mean events which have some Christian input but are perhaps filled with live music or an event at a theme park (such as Alton Tower’s ‘Big Event’ or the Diocese of York and Lightwater Valley’s ‘XLS’). These events seem to provide an opportunity for young people to have a taste of spirituality at the same time as being somewhere exciting and maybe they’re where it’s at (whatever ‘it’ is!).

I guess biblically Jesus didn’t do that much converting just conversing!

Out of the ten guys who Jesus casts demons out of only 1 comes back to say thank you and even then we’re not told that this man gave up his life to Christ and repented of his sins…the woman caught in adultery doesn’t become born-again but is simply told by Jesus to ‘go and sin no-more’.

I wonder if rather than aiming for conversions we should be aiming to build relationships, to show Christ in our own lives, to show love, compassion and care to these young people, to engage them in conversation about faith and to see where their journey leads…I have no doubt from my work in a chaplaincy project in school that young people want to know more about faith and that they’re asking the questions…it’s just a case of whether their asking has to lead to us praying ‘the prayer’ or not?

At a PCC I spoke at for one of the supporting churches of Hunsley Christian Youth Trust I was asked how many people we’d had ‘coming to the LORD’ as a result of the work and the honest answer is none but young people are engaging with questions about faith and hopefully that will ultimately lead somewhere.

I guess the general conclusion might be conversation not conversion!

Anyway those are just some thoughts…comments?

05/19/11

The Internet & My Faith Formation

Earlier this week I spent 2 days on a Scripture Union on a residential for associate trust workers and we spent some time exploring the idea of ministry in a digital age and in doing so looked at how the current generation are growing up in a world where they don’t remember not having computers or mobile phones.

If I’m honest I think I probably join this group of digital natives (as they call them). We got our first home PC when I was about 8 but we’d always had computers at school up until that point and now my life is fully wired thanks to a collection of devices and websites.

However in all the thinking about this digital world I was reflecting on some of my own experiences of technology and faith.

Of course back when I was 16/7 Facebook didn’t exist…Bebo and Myspace did but neither did a huge amount however the most exciting place for me to be online was the Norwich Youth for Christ forum. In fact many of the people on that forum are people I still keep in contact with today.

As a young person exploring faith the NYFC forum gave me a place I could ask questions and explore ideas in a safe place (thanks to the moderators who lurked around keeping everything nice and friendly and sharing their wisdom) and I can truly reflect now and appreciate the chance it gave me to ask things that in all fairness I may have never got an opportunity to ask at youth group (so thank you Mark Tuma!).

But what role does the internet have on the faith formation of young people today?

My main critique of Facebook is that it’s stole traffic! The NYFC forum and CROPS Forum (which I helped to start in my gap year and eventually close a few years back) got quieter and quieter. I guess the novelty of hanging out somewhere online has gone and whilst I can’t fault Facebook for moving people I do feel like that opportunity to ask questions online has gone because even the discussion threads on Facebook don’t get used a huge amount.

Some ideas…

I still believe the internet has a huge role to play in the faith formation on young people. The answer to every question can be found on google but this is risky so is there a place youth workers and young people can engage in faith conversation? Here’s a couple of ideas;

Formspring – Whilst fairly annoying I think youth workers can use the opportunity to link it to Facebook and encourage young people to ask questions anonymously on it…it’s got potential but probably not for real discussion.

Facebook Page and Status – Perhaps the simple answer is to post a question on your Facebook page and wait for the comments…is this what detached youth work on Facebook looks like? (probably not)

Forum – Is the web forum really dead? I’m a little bit tempted to create one and find out!

Anymore thoughts?

05/3/11

Alternative Vote & Thursday Elections

If you follow me on Twitter then over the last few weeks you’ll have seen several tweets in reference to the alternative vote.

On Thursday we have the opportunity to vote for a new way of voting for politicians in this country and whilst there has been division in all the political parties as to whether it’s a good idea I personally think that it is.

Im not going to turn this into a political post because whilst I’ve read a lot on it I don’t think I have the knowledge to do so however I do know enough to know that the ‘No to AV’ leaflets we’ve received through our door are almost complete works of fiction. Talks of costs, voting machines and making a link between AV and Australia are entirely unhelpful and inaccurate.

However the reason I like AV is that I think it would change the way I vote. With the current system there are realistically 2 choices; conservative or labour and whilst there are a range of other parties I don’t feel (as a voter) that a vote for another party is really worth it…however with AV I’d feel far more comfortable voting for a smaller party. I like the idea that who-ever ends up in power would be wanted by the majority…ok perhaps they might not be every-bodies second choice but they’d certainly be preference to most.

I’m not going to write much more but I will recommend a couple of links…firstly the link below is fantastic at pointing out all the lies that have been told by the No to AV campaign

An A-Z of rubbish arguments from NotoAV

The second thing I recommend you watch is especially good if you’re confused by AV and it’s a short, simple video

Make sure you vote!

Whether you are pro or anti-AV I believe the opportunity we have is a fantastic opportunity to say whether we want our current system or not so if you’re planning to not bother voting please go out and vote! It’s not difficult to find some simple information to help you make a choice so please take this opportunity.

04/19/11

The King Blues: Punk & Poetry Album Review

As I mentioned a couple of days ago I’ve been pretty excited for the release of ‘The King Blues’ new album ‘Punk and Poetry’ which was released yesterday and proving that my HMV pre-order was worthwhile the album turned up yesterday morning and it’s been on in the car, office and living room and I’ve managed to listed to it several times over.

Both of ‘The King Blues’ previous albums have had a political feel about them and ‘Punk and Poetry’ is no different. I guess the obvious comparison is that Punk and Poetry is to the coalition government what NOFX’s ‘War on Errorism’ was to George Bush’s administration.

The King Blues have always had a more acoustic punk feel about them and whilst some of that remains on this album there’s a lot more electric, over-driven guitar giving a real punch to this album and making ‘Punk and Poetry’ a little more edgy than their previous releases.

In terms of lyrics you get exactly what you’d hope from Itch’s writing…passionate, well thought out and challenging lyrics, alongside that the album features a couple of Itch’s poems (with musical accompaniment) including the powerful ’5 Bottles of Shampoo’ which was regularly used as a encore during their tours last year.

A few of the stand out lyrics for me are

‘cut the bankers, cut the police, cut the rich and the riot police. Cut the state and cut the war. But they cut the poor’ from ‘We are f***ing angry’

‘well I’ve seen the rules that you call fair, when it’s profit you keep it but debt we share, the cycle of fear goes around forever, the very idea that we’re in this together’ from ‘Does anybody care about us’

‘Integrity is what black eyes were invented for’, ‘Stuff the man who thinks it’s ok to give his wife a punch, Stuff the judge who says it weren’t rape cos she was drunk’ from ’5 bottles of shampoo’

To be honest picking stand out lyrics is difficult when the whole album is lyrically beautiful and when sung with the passion that Itch puts into the music you can tell that this is an album The King Blues are really genuine with.

Overall Punk and Poetry is a fantastic album, it feels like a progression for ‘The King Blues’ and is simply beautiful both in production, lyrics and sound.

04/16/11

Music, Record Stores & Me

When I was 15 I really got into music…that’s not to say that before I didn’t like music. My childhood was often filled with music…whether it was ‘The Beatles’ coming from my parents record player, the feel good pop coming from Top of the Pops (e.g. Aqua, B*Witched) or the 70/80′s music I got to know through Haven holidays as a child.

However when I was 15 I went on my own direction. A friend of mine from youth group introduced me to ‘Sum 41′ in his car and I purchased ‘All Killer, No Filler’…then a few weeks later thanks for the CBBC Chart Show I was introduced to New Found Glory (NFG’s Sticks and Stones album remains one of my favourites to date).

From that moment I was off…search the internet for similar bands and downloading through WinMX (a less virus infected Limewire) and inevitably when I liked what I heard buying their albums…quickly adding The Offspring, MxPx, Goldfinger and Reel Big Fish to my collection. The free Sky Channel P-Rock introduced me to bands like [Spunge] and Rancid and my rock CD collection grew.

Buying Music

At that time Play.com was my main source of music but when I was 18 and moved to Peterborough being within 10 minutes walk of Virgin Megastores and HMV meant that I could buy an album on the day of release and spend several times during the week making impulse buys, scaring my bank account and browsing the rows of music in store.

I have to admit whilst being a huge fan of computers and Apple digital downloads have never got me. I like that with a CD you get the artwork, the lyrics and a list of thank-you’s from the band…I like having the physical object over the song even though the majority of the time I listen to my music through my iPhone or iTunes.

Spotify & Myspace

Since deciding to clean up my music 5 or so years ago Myspace and Spotify have been my source for listening to a band and often buying their album….mostly online. The availability of music online, for free is awesome.

Over the last 2 weeks I’ve been listening to the Foo Fighter’s new album, Avril Lavigne’s new album and ‘Teenage Dream’ by Katy Perry and whilst they’re all on my amazon wish-list their online availability means that I can wait until the album is in the next sale!

The King Blues & Owl City Albums

All that aside there are a few albums which have me massively excited for their release…so much so that I’ll be buying them straight away.

The King Blues album is one of them. The politically minded London punk band’s new album is out Monday and we pre-ordered it 2 weeks ago. Having already heard the angry, powerful lyrics of ‘We are *very* angry’ and ‘Set the world on fire’ I don’t think I’ve been this excited about an album in a long time.

Alongside that the next release from Owl City is also exciting me. Ocean Eye’s got me hooked on the music of Owl City and the project from Adam Young may just be one of my favourite ‘bands’ around at the moment.

The Demise of Record Shops

Alongside my love for music which has caused me to ramble on for far too long on this post I’ve been sad to read that HMV are struggling to make money and are closing shops.

It’s far less a love of HMV and more the variety that HMV offers. If I’m being honest most my music is purchased through their website rather than stores (so I’m probably part of the problem) but having a highstreet music shop where you can browse a wider range than Sainsbury’s offers is fantastic and it’s probably the only part of high-street shopping trips that keeps me sain.

At the same time shops like ‘That’s Entertainment’ which sell 2nd hand CD’s are equally awesome…I’ve managed to lose roughly 45 minutes a visit just browsing through all that they have looking out for a bargain!

Perhaps the future of record stores is 2nd hand and new music will be purchased online…but I hope that the CD has a future and I hope we’ll still see music on our high-streets.

03/13/11

Church: Shall we give up and leave?

On Thursday I went on a retreat day with a group of other youth workers from the York Diocese and it was nice to have a chance to sit back and reflect for the day. However one thing I seem to notice is that whatever youth worker’s get together sooner or later we seem to come onto the state of the church and our disappointment with it and having spent the car journey home listening to a sermon from Scum of the Earth church I tweeted this upon arriving home.

When I tweeted this I didn’t expect anything more than perhaps a few Facebook ‘Likes’ if even that however following a retweet by cartoonist (amongst other things) Dave Walker the response looked like this:

This response for me suggests that it’s not just me and a bunch of York diocese youth workers who feel this way but a variety of church go-ers everywhere (perhaps the majority of the 20′s/30′s age group have already answered my blog title and left) which begs the question.

If so many of us feel disappointed, let down and side-lined by institutionalised church then why do we even bother going?

Obviously the good Christian and theological answer is that church isn’t about getting something from it ourselves but about reaching out to others and giving to God and I completely agree with that principal however if as William Temple said

church is the only organisation that exists for the benefit of it’s non-members

then church massively fails (in the majority of cases).

There are so many stories of people wanting to change the church but failing because the majority of the church want things as they always have been.

The problem is that those radicals in the church who want to see the church dramatically transformed into the welcoming, Jesus-bursting, heart of the community that it should be can easily find themselves just going along with our closed, culturally out-of-date, in-reality-not-that-welcoming church not because their passion has died but because there appears to be no way to change the church. That or these radicals end up burnt out through frustration and inevitably join the huge list of those who’ve lef the church.

Comfortable Church

I guess the route of the problem is that church has become comfortable. We want to go there, have a nice cosy time, sing a few familiar hymns and go home again…we daren’t expect that church is going to change our lives or challenge us. Francis Scott, who preached at the church I went to this morning said (in his sermon) ‘the church has become a cruise ship’ and I guess he’s right.

The problem with this cruise ship church is that we’re stuck with a church that is generally unwilling to change or even afraid to change…we’re just floating along nicely, thank you.

The biggest frustration I have as a youth worker (alongside sadly seeing young people throw their faith away over impulsive temptations) is that whilst it’s fantastic to see young people coming to Christ the fact is that when they hit 18 or leave university and student church at some point they’re going to either drift away or have to find a mainstream church.

Can we change the church?

In short I guess the answer (typed with a huge amount of doubt) is yes. I wholeheartedly believe that many aspects of church aren’t how God wants them, that there are thousands of people out there who’d have a relationship with Jesus were it not for the selfishness of Christians.

If we want to be bringing people into the kingdom our churches shouldn’t be side-lining people. One of the most beautiful experiences of church I’ve been part of was at Park Road in Peterborough where during an evening service a homeless, completely drunk man came and sat in the service and whilst he didn’t remotely fit in with the ‘norm’ and was noisy was allowed to be there and even picked a random hymn after requesting ‘how great thou art’. On top of that St Barnabas’ in Swanland this morning had organised a mini-bus so some disabled members of the community could come to church. Now that’s what I’m talking about!

If church really is about a group of people who have a relationship with Jesus then it shouldn’t be boring. If someone is passionate about something you can hear it in their voice and see it in their hearts as they talk about it and that is exciting. If we’re a church of people genuinely passionate about Christ then church shouldn’t be boring. I can’t help but feel all too often our services are based on tradition and not passion. (More on passion in this post)

Some final thoughts…

So what would happen if everyone who was bored, let down or side-lined by the church stopped coming?

I strongly suspect we’d lose the majority of our congregations and probably a huge chunk of our church leaders (certainly a load of youth workers*). However I don’t know that we should give up and go. One of the responses on Facebook was

Any ideas 4 radical changes then?

and the answer to that is yes!

I can’t tell you how a church should be…I can’t blog a perfect order of service or a list of songs that will make the church perfect but I can come back to that quote I used earlier from William Temple who said ‘church is the only organisation that exists for it’s non-members’ .

Our churches need to be examining ourselves (and I don’t mean a ‘well we’re doing x, y, z so we must be good) completely, honestly and really asking ourselves if that is true for our church because if it’s not then we need to do some re-thinking. If we’re changing a service or introducing something new then the fact that someone is complaining about it shouldn’t matter, we should be asking whether or not it is beneficial for those who don’t already know Christ.

Church shouldn’t feel odd and weird for new comers but should feel like home.

I think those are my thoughts although as always feel free to comment and I may find myself developing my thoughts more.

* this isn’t to say that youth worker’s aren’t whole-heartily passionate about Christ and don’t believe in the cause but to say that that actually they feel that the church doesn’t cut it…there’s a difference!

03/5/11

Fairtrade Fortnight

Every year Fairtrade run a campaign called ‘Fairtrade Fortnight’…in previous years it’s seen exciting announcements such as Sainsbury’s changing all their bananas to Fairtrade and the arrival of a Fairtrade Dairy Milk and whilst this year there are no huge announcements (yet) there are more and more Fairtrade products available than ever and at even more affordable prices for example in Sainsburys their own brand tea is all Fairtrade!

Whether you know much about Fairtrade or not then watch the campaign video below. Also if you head to the Fairtrade Facebook Page you can take part in competitions this year to ‘Show off your label’ and potentially win prizes including a year’s supply of Ben and Jerry’s!

03/2/11

Site Problems & Hack

Hey all,

My server got hacked yesterday and a load of code to malware was added to my site. I’ve fixed it now and it shouldn’t happen again (all security has been tweaked etc.) however if you used the site yesterday it’s worth a quick virus scan on your computer and also google a program called Adaware (by Lavasoft) and use that to check for Malware.

Apologies for this but thanks to Oli for letting me know the google warnings.

Theme mess-up

Somewhere in the middle of restoring the site and tweaking code the theme on this blog seems to have been messed up…I’m working on it (when I get time) so it should look pretty again by the end of the week.

Mark

02/28/11

Adoption/Fostering

This article on the BBC News site today details how a Christian couple were denied the opportunity to foster children because they didn’t believe that homosexuality was right (read full article here).

Ignoring the pro or anti homosexuality debate this court ruling is ridiculous!

In this country we are short of people willing to adopt or foster children by tens of thousands and here is a council turning down a couple based on one view that they have.

In my work as a youth worker I’ve met broken young people…young people beaten by their parents, young people introduced to drugs by their parents, young people who’ve stole (as taught by their parents) and plenty more bad habits picked up from their parents which they believe is okay.

To top that off some of those young people have children and you’ve only got to watch the Jeremy Kyle show to see that the cycle keeps on going.

Yet here we have a respectable couple with experience of looking after children being they can’t foster because they don’t agree with homosexuality…seriously if we put the best interest of these children in place rather than calling the thought police then perhaps we’d have more people fostering, more happy children and a few less problems in the world.

Rant over!