You know you want to! Retire to Spain. Click on the link for details of our des. res. for sale.

Today I received a letter saying that, further to my application a few weeks ago, my experience as a coach and consultant has been recognised through election to membership of the Institute of Business Consulting.

A few years ago (and before I started this blog) I remember majoring on how the most precious gift we receive at Christmas is Jesus himself, and how we need to enjoy "unwrapping" that gift.

This year I find myself reflecting similarly that it is awesome that God's response to a fallen world riven with rejection, misunderstanding, and alienation, is to give himself - through his son Jesus. He gives himself unconditionally, not requiring a partiuclar response but giving us a choice. Will we receive this gift? Will we accept him?

So in a world where people want to be known, loved and accepted, God does not encourage us to seek acceptance, but to be one who accepts.

Click here for Christmas Newsletter and photos.   more »

If you mention "Prosperity Gospel" Christians will usually react badly, and perhaps they should because of the teaching of those who seem to think that Christianity is all about financial wealth. On the other hand I could say that  the Bible is all about prosperity, in the sense that prosperity is about health and wellbeing - individual and corporate - in the broadest sense.

While not believing that being Christian necessarily results in financial wealth, there are Christian teachings which if followed are likely to result in a growth in wealth and prosperity for the whole community. One of these is the encouragement to be trustworthy and to seek to trust others. This is mentioned specificaly, and also encompassed in "Do to others as you would like them to do to you." The reason for this is that trust is necessary for trade to thrive, which is presumably why "my word is my bond" was once the motto successfully lived out by the City of London.

So it is with considerable sadness that I see greed and a lack of trust as underlying recent financial collapses (the "credit crunch"). As another example, I have heard of local farmers (in the UK) who have agreed prices for the sale of their grain to one of the trading at a certain time in the future. The price of grain has dropped and the traders seek to renege on their contracts as it will be difficult for them to sell on the grain. Of course they would not worry if their sale prices had gone up.

Trust takes time to build, and can be easily damaged. Perhaps the most important thing the business community can seek to do at the moment is to build trust, through being trustworthy. This is about a focus on relationships, not on solving a "financial problem."

Interestingly, in his book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People, Stephen Covey speaks of the importance of trust, and how we need to start to build that by keeping the promises that we make to ourselves (individually).  As is so often the case, we need to start with ourselves.

From time to time I receive newsletters from Revd Dr Clifford Hill, of C&M Ministries Trust, Moggerhanger Park, Bedfordshire. Formerly he was a pastor in East London, and has a challenging prophetic ministry drawing on his learning as a sociologist (it is in sociology that he has a PhD). He's written some interesting books, and he sees that much of what he foresaw is now coming to pass.

His latest newsletter draws attention to the way sociologists recognise five major social institutions, and that there is an invariable rule that when significant change takes place in any one of the five, all others are affected. They are:

• The Economy
• The Family
• Education
• Law and government
• Religion

He speaks of how all these except the economy have undergone major change since the 1960's so today's financial problems were predictable. Since this is the result of a domino-effect to do with changing values, a solution based on just addressing financial issues will not be suffiicient. The full article is worth reading here. His home page here.

A while ago I wrote about leg room on Monarch Airlines flights. They wrote back to me on 8th December, in reply to my letter of 3rd September. They had acknowledged my letter, but it has taken them longer than they said they hoped (eight weeks I think they said) to reply to my letter.

I had commented that the leg room available seemed inadequate, and there seemed to be no system in place to ensure that the taller people who needed it had preferential access to the limited number of seats with more leg room. In their reply they don't seem to acknowledge the need, just to say they are "in line with the majority of UK carriers" and complying to "CAA and manufacturer's guidelines" and CAA "rigid safety criteria." What safety? I contend that a significant proportion of the population would find it physically impossible to adopt the advocated "brace position" in an emergency in the amount of space provided.

It saddens me when a company's idea of creativity and customer service is limited to not contravening rules and regulations and being in line with the "majority of" others who are presumably similarly unimaginative.

I had a great meeting a week ago with some friends from the Wiltshire Christian Spiritual Direction Course. One was Janet Robbins, who some while ago had won a session with a Horse Whisperer. His hot tip to her was: Watch. Let go. Just be. This is an awesome recipe for life for anyone who generally wants to be in control, which of course is not the way to succeed as a horse whisperer. I am valuing the advice already.

I came across another good motto from a friend from Accts I met recently (Cal Dunlap) at an Accts MMI trustees meeting (I am a trustee). This was advice on the right attitude to visit other organisations sensitvely. To listen. To learn. To love. I like that too.

Join in my poll (to the right of this post), or comment on this post, if you are a regular visitor or a new visitor.

I posted the above on 25th November. Over the next two weeks I got 24 hits on this blog, of which 13 were from the UK.

Three people replied to my poll saying "keep it going." Two "yes I read it regularly" and one "yes I read it sometimes."

I decided to pay the money!

I suppose it had to happen sooner or later. Following the advice of a friend I have tried on-line shopping - from Sainsbury's as that is where we usually shop.

I found it easier than I expected as I was able to find groceries by typing in a shopping list, choosing "aisles" or using a find facility. It remembers my orders for next time to make the next order easier. Somehow it seems more exciting when the goods just arrive at the door.

They were a bit late, so I gained a £10 voucher. Then we gained another one when they had to make a second trip to deliver omitted wine!

Toni and I enjoyed a random night out last night dancing and listening to music in one of Bristol's up and coming venues. One of Toni's colleagues is the lead singer in the group The Love Vultures and they were playing at The Blue Lagoon on Bristol's Gloucester Road. Good fun. You can listen to some of their tracks on their web site.

I'm impressed by the the Ecclesiastical Insurance Group. I recommend them for good insurance (cars, household, etc.).

I sent in a letter and customer survey form after my car was repaired after a recent accident. The manager in charge of motor claims telephoned me yesterday to talk it through and to discuss his ideas for improving their service.

I had already deduced that they are serious about listening to their customers, as their survey form is very impressive, including general but valuable questions about how customers perceive them that key into their firm's values.

This contrasts with the lack of interest shown by Monarch Airlines (is this Britain's worst airline?) who have still not replied as they promised to my letter, and a coaching supplier that I am linking with who also does not seem to like criticism.

I wonder whether I should ask firms whether they are interested in improving performance, and interested in what their clients have to say, before I write in full?

By way of completeness, Barclays Bank eventually worked out that the messages sent by their order line were not being received by their fulfilment office, apologised profusely, and then deluged me with the envelopes I had ordered. I think that is a good outcome. Hopefully they will modify there system so it detects such errors, and introduce a more accessible escalation process!

I'm delighted to have had my first meeting today for two hours with a coach/mentor that Business Link have supplied. Under this helpful scheme people volunteer to give their time free to be a mentor to a new business.

My coach, Lee, has a lot of sales background and is himself a coach. Hopefully this is ideal to help me expand Finding True North Development Coaching.

He is encouraging me to focus my business more, and to develop a talk that I can give at business gatherings as a way of encouraging business.

Great news!

Today Toni had her "RITA" interview to assess her specialist training in psychiatry and she passed. This means that she can now apply for jobs as a Consultant Psychiatrist.