Blossoming! What is it?

One of my dictionaries says that to blossom means to thrive and prosper. Another says that it means to grow well or develop successfully. I carried on and looked up these words as well. To thrive is to grow healthily and vigorously, to do well, to prosper, to increase in goods to be successful and to flourish. To prosper is to experience favourable circumstances or to turn out well. To be successful also means to turn out well as well as to accomplish what is attempted. When we are successful we achieve the  outcome that we wanted to have, which often means we have gained fame, power or wealth. To flourish is to grow luxuriantly or to display something in an ostentatious or showy manner. Something that is flourishing is strong, healthy and productive. Who would think that to blossom could mean so much?

Most of us would like to experience what it is like to blossom in that way wouldn't we? I cannot imagine anyone, even the most macho of men, not want to experience this kind of blossoming. Yet the reality for many of us is that we have tried to grow but circumstances, situations and even the people around us have left us stunted and diminished. We see the seeds of greatness in us but somehow they simply have not grown so we are left feeling like fruit that has been allowed to rot. We are dissatisfied stuck unhappy.

What do we do? We could try and mask it by eating too much, drinking too much or using even worse things to self-medicate and make ourselves feel more comfortable. Or we could do something to change the situation. The choice is ours. I was in a situation where I could not flourish in fact I was doing the opposite. One day I screamed at God that I was stuck and wanted to get unstuck and serve him better. He took  me at my word and arranged a series of events that led to my personal circumstances changing dramatically. The transition took time but within three years my life was unrecognisable. Things that I thought would or should never change did in ways that I never expected them to do. Finally I was able to thrive and flourish.

It felt so good to be able to be free and finally able to work towards achieving what I had been designed to do. To finally do things that will help me reach my potential.  So good that I have wanted others to experience what it is like to know the freedom of being able to do what they are designed to do. Until we are doing we are doing this we will be like round pegs in square holes bumping and banging against the sides and until to fit in. When we finally find the place where we fit we will flourish, thrive and be successful. I have started on the journey towards being successful.

Part of my journey has been to set up a system whereby I can set up online courses to share what I have learned. I spent a long time wandering around looking for ways to spread my wings and not finding out how to do so. There were places where I could learn skills that I have proved useful like how to use a computer and set up a web site. There were places where I could gain qualifications. These have been useful but they have not proved to be the whole answer. I am trying to use this system to develop courses that cover as wide a range of the factors that have helped me blossom as it is possible to do.

I am still learning some of them and improving others however I have learnt a lot that I want to share. In fact I am not hundred per cent sure that this is one journey where we think that we have reached the destination we desired to reach only to see a better destination ahead. In other words this is a journey of constant improvement. I want to invite you to come along with me on this journey.

Of course your journey is different from mine but there are things that you can learn from my journey. There again helping you on your journey so not strictly an unselfish action as it will help me make more progress on my journey because one of the best ways I have found to learn things in depth is to prepare to teach or to share with others. One reason why part of the dream of developing this course system is to enable other people to create courses.

Interested in working together so we can go forwards and become all that we both can be? Continue to have a look around this web site. Have a look at what Lily the Pink's Online Learning Place has to offer. Find out more about how we work and who has influenced us. This will help you get to know me a bit better and when you feel comfortable you are welcome to join  me on the journey towards blossoming into all that we can be.

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Could you become a course creator?

Yes this is a serious suggestion. One of the things that we would like to achieve with Lily the Pink's Online Learning Place is to create a market place for courses that reflect our values. Read through the questions below and if you believe that you could create your own course then get in touch. 

Do you have something on your heart that you would like to share with others?  

  • Has God given you something that you can share with others that will help them escape difficult circumstances?
  • Is it something that you are so passionate about that you you are willing to spend your valuable time putting it together?
  • If you do could you put your ideas into a structure that will make a course? It does not have to be as long or as detailed as the Surviving a Household Emergency course.  

Do you have the ability to put together an online course?

  • Can you structure the ideas that you have in such a way that others can understand them?
  • Can you put your ideas into a word-processed document?
  • Can you work together with others to turn this document into a course complete with interactive exercises? 

Do others see that you meet all these requirements?

  • Has someone else told you that you could teach this topic?
  • Could you prove to us that you could meet these requirements?

Why bother setting up an online course?

  • Share what you know with others?
  • Provide information that helps others. 
  • Set up courses for minority groups within the church e.g. youth workers
  • The only limits for the subject matter is that it must be in lines with the "our values" page so possible courses could include knitting, parenting skills or indeed just about anything you can think of.
  • Expand boundaries 
  • They help computer literate friends and associates keep in touch with the current teaching even if they cannot attend classes due family or work commitments.
  • Create series of courses from old materials so learners can revise previous topics
  • Expand your boundaries as course can be open to entire English speaking world

Financial information

Lily the Pink Ministries CIC is a self-supporting but not profit driven business. This is why after the beta testing period has ended students will be charged a course fee depending on the length of the course. This will be split between the course creator, the person who referred the learner (could be the course creator, Lily the Pink Ministries CIC or an outside source) and Lily the Pink Ministries CIC. 

What next?

Any topic that is in line with our value system will be considered as something that can be developed into a course. (You can find out more about our values here) It does not matter if it is a crochet course or a parenting course or an accounting course.

Send Lily the Pink an email with a paragraph or two describing what your idea is and we will take it from there.

Thank you for your support.

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Ideas for upcoming courses

There are also some courses that are in various stages of preparation including: (more…)

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Getting started

One of the things that people get concerned about is what on earth they are letting themselves in for when they sign up for an online course. The aim of this page is to demystify what is involved in taking an online course.

Entering Lily the Pink's Online Learning Place

When you click on the Lily the Pink's Online Learning Place link you will go to the front page of the Online Learning Place. This is set up to show a list of the available courses. Hopefully this will be the same as what is on the current courses page. Look carefully at the list of courses and you will see a little button that you can click on to find extra information about the courses. It looks like this info_icon

Choosing a course

Click on the name of the course and if you are logged on you will go to the course outline. If you are not logged on then you will be taken to the log on page. 

Logging into the Online Learning Place

The log on page gives you two options. 

On the right hand side you can sign up with a new account. All you need to do is to follow the instructions. 

On the left hand side you can enter the user name and password that you made a note of when you signed up for your account. If you have forgotten them and can read the email sent to the address you used when you enrolled then you need click on the button that will start the process that will help you log on. Remember though that if you think you have used the correct user name and password that they are case-sensitive. In other words if you used a capital letter when you first logged on then you will need to use it every time you log on.

One of the reasons for forcing people to log on is to help the teachers. Teachers need to keep track of who has done what and how well they have done. They cannot do this unless they can tell one student from another.  

Making a start with the course outline

The course outline is like the index of a text book. It is divided up into topics and most topics have at least two if not more parts to them. Each part is listed in the outline and at the left hand side of that item there is a symbol. Here are some examples of these symbols.

image for discussion board discussion forum
image for assignments assignment
image for text page text page (like a web page)
image for wiki wiki
image for word file word-processed file
image for web link web link

 

For more information about the types of resources that may be found on the topic outline go to the Getting Started page (see drop down list of pages about online couses at the side).  Each item in the topic outline is a link. So you can open it as a page. When you get going on the topics you may find it easier if you open the Wiki for that topic in a new window or a new tab. This means that you can keep two pages open at once and swap between them quite easily. The Wikis on this course have been set up so that only you and your tutor can see what you have written. You can keep on going back to them and checking your notes as long as you are enrolled on the course. 

To open a link in a new window or tab in Internet Explorer

To do this you will need to find the shortcut menu. You can do this by clicking on the right hand mouse button or pressing the shortcut menu key on the keyboard. (The shortcut menu key is normally one of only two keys on a keyboard that just has a picture on it. It is the one with the rectangle on it i.e. the one that does not have the Windows symbol on it.) The shortcut menu changes depending on where the cursor is when the shortcut menu is activated. If the cursor is over a link then you will see at least "open in a new window" if not "open in a new tab" as well. What actually appears in the menu depends on what version of Internet Explorer you are using. If you chose to open a page in a new window then you will see a block of text appear in the bar along the bottom of the screen. If you choose to open a page in a new tab then you will see a new block of text just under the menu bar. To move from one page to another all you need to do is click on the block of text for the page that you want to move to. 

Returning to the course outline

If you want to go back to the course outline at any time then click on the short name of the course near the top of the screen. So for Surviving a Household Emergency click on SAHE101 and you will go back to the topic outline. 

Any further queries

You can contact Lily the Pink at susan at  lilythepinkonline dot co dot uk and you will get an answer as soon as reasonably possible. 

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How do you use our online courses?

The course outline (list of links) 

Once you join a course the first thing you see is the course outline. This is often arranged by topics, although not always. This is a list of links to the course materials. Like a college course tutor we  create a range of resources for learners to use. These are added to the course outline so that the learners can find them. (more…)

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What courses will soon be available?

The courses offered by Lily the Pink Ministries are constantly increasing or being improved. At the moment the courses are divided between three different categories. (more…)

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Online courses

Lily' the Pink's Online Learning Place is where it is possible to access our online courses. The first courses have been developed by Lily the Pink herself.  This does not mean that all the courses found on the site will have been developed by Lily the Pink. One of the courses in the Online Learning Place is called Surviving a Household Emergency. It is designed to help you think through a variety of issues that will help you become better prepared if you have to face a household emergency.  These include things like financial issues, communication, and coping with adverse weather whether it is a heatwave or a winter storm. There are checklists of useful items that you might like to have on hand.

One of the features of Lily the Pink's courses is that they are linked to a page on a social networking site called del.icio.us. That page has many links on it that have been given at least one tag. These tags are related to the topics on the course. There is one tag per topic so you can find additional information or ideas related to that topic. There are links in the course materials that will take you to the collection of links for the tags relevant to that topic. If you are interested in learning more about how to make your life easier if there is an emergency then go to the Learning Zone and have a look at the Surviving a Household Emergency online course.

We are constantly updating and improving the materials available. Plans are in hand for making more materials available as audio or video files. There are also plans to increase the number of courses available. Keep coming back to see what progress we have made.

More about our courses

What courses will soon be available?

How do you use an online course

Getting started

Ideas for upcoming courses

Could you become a course creator?

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The Money Secret

History makers need to be able to handle money well and some of them need to have the skills to help others handle money well. One way of testing your skills and improving them if necessary is to do a course like The Money Secret. It is based on the book of the same name by Rob Parsons The Money Secret is a course developed by an organisation that aims to helps people help people. 

The secret in this case is fairly simple i.e. use what you have wisely. One of the features of the course is that it uses a case study of someone who has been struggling with debt that gives the opportunity to learn the basic principles of how to handle the situation. Armed with these you can help yourself and others escape from difficult circumstances.   I would like to be able to run this course at least once during the run up to Christmas. There are a number of possiblities in terms of where and when it could be run. One is to run it as an all day course at Spennymoor Town Hall. Another venues that have been considered are Allington House in Durham and St Peter’s Church Hall in Bishop Auckland. Next issue is how to pay for it. Here is some idea of the probable costs room hire, (a minimum of £30), refreshments (a minimum of £10) travelling expenses (a minimum of £5) and cost of teaching materials (around £15). These together come to at least £60 a course. If I insisted on getting paid for my time then it really would be unaffordable (six hours at standard FE tutors rates comes to around £120). The problem is that those most in need of such a course would be those who can least afford to pay for it. If the charge was kept down to £5 then there would have to be at least 12 people turn up to cover the costs. However, even that would be too much for some people to afford.  We think that there are many people who could benefit but we are not sure how many would be interested in taking part. Let us know if you think that we could get a class of 10 or 12 together for a day and if you would be willing to help us gather a group like that. Would you like to support such a course? You could do this by sponsoring such a course. You, or your organisation could pay for the room hire or refreshments or both. You may even have a suitable room that you could make available for free. If any of these apply to you please get in touch. PS  It is dealing with money issues like this that gave me the desire to learn from the Cashflow 101 game that was mentioned in a previous post. If you have not got around to contacting me about joining in a game in the Bishop Auckland area please do, before you forget again.

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What is a CIC?

CIC stands for Community Interest Company. What on earth does that mean? It is a type of limited company but one where the aim is benefit the community rather than to make money for those running it. It is not a charity although there is a regulator who by law needs to see the year end accounts and the annual report. The annual report has to explain what Lily the Pink Ministries has done to benefit the communities that the founding documents said that it would do. These are available on the regulator's own web site so anyone can have a look at them.

The legal documents have to say who will benefit from the activities of the CIC. There are two groups mentioned. Firstly, anyone who can access the web site and understand English. Secondly, those living locally who need support to improve their emotional or mental wellbeing. Before agreeing to register Lily the Pink Ministries CIC the regulator also wanted to see a list of ways that these communities could benefit. The annual report has to explain how these aims have been met.  

There are restrictions on how much the directors can earn, no fat cat salaries are allowed by the regulator. The profits have to go to the community rather than to the directors. The documentation also had to state what use any surplus would be put to. The answer to that was "The range of possible needs that clients may have means that it is unlikely that there will be any difficulty finding ways of spending money on clients."  There is also an asset lock that means that if Lily the Pink Ministries is wound down then all the assets have to be passed on to another not for profit organisation doing similar work .  

So now you know.

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Lily the Pink Ministries is registered as a Community Interest Company in England and Wales Company number 6810728 Registered address 28 Helmsley Drive, Coundon, County Durham DL14 8NX

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