good news, bad news

It's the good news that both Torres and Gerrard are fit to face United (censored reference, you never know who might read this) tomorrow that's brought me back to blogging this week! I wont be watchign or listening due to another induction - this time for Kath who's coming to be the Minister with specialist responsibility for youth at our own Church, Counterslip. The two things keeping me away from here have been time (it's been one of those don't do as I do, do as I say weeks) and the annoying clumsiness of having to oeprate from a PC rather than my macbook. On the broken mac front - incidentally, thank you for the e-mails expressing sympathy - there's good news and bad news. The bad news is I don't yet have it back. The bad news could have been worse (a large bill), but Apple have translated it into good news in deciding to replace my SuperDrive for nothing - even though it's out of warranty. Great service from them and Western computers in Bristol! I also have to say Keira, of Apple Customer Services in Cork, had the most delicious Irish accent, which made the whole customer service phone wait worth all 15 minutes. It's dome wonders for my faith in mac, just when some of my friends were trying to raise doubts in my mind. What about Church 'customer service'? Obviously, the whole concept is a no-no in many minds However, one of my friends (remaining nameless for the time being) has recently been a 'mystery shopper' - he mentioned how he had the job of checking just how various shop assistants, sales people, etc. offered service to their customers - did they deliver their training was often the issue, being employed by the companies themselves, as a quality control measure. Church welcome teams? As stated, it's been a busy week, but worthwhile. It's interesting to see my diary is fuller with meeting Churches and Leadership Teams about 'developmental' stuff these days - three evenings this week. This is what we planned when we had a regional staffing review a couple of years ago and it's good to see it working out in practice. My colleague, Gordon, has become the main regional with the strictly 'pastoral' hat on and this has taken so much of the troubleshooting load off my shoulders - which, in practice, meant the developmental was often on hold. Amongst this we held our annula day for our retired Ministers and their spouses in Bath this week. Manvers Street BC Open House Centre did a great job for lunch and, I think, the retireds enjoyed the day. It's always interesting to listen to folk with a raft of experience. I look forward tos eeing one of our retireds - Alan Ashworth - we wont be at the same Church, but both running in the Bristol Half Marathon - it'll be Alan's first one which I thought was pretty impressive at 65. Hopefully, we'll both finish - last year I ended up flat on my back with half a mile to go! I didn't realise it at the time, but after swaying to a grinding halt, I discovered later I'd dyhydrated - hence my camel back drinking thingy for Christmas from Maggie! I now have to carry this plus my mobile on Sunday in case I cause another emergency panic! My last run before Sunday was in the pouring rain yesterday, so we'll soon see now. Of course, I'll be in Church on Sunday evening before anyone starts writing to my boss!