February 15, 2007
My Technorarti Claim
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February 13, 2007
Erin Rose Norwood
Congratulations to my friends Steve and Sam who gave birth to Erin Rose Norwood this evening.
Born 9:45pm 13 February 2007
Weight 6lb 8.5oz
They now have three girls (Grace and Ruth too) and I think that Steve might need some male help as he's all alone now with 4 women in his life!
I'm here if you need me Steve!!!
Congratulations!!!
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February 10, 2007
Vineyard Church Sutton - James Bond Party
This Saturday we had a James Bond party at church and I think that everyone had such a good time. I helped Jon set up the lighting at Overton Grange and as you can see from the photo, it looked great.
I think people (including me) thought that having the party at Overton would be pretty naff for a few reasons, mainly being that it was a school hall but people worked so hard to make the place look brilliant and did such a good job and i think it's one of the best parties we've had at VCS.
Jon and Jason gave our awards to people who had done great jobs at church and Jon had found an amazing band called One Nation. He'd seen them at Green Belt and they were excellent. They came all the way down from Coventry to play for us and were stunning. They got everyone (but me!) up dancing and I think people thoroughly enjoyed the evening. They're website is here and I highly recommend them for any function you want to get people dancing at!
Now, as you can see from my photo, I had made a costume. I don’t normally like fancy dress parties but I had come up with the great idea of making a car out of a card board box. I put this idea to Laraine knowing that I wouldn’t be able to complete this task on my own.
So, the way it was made was thus:
• Stage 1: Get a card board box, cut out the middle and fit it to me! :)
• Stage 2: Laraine Paper Machéd the box on the front to the shape of an Aston Martin. Approx time: 1.5 hours.
• Stage 3: Paint the box grey. Approx time: 30 mins.
• Stage 4: Start finding images on the net. In the end, the only high resolution images that I could find were of an Aston Martin Vantage V8. Now for all you Bond fans out there, you will know that James has never used a Vantage except for the old model V8 but since this was the best I could find, it would have to do!
• Stage 5: Cut out the images and then resizing to fix the box. This was the pain staking bit. Cutting out the images to make sure that they were in proportion to the box. Approx time: 6 hours.
• Stage 6: Stick images to box. I quite enjoyed this bit but that might be because Laraine was in charge at this point and I was just holding bits of tape and doing the quality control! Laraine was amazing by the way and was very patient with me. Approx time: 2 hours.
• Stage 7: Making those fine adjustments. I quite liked this bit too. I printed out larger Aston Martin logos to stick on the front and the back, made wheels from real Aston Martins, printed off a Sony Sat Nav and got an image from Multimap of Overton Grange and combined the two, got a speedometer (from a Mazda!) and then decided to make a windscreen. Approx time: 2 hours.
So all in all, it probably took about 12 hours to make my special Aston Martin and I had a great time wearing it at the party. Unfortunately there was no prize for best costume but that’s probably a good thing as I probably wouldn’t have won it! Thanks to Laraine for helping me make the best costume that I've ever had. It was great!
And thanks to VCS for a great party!
All of the photos from the night can be seen here.
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December 13, 2006
Paul & Laura Kingsley-Smith Have Their Baby!!!
Congraulations to my friends Paul and Laura Kingsley-Smith who had their baby Gracie May Kingsley-Smith on Monday. Gracie was born at 9:48 on the 10th December (her due date). She was 7lbs 10oz.
They're out in NZ so it might be a long time until i meet Gracie but i am so pleased for you guys and look forward to reading all about her and all the things you do on your blog.
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November 08, 2006
The Legal & General Mad Awards
The guys at my office were nice enough to nominate me for something called the Mad award. Now if this was an award for who was maddest, I think I would stand a good chance of winning but it actually stands for 'Making a Difference' Award.
They nominated me for doing the Sri Lanka mission and for the kids camps that we do in the summer and I never thought that I would win. There are loads of people here at LGIM who do good things and about 15 people go nominated.
Anyway, a couple of weeks ago I get an invitation to attend the finals of the award and then a trip on the London Eye. I was again excited but never thought that I would win it. When it came to the London award, I looked around the room and noticed that none of the other people who had been nominated were in attendance. This is when I started to get nervous that I might have actually won it!
Anyway, they did indeed call my name out and I went over to collect my award of a bottle of champagne, a nice badge with the MAD logo and the best bit is a cheque for £1000 for the charity of my choice!
I was so happy! I couldn’t believe that I’d actually won it.
I plan to give the £1000 to Vineyard Church Sutton but more directly to help with the new initiative that we are doing to help people with no money paint their houses and do their gardens.
Loads of other people from the other offices in the UK are doing amazing things. People at the Kingswood office are working with local schools to get their aware of environmental issues. People in Cardiff have created a material bag which they are giving out to their 800 staff to reduce the need to get a plastic bag at every shop every lunch time... and many more....
Thanks to the people who nominated me and thanks for the award L&G!!
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November 01, 2006
Target Neutral
Target Neutral is basically a way of off-setting the Carbon Dioxide emissions that you pump out from your car by paying an excess. Jason has been doing this for a while now when he uses air travel and BP have now started doing the same thing for you car.
The money will then go towards projects which will help to develop systems with renewable energy sources throughout the world.
BP have teamed up with NGO's to run this project.
If you've got a Nectar card, every time you buy petrol from BP, they will donate 10p to the same cause.
I've already signed up and encourage you too as well.
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October 28, 2006
The Freedom that is Mountain Biking
I haven't been cycling for ages and today was the first day that I got out and about on my mountain bike. I went off to Abinger Hammer near Dorking to go off road cycling with Jon Wilson and Paul Smout and we had such a good time.
I'd forgotten how freeing it was to get out on my bike and hammer down some mental rugged paths at 30mph. Man it was good. We cycled up some very large hills too which was well worth it for the views at the top, and for the rapid decent back down again.
We've been doing a series at church called Passionate Living and Jason has been talking about appreciating the small things and the big things in life. I haven't really thought about it before but my cycling is my time and space to think about things (along with making sue I'm not going to kill myself hitting a rock) but I love it!
I'd really encourage everyone to find their place where they can experience God.... and that can be anywhere, doing anything.
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October 21, 2006
Sienna Ruth Greenwood
Congratulations to our friends Simon and Margo Greenwood who today at 16.04 had a little baby girl weighing in at 7lb 4oz. Sienna Ruth Greenwood! It’s all very exciting. Simon and Margo are great and will be amazing parents. I might put a bet on that she'll be a musician as well as it would be hard not to with Si and Margo as her parents!
We can’t wait to come down to visit you all!!
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October 20, 2006
Laraine's 25th Birthday Party
Today was Laraine's 25th birthday party and we had a great night.
People came from as far as Watford to celebrate with Laraine and I know it meant an awful lot to her that you all could come. We hired out the church office and just had a chilled out evening.
Sarah Hammond and Ellie White were stars and decorated the hall whilst I set up lots of images of Laraine to project onto the wall and sorted out the music. I hope it was ok! The photos seemed to go down well as they were all taken over the time that we've been together (nearly 8 years now) so there were a lot of classics from when we were very young - well, about 17!
Happy Birthday Rain! I hope you had a great evening!
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October 19, 2006
One Day In History
My friend Steve has been very excited about this... It's basically an idea (and I think a good one) by The National Trust who have come up with the idea of creating the biggest one day blog in history to report on 'A Day in the Life of...' The basic idea is to write down what you've done on the 17th October so that in x hundred years, someone can have a read and find out what people did in 2006. The papers have written a lot about it. The Times have an article here.
If you want to see what others have written, go here
I've done a post which is below and if you want to put one up, just go here.
"Hello World!
Well, today was a usual day in the life of Dave really and I’m now going to tell you all about it! :)
I woke up late at 06.20am and managed to run for the train which leaves at 06.38. I watched an Episode of CSI on my hard drive player on the train on the way to work and arrived at work at 7.30 for an enthralling day.
Work is pretty dull and I spend most of the time at work thinking what I’m going to do with the various projects that are going on in my life. Today's thoughts were focused around the Action groups that me, my wife Laraine and friend Ellie at church are going to set up. We had a meeting with Jon Franklin yesterday at the church office to discuss it and it's looking like a very good idea. The basic plan is to get paints, gardening equipment and all that sort of thing donated from various organisations and go and help people who have no money sort their homes out. It's going to be great, but we're still in the early stages. The project that I’m currently involved with at work is the Blackberry Upgrade project which involves giving out 250 new Blackberries. It’s pretty darn boring if I’m honest but I guess someone has to do it! Lucky me!
I finish work at 15.30 and on the way home tried to watch another episode of CSI but knew I was going to fall asleep on the train so just decided that sleeping was the way forward.
When I got home, I fixed some errors that Mike Smith had found on the website I made for him (http://www.aliassmithandsingh.co.uk) and then it was time for a bit of fun.
I have just bought a new computer game called Company of Heroes (this bit is very geeky but that's me really so no apologies there)! I sat and played that for 3 hours! Man it's a good game. But I do need a more powerful computer!
In the evening Laraine and I went out to see our friends Julie, Mark and Duncan. We went to the Toby Carvery in Ewell. Man I love Carvery. It’s basically all you can eat! Julie and Mark are getting married next September so we chatted about that and had a really nice evening.
Then Laraine and I went home, and went to bed.
And that's a day in the life of Dave Sztypuljak!"
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October 14, 2006
Laraine's 25th Birthday Outing - Thorpe Park
Today we went to Thorpe Park for Laraine's birthday. A big thank you to J who managed to sort out free tickets for us all. One slight problem was that J double booked himself so wasn’t able to come along in the end! Ooops!
We all had a great time and thanks to modern camera timers were able to take the photo above. Ayla made everyone laugh by going on various 'big people' rides and pulling the same funny face throughout on all of them. I'll get an image up soon!
Paul and I were amazing by the new ride there called Stealth which propels you forward to 80mph in 2 seconds and then takes you flying up a vertical incline, over a hairpin and then flies you back again. Apparently it uses electromagnets so you get amazing traction and a huge burst of speed. I don’t really understand but it was very very cool!!
Thanks to everyone for a really nice day!
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October 13, 2006
Silent Mobile Disco
Wednesday night was the first ‘Mobile Club Night’ at Liverpool Street Station. The very cool thing is that there was no music being played anywhere except through headphones from all the MP3 players that people had in their pockets.
I wish I’d known about this before because I think it would have been one of the funniest things I've ever seen. Seeing a few hundred people seemingly dancing to nothing has got to be worth a few laughs.
I think they’ll do it again after it was such a success.
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October 11, 2006
GreenMyApple
They've basically made their site look like Apple's (hopefully they wont get sued) and have highlighted the fact that Apple are using components that, when resold back to developing countries are causing children to be exposed to dangerous chemicals contained within them.
Here's the opening statement on the Greenpeace site.
"We love Apple. Apple knows more about "clean" design than anybody, right? So why do Macs, iPods, iBooks and the rest of their product range contain hazardous substances that other companies have agreed to abandon? A cutting edge company shouldn't be cutting lives short by exposing children in China and India to dangerous chemicals. That's why we Apple fans need to demand a new, cool product: a greener Apple."
You can check out more info here: http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/ and write letters to Steve Jobs and spread the word here: http://www.greenpeace.org/apple/mact.html
Now, it's not often that you can say that Apple have done something they shouldn't. So join me in getting them to change their ways!
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October 10, 2006
Prison Break - Season 2
Well, I have been waiting ages but in my opinion, the best American drama is back in full swing.
I cant say too much about what has happened as I wouldn’t want to spoil it for people who haven’t seen the first season but I think it's one of the best programmes that i watch - and I probably watch too many of them!
The first season was basically about a chap called Michael Schofield trying to break his brother out of prison. The 2nd season is basically them on the run (which means you can work out what happens at the end of the 1st!) but that's all I’ll say.
If you haven’t seen it, watch it! It's great!
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October 08, 2006
A Weekend in Wiltshire
This weekend, Laraine and I went off to a place called Calne where our friends Emma and Ben Trafford live.
It's a really nice village near Swindon which Laraine and I both find quite bizarre whilst living in London. Everything is slower, everyone seems to know each other and there is much more of a sense of community.
We travelled over to Devizes on the Saturday to watch Ben play football. It was a good game... for the first 30 seconds until Devizes scored, and then again after another minute or so. The score ended 7-2 to Devizes. Never mind Calne! But it was fun none the less :)
On the Sunday we travelled over to Wroughton (which is apparently the biggest village in England) to visit our friend from the camp we do in the summer (who I think has probably made more appearances on my blog than anyone else...) Lucy Cairns! We had a really nice time with her. My favourite part was when she took us to see Barbury Castle...... which is actually just a field as the castle was knocked down 1000 years ago or something like that. I was very disappointed to find there was nothing to look at. I think they should change the name to Barbury greenery or something along those lines!
Anyway, it was a great weekend where pretty much all we did was eat nice food and were completely stuffed by the time we got home.
Thanks for a great time Emma, Ben and Lucy!!
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September 27, 2006
After Sri Lanka.....
Coming home has been much harder than I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, it's great to see Laraine as I missed her so much and I’m looking forward to seeing my family and friends but coming back here where everything is so comfortable is very difficult after seeing people who have next to nothing.
I'm now back at work, sat in the rat race that is London where I have been for the past few years and I cant stop thinking about all the amazing things we did over the last 2 weeks on Sri Lanka. The songs we sang keep going through my mind, the people we met, the things we saw and the fun we had.
I can’t help thinking that God has something more than my job in London planned for me... I’m now very eager for him to reveal what that might be!
I also seem to not be able to go on a VCS Mission Trip without coming home with a parasite. I went to the docs yesterday and he thinks I’ve got yet another one and has given me some anti-biotics to hopefully combat it. Prayers would be appreciated as my tummy feels like someone has punched me most of the time.
Can’t wait to get to VCS on Sunday and see everyone and relive some of the amazing things that we've done. Thanks again to everyone at VCS who has supported us. Without you the trip wouldn't have been anywhere near as impacting as it was.
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September 22, 2006
Sri Lanka Posts
Rather than me put everything on twice, please check out:
http://www.vineyardchurch.org/sutton/sri_lanka/blog/
This has posts from everyone on so you can see what we've been up to.
Posted by daveszt at 06:16 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
September 18, 2006
Photos in Sri Lanka!!
I’ve put together a photo gallery for you all to see a bit more of what we’re up to. Keep coming back for more updates which will hopefully happen every other day.
Click here to go to the gallery.
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September 15, 2006
Sri Lanka - Post 1
Today has been a very exciting day. We took off from Heathrow at 9.30pm and after a very long 12 hours flight, 3 films later we made it to Colombo to see Stephan awaiting us.
All of us have found the time difference quite difficult but are slowly getting used to it.
Once we landed, we were driven to our guest house which is owned by Pastor Sanna’s church and we given a really nice meal. Dasneeh (Pastor Sanna’s wife) cooked the meal for us and said that she has started off by cooking us one which was very mild… I guess they’ll get progressively hotter!
After that we all ventured off in two different groups to two Home Group Meetings. I was thinking it would be sitting in someone’s house but we all walked to New Life Christian Centre and then about 20 people turned up.
Duncan lead worship (after spending about 30 minutes trying to find a song that they knew the words to in both Sinalese and Tamil) and it was so powerful. We all sang in our native tongue and it sounded so nice, all singing to God in a completrely different way. It really made me realise how big his church is and isn’t just sat in Sutton. After that, we all gave our testimonies which was quite amusing as everything we said had to be translated into both Sinalese and Tamil. You could be speaking and completely lose track of where you were once it got back round to you again! After this, we prayed for anyone who needed healing. This was something I haven’t done before in that kind of setting and it was really nice and very powerful. I really felt that God was there. The people (mostly ladies and one bloke) were so humble and open. It was so refreshing and made me feel realise how much of a closed person I am…..maybe that’ll change by the time we get home.. we’ll have to wait and see about that.
Then back to the Guest House where there was a surprise birthday for Yohan with cake!
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September 13, 2006
Volunteer for the Olympics
Who knows what I'll be doing in 2012 but hopefully I’ll be a marshal at a sporting event.
My mum and dad have signed up for this so I thought I might as well too. It's basically to be a volunteer at the London Olympics in 2012. You aren’t committing to anything (as if you could 6 years before), just registering an interest.
Hope to see you there!
http://www.london2012.org/en/gettinginvolved/volunteering/
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August 29, 2006
Life is Precious - The Fires in Hanioti, Greece
You may have seen on the news about the fires that have been in Greece recently. Well, my friends Jimmy and Marita were stuck right in the middle of it and Jimmy's written quite an amazing account of what happened. He said it was ok if I put it on here.....
"As some of you may be aware, there was a recent bush fire in the Halkidiki peninsula of Greece. My girlfriend (Marita) and I were staying in the beautiful resort of Hanioti when the fire broke-out.
This is my account of what happened that evening (21st August 2006).
We had just returned from the hotel pool area as strong winds had very suddenly developed.
At 7pm I was due to meet our Tour Rep (Hannah) to book an excursion to the “Waterland” fun park for the following day. On the way to meet Hannah, the hotel receptionist made small talk with me and asked if I had seen that there was a fire in the hills. I went outside of the hotel to have a look and sure enough there was a fairly large cloud of smoke bellowing from the hills. This did not in anyway seem to pose a threat as it was miles away and not very big.
When I arrived back to the hotel room (approx 7:15pm) I explained to Marita that there was a fire in the hills and we decided to have a look from our balcony. The cloud of smoke that I had seen 15 minutes previously had developed considerably. It was now much larger and a lot nearer to us. We decided to vacate the hotel room in order get a better view of what was happening.
I am sorry to say that at this time there was somewhat an air of excitement and interest in the fire as it was quite near but still not a threat (or so we thought).
At approx. 7:40pm it became apparent that fire was heading straight for us and people began to panic. We decided to go into the hotel lobby and demand that we have our passports and it was at this point we realized how enormous the fire was. As we looked out onto the road from the lobby area, all we could see was a wall of flames.
As we made our way out towards the rear of the lobby, the wind direction changed causing a massive surge of heat directed towards us. I remember being literally thrown back because of the intensity of the heat.
By now people were shouting and screaming and in a state of “what do we do”?
All of the local Greek people seemed to be fleeing in their cars which made us even more fearful - I pleaded with one Greek couple to drive us away from the fire as they were entering their car, but they said no.
As the heat grew even more intense and flames were appearing all around us, I began to fear for our lives
We proceeded to run towards the rear of the building where a gate that led down to the beach was situated. The gate was locked. It was approx. 5 feet high and had cast-iron spikes at the top.
Another heavy gust of wind occurred bringing the flames literally over our heads. Hot ash was blown into our eyes making it very difficult to see.
I remember Marita saying to me (as we approached the gate), that she would not make it over. She did not have the strength with what little leverage there was to pull herself up and over. Just as I was pushing her over the fence (in a very dangerous manner), a man appeared beside me and said:
“Don’t panic, we’ll get her over”.
And sure enough she was able to get over.
I immediately followed and began to run with everyone else down towards the beach.
My heart was now in my mouth as the enormity of the blaze became apparent.
Everything behind us was now engulfed by flames. Fire was falling out of the sky coupled with hot ash and very strong winds.
Whilst running to the beach I felt I had to contact my mum and let her know what was happening (I was not sure whether would make it out alive). I reached for my mobile phone and frantically searched for her number.
The fire continued to chase us down to beach where many hundreds of people were gathering.
The winds were now stronger than ever and with them came dense smoke from the fire.
Hundreds and hundreds of people were running up the beach with any means clothing over their mouth to help them breathe. The fire was as far as we could see – a deep orange glow all along the coastline.
After 5minutes of frantically walking I received a call from my sister who was very distressed – she had received the message from my mum that we were trapped in a fire. My sister asked me what she could do to help and the only thing I could think of was for her to pray for rain.
By this point my chest had started to tighten and the saliva in mouth gone due to the smoke which was now everywhere. We could not breathe.
An eerie silence fell around me as my mind told me that I was going to die through lack of oxygen.
We had to keep moving and by this point I was gasping for some water.
We came across a beach bar that bizarrely was still open and serving drinks. I said to Marita we have to stop and get some water otherwise we would die through dehydration. I asked the man for two bottles of water of which he gave me free. I vividly remember saying to him:
“My friend, do you think we will be ok”?
And he replied to me:
“My friend I do not know. I have a wife and a baby in a house on the hills and I am still working here”.
I did not know what to say to him except to thank him for the water.
As we continued to make our way up the coastline, the smoke became more and more dense. We had to rest as we were now extremely breathless.
We sat crouched down by the shores edge, getting what oxygen we could. It was still very difficult to breathe as the smoke was so dense. After about 1 hour sat wondering what the fate of our lives was to be, the wind direction (once again) changed. Only this time it was for the better.
The wind was now blowing from the sea into the mainland. Although this did not eradicate the smoke completely, it provided us with more oxygen and for the first time that night in about 4 hours, I saw the stars. This filled me we some hope.
The fires still raged on in what looked like a beautiful orange sunset in the distance.
Rescue boats had started to appear and were scouring the shoreline for what we later learned was a German tourist who had drowned trying to flee the fires.
I have tried to describe to you the intensity of the heat, the size of the fire and paralysing density of the smoke which we experienced, but I feel I could never really get across how horrific this actually was. I genuinely thought my time was up.
Thank you to everyone who said prayers for us all that night. Although the rain never came, a change in wind direction did and this saved us. Thank you.
I am still finding it hard to believe that this actually happened and occasionally (usually when I’m going to sleep) relive what happened that night. The doctor tells me that talking about what happened is a good way of coping with it, so as you can see that is what I’m doing."
Video Footage:
I was able to record some footage of the fire on my mobile phone just before we ran for our lives. Please understand that at the point of recording we did not think we were in any danger from the fire and was still in a typical holiday, jovial spirit.
You can watch my footage here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hy81K72q4wE
Here's the coverage from the BBC News Website.
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August 19, 2006
Wendy Granger Gets Married!
To round off a summer of weddings Wendy Granger got married to Ed today. It was a really nice wedding with lots of people that I havent seen in ages there. It was all quite weird though because I've known Wendy since she was about 10 so for her to be getting married was somewhat scary making Laraine and I feel very old!
Hils was a bridesmaid and looked great. She also sang a song during the singing of the register and sounded great. 
The only problem was the PA guy needed a kick up the bum because all the microphones kept getting turned off throughout the service but other than some technical stuff, it all went smoothly!
Dan Usher led worship and did a great job. Was nice to see him too after Emily's wedding last week.
Congrats Wendy and Ed!!
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August 13, 2006
Emily & Phil Get Married!
Well, this weekend has been a VERY eventful one. Mostly for the fact that Emily Webb got married to Phil Coleman and what a great day it was.
We arrived at Letton Hall Christian Centre in Norfolk (in the middle of what seemed no where) on the Friday evening as Laraine and I had volunteered to help with the table decorations. Little did we know that it actually meant please can we lay all the 25 tables! We spent 2 hours on the Friday night setting a few up in our 'staging area' at the back of a gigantic marquee that must have been about 100 meters long and about 25 wide with three sections. We realised we might have quite a task on our hands when after two hours we'd only done a total of 5 tables! 20 to go!!
The next morning (The Wedding Day) we decided that we would try and complete as many tables as possible in the morning as trying to lay that many tables between the ceremony and the meal would take forever, even if we did have lots of people helping. Fortunately in the morning we managed to rope in quite a few volunteers who also helped set some of the tables. Another 4 hours passed and we have managed to do 20 tables and had also managed to fit them all into the small area that was also to be the dance floor. One more hour and we had done all 25 tables! yay!! The next problem was getting them all moved down the huge marquee after the wedding service, but we'd worry about that one later..... onto the service itself!
Now there was this guy who did all the PA for the wedding who'd also turned up on the morning of the big day. Phil's dad had been worried about the amount of kit that would be needed to be able to amplify the length of this huge white monster marquee but he needn't have worried. Phil knew a chap called Richard who had more kit than Wembley. Richard turned up in a hire van with more flight cases than an Oasis concert and so the setting up began - very cool!
The wedding ceremony was about to begin when we saw a familiar face in Lucy Cairns who we'd said bye bye to at camp a week before and it was really nice to see her again. She had her whole family with her as we'd found out previously that completely randomly she'd grown up with Emily and by coincidence Lucy, Emily and Phil were chatting once about mentioned they had a friend called Laraine and then worked out that Emily actually lived with Laraine and was going to be her bridesmaid, very bizarre but that's what happens in these Christian circles!
Emily looked amazing as you can see in the images and Phil scrubbed up OK too! :) The band was awesome but we all knew they would be as they had Pete Webb in the band. I think the fact that they also had such an awesome PA and an equally awesome chap to run it all helped too. The wedding ceremony was really nice with God being the centre of the whole thing. Phil's family are great and most of it was conducted by someone from either the Webb of Coleman family, all of them giving God massive praise and thanks. It truly was a great wedding. 
Right, back onto Laraine and my bit..... we got everyone out of the tent as quickly as possible so that we could start moving tables from our staging area to the main part of the tent. What i failed to mention was the fact that it was chucking it down with rain outside the tent at this point and there was a wind that felt like the marquee could lift off at any moment..... well we began carrying all the tables (fully laid) all the way down the tent. This was a bit of a logistical nightmare, especially with far to many Chiefs and not enough Indians but hey, isn’t it always the way. But anyway, after about another 45 minutes of faffing around we managed to get all the tables in.... hmmm except for one and guess where it was and guess where it needed to go. That's right, it had been missed off literally the far end of the tent from where it currently was sitting. So 5 of us got around the table and (VERY CAREFULLY) lifted the table over all the others dodging chairs and marquee support beams to get it to the other end! Apart from a couple of glasses falling over on the table, we made it! It was quite comical by the end!
So then the tables were in place. The rain kept coming, anyone by a door (including Dan Usher and Me) got drenched (bad planning on our part, we could have moved our table to the middle!) but it was a great day. To top it off at the end, there was a power cut at about 10.30 which lasted nearly 2 hours in the whole village. All the city people were saying "This wouldn’t happen in London" but then again, it would have made the day far less interesting!
About 30 people were left in the Drawing Room when I returned from dropping Dan and Sabrina off at their hotel and there was a chap who seemed able to play absolutely anything on a piano and everyone was singing along. It was a great way to finish off a great day. I think that Emily and Phil thoroughly enjoyed it and it is definitely a day we won't forget in a hurry.
The next day, we all had to dismantle everything which took most of the morning. I'm quite pleased we had people to do it at ours. I think that I’ll be staying out of the wedding organising business for a while!
Posted by daveszt at 07:57 AM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
August 09, 2006
Martin and Emma Dyer Move to London!!
Today is a very exciting day. “Why” I hear you cry… Well I’ll tell you….
One of my two best friends is moving back to London today with his wife Emma.
Martin has got a job at St. George’s Church in Ashtead as chief Youth leader. He’ll be looking after a team of youth workers and will no doubt do an excellent job.
I’m extremely excited as Martin’s been down in Plymouth now for 8 years and has finally seen the light and moved back to London bringing Emma with him. All that needs to happen now is for Ben to do the same with the Police and all will be well again!
Posted by daveszt at 08:15 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 08, 2006
Sony Mylo
Sony have announced that they are going to release a wireless instant messaging system called the Mylo which stands for “My Life Online”.
I’ve had MSN messenger on my Smarts Phones for quite a while now but I rarely use it as it is quite inconvenient signing on and off all the time but it would be nice to be able to use it more easily. I guess with the mobile generation where we want to be able to talk to people whenever we like and wherever we are, this sort of thing could take off. I know a lot of people who are permanently on MSN messenger and I guess this means they’ll be on it more.
Companies like IBM use IM for administering where people are when and it is a great tool. They have 300 000 people in the company so it's great for contacting people when they are in the office.
At the moment, the Mylo is going to support Yahoo Messenger and Google Messenger. But Yahoo and Microsoft are going to join forces for their IM software so I guess that means that MSN Messenger might work too (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/5176032.stm).
The Mylo is only going to be available in the USA at the moment but I’m sure the UK wont be too far behind, especially with new devices like the Microsoft Zune coming out very soon.
Posted by daveszt at 11:34 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
August 05, 2006
Bassenfell 2006
Well, the time has come again where Laraine and I pack pretty much everything we own and take it all up to the Lake District. I always forget how much of a good time it is until we arrive there and then it feels like we've never left.
We arrived late after it took us a massive 11 hours in total to get there. Last night we stayed at Alex Parson's house in Burnley and it was really nice to see her again. As soon as you arrive at the Manor it's pretty much all hands on deck. We only arrive 2 hours before the campers do and we have to get everything ready for registration.
It's always really nice to see those campers (and leaders) who have been to Bassenfell before but is also really nice to meet loads of new really cool people. I don’t think that I’ll wrote down everything that we did this week otherwise this could go on a couple of days!
My highlights were:
Mountain Biking through the Lake District....
You can't beat this. Some of the areas that we cycle through are spectacular. Sean and Esther always make the rides fun and enjoyable. I'm sure some of the kids would disagree... especially the ones who had 'offs' but that is all the fun of off-road biking!
Seeing the Kids Connecting with God
Each year, leaders at camp spend a lot of time trying to get the right balance at introducing God. I think this week most of the campers are connected with a church and so seemed to know an awful lot about who God was and how he related to their lives. Our discussion group (DG) was brilliant with some of the kids teaching me things I didn’t know or getting me thinking about things in different ways.
The evening meetings were great. Laraine did a brilliant job leading them and the people who spoke in the evenings were clear, straightforward and easy to listen to.
Watching the RAF Practice
Can you get better than watching an RAF Tornado practising low altitude flying about 500 metres above our heads whilst cycling through the hills. AWESOME!!!!
The Aqua Olympics
I don't think this will ever get boring. 
The only thing it was missing was Derek who had to go back to work but thankfully came back on the Friday to a rapturous applause!
The Talent Show
This really showed all the leaders how inspired some of the kids are. We had everything from stand-up comedy to puppets and all of them were absolutely brilliant.
Like I said above, I could keep on going but basically, camp this year was just as good if not better than the last 2 that I have done. On Sunday, Laraine and I were thoroughly depressed that fact it had to end and I am now back at work but roll on Bassenfell 2007 which will no doubt be amazing too! Thank you to everyone who was at camp this year and who made it so special.
I've put up all the photos from the week here:
http://www.daveszt.co.uk/bassenfell/photos.html
Posted by daveszt at 12:22 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 30, 2006
My 26th Birthday
Well, yesterday we arrived at Bassenfell and already the fun has begun. It's the first morning and I woke up to a lovely surprise that Laraine had sorted out for me. All the kids were armed with balloons and all made my jump as I walked into the dining room shouting Happy Birthday. A special thanks to Lucy, Sara, Ruth and Lydia for putting up all the balloon and banners so early in the morning. I guess the tiredness hadn’t kicked in yet!!
I had a great day rocking climbing and Gill walking (which is basically where you slide down streams or walk up them). It's definitely a birthday I won’t forget in a hurry.
Posted by daveszt at 12:16 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
July 23, 2006
Bird of Prey Show
Today I went for lunch round at my parents house and afterwards my mum mentioned that there as was a Bird of Prey show up at Woodcote Green Nurseries down the road so along we went.
There were about 10 other people from VCS there which was quite nice, especially as I’d seen most of them this morning.
The birds had already done two shows today so the chap who was hosting was saying how they had to be careful not to feed them too much or how they may not perform too well as they would be full anyway but they seemed to do a pretty good job to me.
One small kid had his had taken by one of the birds which was quite funny! Apparently they used to do that trick with older men until one day one of the birds took off the chap's hat also taking with it the man's toupee! How funny would that have been! It was a really nice hour spent out doing something I didn’t know about until that day with my mum. It's great when these sort of things happen like that.
Posted by daveszt at 05:50 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 18, 2006
Quidco
My friend at work told me about this last week and now I’ll never buy anything without going through here.
You can save money from most major online retailers (all except Amazon I’ve found). You basically log into your Quidco account, go to a site that you want to buy something from... e.g. Dixons and you'll pay the full price through the Dixons website but Quidco will give you the money back.
Here's an example from the DVD Reviewer Website:
XBOX 360 Premium Edition - @ dixons for £236.99 delivered (OR LESS)
If you use the promotional code below, you can get a further £20 off the retail price of £256.99, making this £236.99 delivered, the cheapest I have seen a Xbox 360 premium yet.
CASHBACK ADDENDUM: If you use an Egg Card, remember they are offering 10% cashback for Dixon's purchases this month, meaning you could get an extra £23.70 in your pocket, effectively making this £213.29!!! Alternatively, go through quidco.com, for 3% cashback.
Promotional Code: PERKZ20DIX"
Dixons Offer (but remember to go through Quidco first)
Posted by daveszt at 07:58 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
July 16, 2006
A Trip to France
This weekend Laraine and I went off to France to have a nice break with our friends the Hammonds. Sarah's parents own a little house near Boulangue which is perfect for cycling.
I spent most the weekend cycling with Matt and Laraine and Sarah went off to Boulangue market and spent money on wine, cheese and more wine, oh yeah, and just a few sweets!! 
I loved the cycling although my legs were in pain the next day. We did a 50 mile round trip to a place beginning with an M which is where the beginning part of Les Misérables is set. It is a huge fort type town with a huge wall built all the way around it. Very cool. On the way back to the chalet the ride was pretty much up hill and into the wind. It was very hard work especially as it was so hot but i love it when it's like that... except the wind! It's all good training for camp though!
Thanks to the Hammond's for a great weekend.
Posted by daveszt at 10:23 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)
