headwayyouth- phil smith's blog

About

Categories

  • All things ethical
  • Blogosphere
  • Church old and new
  • Emerging Church
  • Life on the Tyne
  • Media musings
  • The beautiful game
  • Web 2.0
  • Youthwork

Current reading material

  • George Monbiot: Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning

    George Monbiot: Heat: How to Stop the Planet Burning

  • : Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures

    Emerging Churches: Creating Christian Communities in Postmodern Cultures

  • David Tacey: Spirituality Revolution

    David Tacey: Spirituality Revolution

Current listening

  • Various Artists -

    Various Artists: Live Lounge

  • Razorlight -

    Razorlight: Razorlight

Blogs

  • Babble Babble Babble
  • ben hanbury
  • benedson
  • Distinctly Askew
  • embody :: creative living :: life coaching
  • emerging minister
  • Existential Punk
  • howies® - by the way
  • Jason Clark Blog
  • jonnybaker
  • journal | moby.com
  • LivingRoom >> A space for Life
  • maggi dawn
  • Monbiot.com
  • mootblog
  • Nouslife
  • Postmodern bible- Pete's Blog
  • Ruthe
  • si johnston
  • Silkworm.org.uk- lou's blog
  • Sue Wallace
  • tallskinnykiwi :: the blog of andrew jones
  • The Harbour of Ourselves
  • the old bill
  • The Simple Pastor
  • third space
  • Way Out West- Mark Berry
  • Wondering
  • Youthblog: Christian Youth Work & Ministry

Ethical bits & blogs

  • :: People Tree :: Fair Trade - Ecology - Fashion
  • Action Against Starbucks
  • Gossypium : The Ethical Eco-Cotton Store
  • hippyshopper
  • howies®
  • Hug; fair-trade, organic clothing
  • See the Flipside
  • STOP THE TRAFFIK
  • Traidcraft online store

...the end

as explained here, after two and a bit years headwayyouth is being laid to rest in a couple of weeks time and, having spent a few days getting the new blog up and running, the transition can now take place.

from now on you can find me blogging over at happytraveller.typepad.com.

to all those who've kindly blogrolled me, i'd be jolly grateful if you could update your blogroll.

i've also got a new email address [email protected]

thanks phil

March 27, 2007 in Blogosphere | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Faithless: live

MaxiSo faithless were great.

Maxi Jazz is a complete inspiration. His lyrics and philosophy of peace and love are mind-blowing.

Next time I go to a faithless gig I need to take a notepad or something because between songs the guy comes out with some gems.

Off to London again tomorrow...

March 20, 2007 in Life on the Tyne | Permalink | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Tags: Faithless

life on the tyne...

i'm keeping well entertained on the tyne at the mo... wedding activity... trips to london... fair trade fortnight... community gatherings... and tonight faithless...
zo and i went to see faithless last year and it was incredible. hoping for a repeat performance tonight.

in other news... this blog is shortly to be laid to rest.
the organisation which, to date, supports this blog (headway) is no longer called headway and I no longer do any of its youthwork, so headwayyouth couldn't be less descriptive.
think i'm going to keep blogging though....
just need to find a decent title...

March 19, 2007 in Life on the Tyne | Permalink | Comments (6) | TrackBack (0)

Ethical gossip

 Levi's ECO 506 Standard You may have seen a while back that Levi  are now selling organic jeans.  For those of us who are optimists this was another victory. Hurrah, another company going ethical...

Hold on a minute though. Becky, a fellow ethical enthusiast at TC, has just stumbled across this:

"We regret to announce that Levi Strauss & Co. (LS&Co.) has resigned     from ETI [Ethical Trading Initiative] following their suspension for refusing to adopt the ‘Living Wage ’ provision of the ETI Base Code."

Shock horror! Looks like it's back to Howies!

March 06, 2007 in All things ethical | Permalink | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Tags: ETI, Levi's

London Calling

27022007009 27022007011 27022007010 London this week was much fun. Busy, but fun! I can imagine hating London if I lived there but while I'm just a visitor I love it.
For obvious reasons I'm a public transport fan and once you've mastered the tube it is so unbelievably efficient and also quite fun. But the best thing about London is definitely Soho: all those quirky little shops, Black Market Records (pictured) and ridiculously cheap food (also pictured).
If heaven is like anything Soho (minus the sex shops and prostitutes) I'll be a happy man!

March 02, 2007 in Life on the Tyne | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Picnik

So apparently not everyone has photoshop... feeling your pain...
Screenshots of PicnikIf you are one of those unfortunate peeps, then you might be interested in Picnik. It's just a beta at the mo, so some of the functionality is missing, but basically it allows you to edit and amend your photos online using the glorious technology of Web 2.0. Even if you have got photoshop, Picnik has some big advantages primarily it allows you to edit photos that have already been uploaded to Flickr (without downloading and re-uploading), saving a lot of time and hassle.

March 02, 2007 in Web 2.0 | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Excuse me...

Yes, I know this is 'my thing', but I figure me commenting about fairtrade during fairtrade fortnight is kinda like a Christian writing something reflective at Christmas or a Jew writing something religious during Hanukah, so get over it!
D99ada892e5fc127617b93be32870cd5_fortnigSo my exciting trip to london included attending the glitzy launch of Fairtrade Fortnight. The event was full of licensees (ie Green and Blacks, Tesco, Ben & Jerry's) and so I felt a bit out of my depth as more of a campaigner, but the speeches were really interesting. Gail Porter, left, was beautifully simple in her description of how fair trade makes a difference, but the evening was largely dominated by Sainsbury's.
As a bit of a fair trade puritan snob this made me more than a little angry. 'We [Traidcraft] bust our ass to make fair trade what it is then Sainsbury's and Marks & Spencer's waltz in a steal the limelight... grumble, grumble!'

I reflected on this a little on the way home and once I got off my high-horse I realised what a good thing this mainstreaming is. Sainsbury's are in the process of switching all their bananas to Fairtrade, their currently at 85% and will reach 100% by May. Sainsbury's sell 1,000 bananas a minute. That is a lot of farmers getting a much better deal than before a few consumers started to kick ass requesting fair trade.
There was a feature about all this in Monday's Guardian,

"Yesterday, Caribbean prime ministers who lobbied British government officials for better trade terms, lined up instead to thank Sainsbury's. Sir John Compton, the 82-year-old premier of St Lucia, told Justin King, the head of Sainsbury's: "You have saved the banana farmers of St Lucia."

Roosevelt Skerrit, 35, the youngest prime minister in the world when Dominica voted him in last year, said: "The commitment of the relationship [with Sainsbury's] is unparalleled."

He added: "As a result of fair trade, our farmers are now able to invest in their community in the form of school equipment, farm roads and community facilities."

So inconclusion. Hurrah! The mainstreaming of Fairtrade seems a chuffing good way to MakePovertyHistory.

March 01, 2007 in All things ethical | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tags: Fairtrade

To blog...

All of a sudden I've lots to blog about so I'm going to write my 'to blog' list here and then cross them off over the next five days:

1) Fairtrade fortnight

2)  Picnik

3) London

4) New phone

5) The future of headwayyouth

6) Spirited Exchanges

March 01, 2007 in Blogosphere | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

The glitzy world of Fair Trade

Fortnight2007_webb1 Just about to leave Traidcraft HQ to board the familiar train to london, for the launch of Fairtrade Fortnight tonight.
Generally speaking Fair Trade isn't the trendiest thing around: it normally features a lot of coffee mornings and [middle-aged] fashion shows, so I'm quite looking forward to tonights knees-up.
Just got a new phone with a decent camera, so I'll hopefully have some photos for blogging later this week.

February 26, 2007 in Life on the Tyne | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Tags: FT14

Food

CandlesLast night a few of us gathered in the north-east to eat and reflect on all things Lenten. Having spoken with lots of people, it became apparent that to develop a sense of community amongst those of us who aren't in churches, eating is pretty important. Amazing how a bottle of vino and some 'pucka tucka' can prove to be a real leveller.

We were keen to meet in the context that we were all on a spiritual journey, so I pulled together a few liturgical bits and bobs from the internet (including this from down under, this from Jonny and this from Bruce Stanley).

Download lenten_liturgy.pdf

February 23, 2007 in Emerging Church, Life on the Tyne | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

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Photo Albums

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