Greenbelt and all that ....
I have had a long time out of the office, what with annual leave and then a hectic week at work and then a festival called Greenbelt. The hectic week at work was due to our fantastic campaign on climate change issues ......have a look at http://www.christianaid.org.uk/stoppoverty/climatechange/index.aspx
When the marchers came into my patch basically it was 24/7 for a few days for the team here looking after them . I had periods of intense pressure like that in the profession - typically around Budgets and pre Budgets. Never such good fun though! I got back from holiday on the Saturday, and was right in the thick of it on the Sunday. In the old days I would have begrudged that and it would have ruined my holidays, but that wasn't the case at all. We got some great media coverage - not down to my efforts alone by any stretch but the need to do press releases and get local press interested and react to them quickly was just like around Budget days in the profession.
Then it was on to Greenbelt. Greenbelt is a great Christian Arts festival which Christian Aid partners with and has done for a few years. Have a look at http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/ I generally think if it wasn't for Greenbelt I would still be languishing in the accountancy profession. I started going along in 1993, and for a few years all the radical stuff (well it seemed radical to a good "in the box" evangelical as I was back then) about social justice and the life a radical discipleship should follow kind of passed me over; I just enjoyed the music and the spirit of the festival. But after a few years I couldn't ignore it any more. One year Christian Aid explained a new campaign at the time - the start of the trade justice campaign. It seemed such a hugely ambitious and dare I say prophetic aim that I wanted to get involved more than just posting a few postcards.
So I volunteered with the local office as a speaker and preacher in churches. Before long I got dragged in far more - Makepovertyhistory was happening, I got involved in other stuff such as volunteer conferences ...and as this went on the tax profession was getting more and more unethical, pushing the boat out further and further with some of the aggressive tax planning I had to peddle ...to the extent that I got fairly schizophrenic. How to deal with it? Head in the sand - do the best job possible for my employer (important but difficult when you are concerned about ethics) ...but then every year Greenbelt would come along and instead of a weekend of pilgrimage and relaxation it became a profoundly uncomfortable experience.
Of course that's all behind me now, and it really does seem another lifetime. Greenbelt is a different experience- consolidation and recharging the batteries, as well as meeting lots of new friends and colleagues and doing a little bit of work to help out at the CA venue. I owe it a lot though, and I'm sure as I intend to keep on going it will become once more in time uncomfortable ..I hope so anyway.....
When the marchers came into my patch basically it was 24/7 for a few days for the team here looking after them . I had periods of intense pressure like that in the profession - typically around Budgets and pre Budgets. Never such good fun though! I got back from holiday on the Saturday, and was right in the thick of it on the Sunday. In the old days I would have begrudged that and it would have ruined my holidays, but that wasn't the case at all. We got some great media coverage - not down to my efforts alone by any stretch but the need to do press releases and get local press interested and react to them quickly was just like around Budget days in the profession.
Then it was on to Greenbelt. Greenbelt is a great Christian Arts festival which Christian Aid partners with and has done for a few years. Have a look at http://www.greenbelt.org.uk/ I generally think if it wasn't for Greenbelt I would still be languishing in the accountancy profession. I started going along in 1993, and for a few years all the radical stuff (well it seemed radical to a good "in the box" evangelical as I was back then) about social justice and the life a radical discipleship should follow kind of passed me over; I just enjoyed the music and the spirit of the festival. But after a few years I couldn't ignore it any more. One year Christian Aid explained a new campaign at the time - the start of the trade justice campaign. It seemed such a hugely ambitious and dare I say prophetic aim that I wanted to get involved more than just posting a few postcards.
So I volunteered with the local office as a speaker and preacher in churches. Before long I got dragged in far more - Makepovertyhistory was happening, I got involved in other stuff such as volunteer conferences ...and as this went on the tax profession was getting more and more unethical, pushing the boat out further and further with some of the aggressive tax planning I had to peddle ...to the extent that I got fairly schizophrenic. How to deal with it? Head in the sand - do the best job possible for my employer (important but difficult when you are concerned about ethics) ...but then every year Greenbelt would come along and instead of a weekend of pilgrimage and relaxation it became a profoundly uncomfortable experience.
Of course that's all behind me now, and it really does seem another lifetime. Greenbelt is a different experience- consolidation and recharging the batteries, as well as meeting lots of new friends and colleagues and doing a little bit of work to help out at the CA venue. I owe it a lot though, and I'm sure as I intend to keep on going it will become once more in time uncomfortable ..I hope so anyway.....
posted by Mark at 10:39 PM
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