Recent Comments

1. Sign Up Online To Become An Organ Donor - 04 Oct 2005

   My husband received a kidney from his sister 10 years ago – “living related donor”. We are tremendously grateful to her for offering, going through a very unpleasant procedure and taking the risks for him. He is living a very full and active life – dialysis is a miserable way to live. Thanks for signing up

2. Recycle Your Old Mobile - 27 Oct 2005

   My old mobile got drowned when my milk bottle emptied inside my bag. I returned it to Carphone Warehouse. They gave me £5 off a new one. The salesperson also said they would take old chargers.

3. Ditch The Disposable Items - 05 Nov 2005

   I use handkerchiefs instead of paper tissues. They last indefinitely. Cling film use has been massively cut by using plastic containers (including old margarine tubs) or re-using clean plastic bags from other food. I don’t buy any paper towel. I keep some decrepit tea towels for draining fried food or put on a wire rack. The tea towels are put through the washing up water to loosen the grease and then laundered. The moon cup is great. Having your milk delivered in glass bottles saves a lot of plastic bottles. The milk is fresh and they deliver other good things too.

4. Send Some Cards, Through The Bars. - 04 Dec 2005

   My first attempt at independent activism – I usually just sign petitions and send cards that people give me to do.

5. Send Some Cards, Through The Bars. - 04 Dec 2005

   My first attempt at independent activism – I usually just sign petitions and send cards that people give me to do.

6. Recycle Your Greetings Cards - 04 Dec 2005

   Yes, I’ve been doing for years too. I turn them into notelets and gift tags. It is a family joke that I recycle gift wrap as well. I spend a peaceful hour or two each New Year, going through bin bags of discarded paper – rereading the tags, salvaging bows, ribbons and decorations. Then, saddest of all, I iron the paper on a low temperature, fold it up beautifully and save it for the next Christmas or birthday. My children are now unable to rip open a present for fear of damaging the paper. I get 80% of my wrapping paper in this way. Some of it is into it’s fourth or fifth year.

7. Give Thanks Before A Meal - 04 Jan 2006

   We have done this as a family since before the children were born- more than 20 years. I never thought of using a book – we took turns to say a short prayer of thanks. We had students staying with us for many years and we told them that we did this and why and they were very gracious. We even held hands. When other family members came for meals they join in too. I thought it might change when the chilren grew up but they still participate. We pray at the beginning of long journeys too. The brief “bedtime”prayers faded as the children went to bed independently but these ones continue. Does anyone else feel uncomfortable about being reminded about the starving millions in a grace? It doesn’t make me more grateful – just guilty.

8. Make A Special Effort To Look Out For Strangers - 23 Jan 2006

   I have, rather nervously, offered my services to visit an isolated member of our Church congregation, who is currently unknown to me. This is a first and I’m not sure that I will be a “natural”. Hope it goes well for both of us. On a “thank you to public servants” theme, my friend always gives a box of biscuits to the bin men at Christmas and I thought this seemed a good idea. They pick up at 6.30 am and I was worried that my gifts would have been taken during the night but they weren’t and I could see through the window that the binmen and recycling men were pleased. Had quite a high Warm Glow rating. Any suggestions how to get a thank you present to a postie – I never see mine?

9. Encourage Others To Go Generous - 12 Feb 2006

   Join the eco-congregation movement. You can find it at www.ecocongregation.org. They provide materials to audit how your congregation is doing at the moment and free resources to work through. It keeps God rather than guilt in the centre of a process of being accountable for how we use our resources. We’ve just registered and there’s a lot of ideas and interest. There are 12 modules, the first is an audit. We’ve started with children and youth, worship, theology, small group bible study resources. In the mean time, memebers are coming up every week with ideas. We hope to get eco-congregation status. We’re already a fairtrade Church and diocese, living in the first environment city (Leicester) so this is a natural progression. It involves working with the local community and there is a parallel eco-schools project too.

10. Energy Efficient Cooking - 12 Feb 2006

    Le Creuset or similar cast iron saucepans are good for this as they stay hot for so long. I use for rice, pasta, veg, cous cous, and if you’ve boiled them for a while, soaked beans such as chick peas. I was intrigued to see a refinement on the hay box cooker on the Yellow House website. Does anybody out there use one?

11. Shop Small (Buy local, Switch from the Supermarket) - 04 Apr 2006

    If you want to be charitable in your on-line shopping, you could try www.UshopUgive.com It has lots of big names but gives 50% of the commission to named charities – you can select which one you want to give it to. They hope to increase the proportion given to charity to 80%.

12. Make A Positive Lifestyle Change And Tell Us About It - 16 May 2006

    Have made a number of changes – the chickens are a great joy and provide fresh eggs for lots of people for minimal cost, effort or space. They also eat things like dandelions, left-over cooked rice, peelings, grass clippings etc so I have less to compost in one way. I shred out personal papers and use it for chicken bedding and then it goes into the compost bin. Chicken poop and shredded paper add lots of goodies to the mix. My next venture is beekeeping – a bit more expensive and complicated but more intriguing. There is lots of pollen and nectar to spare and I’m hoping to learn how to make candals and creams from the wax as well as honey. I’ve taken up jogging again and have set the ambitious target of at least a half-marathon this Autumn. I’d like to do a charity run. It’s cheap and I’m already much fitter than just cycling to work and going to the gym makes me. I’d like to say that we live in the middle of a large city. Heaven is described as a city or, at least, a large shared house! Jerusalem and Bethlehem are cities. There isn’t space for everyone to live an imaginary country idyll. It makes me sad when Christians continually look back to Eden, rather than forward to a shared eternity. It also makes me sad that cities are constantly described as crime-ridden and dirty. My parks are beautiful at the moment. Escape to the city and learn what the future could be like if we got involved where Jesus is.

13. Use your LOAF at the shops (Local, Organic, Animal-Friendly and Fair Trade) - 02 Jun 2006

    Recently joined an organic veg box scheme. the stuff is nice and there is choice but a lot is imported and buying British is a higher priority. the co-op are doing a good variety of fairly traded fresh fruit and veg – the oranges were the best we’ve had all winter/spring. We’re a Fair Trade Church – the wine box is an interested addition to the Communion table and we’ve had a few problems with leaky taps. We found the bottles more difficult to keep fresh between Sundays – even with a vacuum- seals. The next task is to wean the mid-week study group off take-away pizza and Iceland cakes – they are bought locally, though.

14. Organise Your Money (What You Want To Give Away) - 01 Aug 2006

    The CAf provides an excellent service where you can set up accounts for others to give a portion of your CAF donation. We have set up accounts for our six godchildren – they have their own CAF Chequebook and statements. CAF transfer a bit from our general giving each month for them to donate to charities of their own choosing. The benefits of GAYE were only available for a few years – the government topped up a bit. It is now cheaper to gift aid directly to a charity rather than use an intermediary such as CAF. CAF takes a small percentage for administration and to give to the NCVA. We put some into CAF each month so that we have a fund to give to emergancy or one-off requests (such as the sunday collection at Greenbelt or instead of sponsorship for a charity race or for disaster relief). The rest of our giving is planned and given monthly via standing order, gift aided. Remember that if you are a higher rate tax payer you can get the difference between the tax relief (28%) and the tax paid (40%) back. If you have overpaid tax and fill in a self-assessment tax form, the Inland Revenue gives you the option of letting them send all or a part of your overpayment to nominated charities.

15. Plant some bulbs - 24 Aug 2006

    We are planning a monster daffodil plant in the Church grounds as part of our eco-congregation award efforts. The church currently gives bunches of daffs to people who have been bereaved during the previous year. They come from some-one’s garden but I thought we could expand it if we had lots more around the Church. The great thing about daffodils and most bulbs is that they last for years and require no attention. It’s good to use shrubs and perenniels in your garden for the same reason. Bedding plants can be very wasteful – lots of packaging for a short life span. Having said that, I hope we can salvage some to the bedding plants we used for a mass display at Church – geraniums are very sturdy and you can get lots of cuttings off them and bizzy lizzies if you beat the frost.

16. Sharing with students - 24 Aug 2006

    We have enjoyed having overseas students staying with us for many years. We’ve also had young professionals, people between house moves, short term home stay for those learning English. It’s a really interesting thing to do and we’ve met some lovely people. Since we moved to a smaller house it has been difficult to fit anyone else in and so we’re having an extension. The children had mixed feelings about it and it isn’t always a bed of roses but the vast majority worked out in the end. We’ve just waved goodbye to a young man from the Basque area of Spain who was on a government sponsored scheme for talented but less well off children. They are often looking out for host families and the expenses are generous enough to not be out of pocket.