Rather

In case there are still people coming here: I am now running a photoblog called Rather.

Bye for now...

This blog will be inactive for a while, due to my own lack of interest. Loose Changes will continue to operate, and I expect to start a sperate photoblog soon.

Loose Changes

Loose Changes is my new blog, looking at technological change, ans how it triggers social and cultural change.

Why is our tax funding Howard's re-election campaign?

SFC Conference

Spent last week at the last ever Students for Christ State Conference, in Blampied. This year we had a sort of faith vs. fear theme.

As I said, it was the last SFC State Conference ever. We were told when we arrived, on Monday night. Next year there'll be no SFC. That's beacuse next year we'll be changing our name to Universe Victoria. In fact, there'll be quite a few changes coming in next year:

We'll be changing our name to Universe. If the name sounds familiar, that's probably because there are already Universe groups operating at some of the unis in Adelaide. This means it won't seem as though we're just a group for Christians.

Secondly, we've just started a partnership with Youth Alive Victoria. (Apparently we're going out with them.) This means that they'll be advertising our events at all their rallies. It also means that we'll be better able to stream former Year 12s from Youth Alive into Universe when they start at uni.

We'll also be starting partnerships between each campus group and a local church. The local church will employ a Campus Director for that campus group. As Campus Workers are generally in and out of university in three or four years, a permenant Campus Director will be able to make sure the vision stays the same, and the group keep heading in the same direction. They've already got a Campus Director at Monash Clayton SFC. I mean Monash Clayton Universe.
Partnerships with local churches will also mean we won't have to worry about providing church for Christian students, and can focus on evangelism.

Lastly, over the next few years we plan to have paide Campus Workers at each campus group, and to begin planting groups at other univeristies - particularly RMIT and Victoria University. There was also talk at the start of the year of campus groups being re-planted in Geelong and Bendigo.

Actually that wasn't so 'lastly' after all. There's been one other change, which maybe wasn't so expected. In the past we've had a real attitude of poverty, jokingly saying that, 'SFC runs of the smell of an oily rag.' This sort of an attitude is often encouraged by our churches, saying that students don't need to tithe.
However, on the final night of Conference when there was an offering collected for SFC, almost $6000 was collceted - enough to run the SFC office for a year. That means the $3000 we'd already received before Conference, plus anything else we receive, can go towards outreach events.
The most we've given on a Conference before was about $3000, in 2002 - our biggest conference on record. This year there were only about 70 people at conference (it clashed with a number of other things), which means each student put in an average of about $85. This is a lot considering that the average Australian church-member 'tithes' only $10 a week.

Anyway, that's enough talking about money. What about the shenanigans? What about the late night playing Risk and Mafia?
On Monday night I went to bed pretty early - about 1am. However, the Tuesday night I was up until 4am playing Risk and trying to convince a guy from the Young Liberals that I'm not a member of the intelligencia. Wednesday night I was up till about 3am playing Risk again. Thursday night I was up till about 5am playing Mafia. Each morning I got up between 7am and 8am.
On Wednesday afternoon a few of the guys (mostly from Ballarat) played British Bulldog, out in the mud and rain. 'Twas lovely.
Thursday afternoon I had the priveledge of a Punishment. At Thursday's morning meeting I was on the roster for singing, and forgot to wear my name tag. And if you forget to wear your nametag on Conference, Crazy Dave gets to give you a Punishment. Mine ended up being that I had to brush my teeth with wasabi paste for 60 seconds. I was expecting it to be pretty bad, 'cause Devo had gotten the same Punishment on Wednesday afternoon, and taken it pretty bad. And it was bad. But by the time the 60 seconds were almost up, it wasn't very hot anymore, so I decided to start dribbling it out of my mouth. When the 60 seconds were up, Crazy Dave was about to give me a towel to wipe my face, so I spat the wasabi all over him. Unfortunatley he didn't appreciate it heaps.

There is so much more I should put in, but I can't be stuffed right now. I might do another post later.

Another 21st...

Going to Students for Christ State Conference, in Blampied (near Daylesford), in an hour. Back Friday night.

Went to Glenn (my cousin)'s baptism yesterday morning. Then went to his 21st that night. It started at 4:57pm and finished at 10:32pm. So it went for 5.5 hours and 5 minutes. Not Ashamed (Glenn's band) played a couple of sets, mostly covers. They dedicated 'Sadie Hawkins Dance' (Relient K) to Adam (my little bro') and Strange Laura (Strange Tim's little sister). Got back here (Ballarat) at about 1:30 this morning.

Also, I got my first 21st present. Nanna was getting both me and Glenn backpacks for our 21sts, so she got them for both of us at the same time, and I got mine early, which is good, because now I don't have to drag a suitcase around whenever I travel, and won't be tempted to leave it somewhere and be mistaken for a terrorist again and have the cops use my camera.

Ballarat, Warrnambool, Colac, Ballarat, Melbourne

On Saturday we had two Info events to promote the Warrnambool mission to potential leaders, one in Ballarat, and the other in Warrnambool. We got five potential leaders at the Ballarat one, and none at the Warrnambool one. It's not as bad as it sounds though, 'cause it was the first time we'd done it in Warrnmabool. Last year was the first time we did it in Ballarat, and we only had two people turn up, this time we had five, so I expect next time we'll get more in Warrnambool as well. There's also the fact that it was hailing outside, and most fo the Warrnambool people who'd said they were interested didn't drive.
Next Saturday we're running Info Events in Melbourne and Bendigo.

On the way back to Ballarat we stopped in Colac. I was going to Flip's 21st, which was in Colac, and we needed to get some tea.
We stopped at a certain fast food franchise. They started packing up at about 7:30pm. Nat reckoned they were packing up early so they could go to the party, 'cause the whole town (he estimated the population to be about three) must be invited. Nat always says things like that about places like Ballarat, Warranmbool, Colac and Bendigo. He is just bitter 'cause he has to live in big, stinky Melbourne.

Anyway, Flip's 21st was quite good. It was an op shop (thrift shop) formal. Got to meet a lot of people she went to school with and stuff. I believe there are some photos from Flip's 21st here, on Tab's blog. There are two of me, and only one each of James, Tab and Flip, so I am clearly the most important.

Got a lift back to Ballarat with Greggy.

On Monday I caught the train to Melbourne, which is where I am now. It is rather crap.

Yesterday I found out that I've had a $2.70 library fine since I left Melbourne in February 2002.