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Filed under by lily on November 1, 2010 at 11:38 pm {no comments}

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Tags: responsibility

What about the Big Society?

Filed under More about blossoming by lily on November 1, 2010 at 10:17 pm {no comments}

For those who don't know the Big Society is an idea put forward by the new UK government that came to power this summer. They say that their aims include supporting co-ops, mutuals, charities and social enterprises and encouraging people to take an active role in their communities. Well that is the positive side of things. The negative is that the government is cutting back on its spending and that will mean that some of the things that were once done with taxpayer's money will no longer be able to be done.

Governments have for a long time supported people who have been able to help them achieve their aims. They have wanted companies to set up factories in different parts of the country so have given grants to encourage them to do so. The have wanted people to provide social housing so have provided assistance to housing associations. Other times they have given tax incentives to people and organisations that help them achieve their aims. For examples some charities do not pay value added tax on certain items. Not only that they have paid some organisations to provide services on their behalf such as support for those who are elderly, mentally ill disabled etc.

We are entering a new era because the government has decided that they cannot afford to spend as much money as they once did but they still want to do something to make sure as many of society's needs are met. They are cutting back on the grants and contracts they once offered. The needs are still there but the government will not pay for them to be met. This is where history makers will be needed more than ever. We need people who can meet the needs within society even though the government is not a willing to help them as it once was. This is not a new idea as during the Victorian era there was an idea known as laissez-faire which basically meant that the government did not get involved in guiding or directing economic or community activities. In this era people were encouraged to take responsibility to set up businesses set up hospitals and generally do things that supported society.

Today we have come to expect others to do things to look after us rather than taking responsibility to look after ourselves. The critics say that letting people do things themselves will mean inferior services because those running them do not have the practical or organisational skills to meet the needs within society. This may be true but how will people learn if they do not practise and make a start. Mistakes can be excellent teachers. Problem is we are often too scared to try in case we make a mistake. We need more people who are willing to make the effort to blossom into people who are able and willing to learn how to do things better. It takes people who are willing to ask and find answers to questions such as

I don't know how to do this. How can I learn to do it?
Who can I find to work with me as I try and change history?
Where can I find the money to help me achieve my goals?

However we need people who are prepared to grow and blossom into all that they can be. People who are willing to take responsibility for solving the problems around them and not wait for the government to do it for them because the government will not be able to do it for them.

Tags: government, learn, money, More about blossoming, responsibility

Whose responsibility is it anyway?

Filed under More about blossoming by lily on October 4, 2010 at 9:00 am {no comments}

We see needs all over the place but whose responsiblity is it to meet those needs. Today in Britain the expectation is that the government in one way or another will meet all the needs of the people. They provide a National Health Service, fund social care so that the weaker members of society are cared for and protected, provide benefits for those who are unable to work for some reason etc etc. Well if the government was not going to meet these needs who else was going to do so? Businesses, social enterprises and charities were not managing to meet all these needs which was why the government originally stepped in. The mixing up of communities in the 1940s lead to some people finding out how the other half lived and there were a number of surprises. People were genuinely concerned and wanted to support those less able than themselves to obtain health care, good food etc. The vision for a world fit for heroes included a health care system available to everyone and other aspects of the Welfare State that we now take for granted.

Now we are finding ourselves in a situation where the government is retreating because it has realised that it quite simply cannot afford to meet all these needs. Now we have organisations that provide health and social care that depend on the government for money via contracts and grants. They are trying to find other ways of surviving. We also have people who have needs and somehow as a society we have to find ways of meeting those needs. This is why we so need to find people who will be history makers and take responsibility to meet those needs. If you have a vision of how you can do something to meet the needs in society you must develop a strategy to put it into action for the sake of those around you. have become so used to being helped and supported that we have forgotten how to stand on our own two feet. if one will not do what God wants he will organise anotehr way of doing the same thing is NHS it will provide an alternative

Tags: government, history maker, More about blossoming, responsibility

Cashflow 101 – or practising how to make money make money

Filed under How to learn with us?, More about blossoming by lily on August 23, 2010 at 9:01 am {no comments}

History makers need to have a positive attitude towards money. In other words they need to know how to handle it and make it multiply for them. This is not an easy thing to do. Many struggle just to manage money. Few actually manage to mind make money work for them rather than them having to work for money. This can take a radical change in attitudes and means learning a new set of skills. How can you do this? Most of us have been taught that we should be aiming to get a job or work for others. Some have gone a bit further and looked at the possibility of becoming self-employed and giving themselves a job. Many people have set up organisations that learnt to survive on grants and donations rather than developing such a level of income for themselves that they can use this to fund the organisation. In these days of huge competion for grants and donations it is useful to be able to developing alternative ways of funding the work that you want to do. Therefore it is useful to learn how to use money to make money. Those who have learnt how to make money make money have had to change their attitude towards money. That can be a quite a difficult journey. This game was developed by Robert Kiyosaki as a way of helping people develop the skills and attitudes that are necessary to make those kind of changes. If you have not heard of Mr Kiyosaki then you will not have heard of the Rich Dad Poor Dad series of books. In these books he compares the things that he learnt from his natural father (his poor dad) and his best friend’s father (his rich dad). One had many academic qualifications and had a good job but still died poor. The other was street smart and employed others to help him make money that made him rich. In the past few years he has built a business based on the principles he learnt and then used in his own life to become rich. His current businesses run seminars and a coaching service using the principles he has written about in his books. In addition they sell three cashflow games. One for children and two for adults, one extending the skills learnt in the other. I have managed to obtain a copy of the children’s version and the first level adult game. Problem is I need people to play them with. Is there anyone in the Bishop Auckland area who would be willing to play them with me? If so let me know and we can make arrangements to do so.

Tags: How to learn with us?, learn, money, More about blossoming, responsibility, success

Who will help?

Filed under More about blossoming by lily on July 5, 2010 at 8:59 am {no comments}

I have been trying to plan a new project and I knew that I could not do it alone. I needed some helpers. I asked some of the Christians I knew and they were all too busy. I asked some non-Christians and they said that sounds like a good idea when can we start!

I was worried and puzzled. If this is supposed to be an organisation with a Christian bias why are those who are most interested in working with me not Christians. They are simply people with a heart to help other people in the kind of ways that this project is expected to do.

The light dawned when I heard a teacher put a slightly different interpretation on the parable of the kingdom in Matthew 22 than I had heard before. The story goes like this some people were asked to go to a wedding banquet but they had other things that they wanted to do instead. The king then said OK if you won’t come along I will look amongst the homeless and people who are not as well off as you and find some people who will come along. Those that did come were even rewarded coming by being provided with new clothes. In other words, if those who were invited first will not join in with God’s plans then He will go out and find people who will. He will also reward them for joining him.

This helped to explain the situation I had found myself in. It also explains why we have so many organisations that are providing health or social care within our communities. This was once the responsibility of the church. In fact the early forms of social care legislation in the 18th and 19th century were based on the parish system. It became law that those who were in charge of running the parish church also had to hand out money to people who needed it as they had no work. Those who were disabled or ill or too young to work were cared for in the workhouses. Attitudes have changed as at that time it was more unacceptable to be dependent on others and not to be able to work yourself. Today we have a National Health Service and local councils who provide social care for those who struggle because of either health or disability. Being too ill or disabled to work is also less of a stigma so as a nation we are not as unkind to those who cannot work. However during the 20th century the church retreated from providing many of these services and now they are provided by the state.

Problem is we are now beginning to feel the squeeze financially and the government does not have the money to pay for as many of these services as it once did. In fact some would say that the need was so great that it never had enough money to do all that was needed. Now the church has got weaker and who is there left to provide these services. Some faith groups support their members much better than the church does so are they going to expand the services that they provide for their own into the wider community?

God will find a way of providing for people whether it is his first choice of people or his second choice or even his third choice. If those who believe that they are amongst his first choice do not follow him and set up ways of helping others then He will move on and they may find that they regret it. In fact in some ways that is where we are at the moment as people of faith struggle against those who deny them opportunities to display jewellery that reflect their faith or suggest that it is a sacking offence to mention words like God or church during working hours.

The teacher emphasised the idea that God could anyone for his purposes by reminding us that if in the Old Testament He used a donkey to help him achieve what he wanted. In other words if those that He wanted to work with him to fulfill his purposes would not do so then it would not matter who was willing He would use them.

I was sad that this had happened with the project that I am working on. However, I knew that God was in control and that He was teaching me things through this experience.

Tags: government, More about blossoming, responsibility

Why do we have limitations?

Filed under Personal development by lily on June 4, 2010 at 12:51 am {no comments}

One reason why we have limitations is that we have been taught them or have learnt them from experience. It is said that fleas are trained by putting a cover over them they then learn that when they jump above a certain height they will hit the cover and get hurt. Consequently they stop jumping so high and only jump to a level where they can trust that they will not get hurt by hitting the cover. After they have learnt this the trainer can take the cover away and they will still not try to jump any higher.

We can be taught that we cannot do things in the same way as the flea. It does not matter whether those things are right and proper things to do or not. This is why those in teaching roles carry a lot of responsibility. It is not so much how they teach people that they are judged for but what they teach people. They can be the ones who put the limits on or take the limits off people. They are trusted as people who know what the right thing really is hence the responsibility that they carry.

In one sense we are all responsible for what we learn and in a sense that is true. We should go on and check what we have learnt against primary sources and use our own common sense to work things out for ourselves. However, we have this habit of simply accepting what the teacher says and following whatever party line that they take. Sometimes we even see flaws in the evidence presented to us about a particular view point and still accept it because we trust the person who told us about that view point knew that it was right.

Teachers can only teach people the things that they know for themselves. If they do not know how and why something happens they cannot explain it to anyone else. One reason why we have to take responsibility in terms of who we learn from. That includes what TV programmes we watch, mp3 files we listen to, books we read and the company that we keep.

Teachers are no less biased than the rest of us. Some have seen people hurt by the mistakes that others have made and as a result will say that doing xyz is wrong because it hurts people. If only life was so simple. How many times have you looked at something and realised that you see it in a different light to someone else? Truth is truth but you can stand in one position and see it in one way and stand in another position and see it in another. They are good people and want to protect others but by doing this they put limits on people.

I am reminded of the letter my primary school headmistress sent out before the annual school trip. Every year one pupil had an accident with a drinks container and every year the list what drinks containers were unacceptable increased. The aim was to find some way of preventing someone having an accident with a drink. No matter what the limits were somehow someone always seemed to have an accident. Gradually the freedom to take what we wanted was diminished as we had to follow the rules.

Our ability to choose what we learn increases as we develop and mature. By then though we have spent many years learning from our families and the people they have trusted to care for us or teach us. Some of us have learnt many limitations by then, not all of them useful ones. Some have learnt that if they talk to someone then they will not be heard. Some have learnt that the only way to feel secure is to hide away from other people.

Time some of us went back to the primary source and did some proper investigation of what we are capable of doing. People will hear us if we have the courage to make the effort to speak to others. We can still be safe if we come out from behind the barricades. We can do things if we take the limits off ourselves.

Tags: learn, limitations, Personal development, responsibility