How mad scientists will save the economy... Profit from dead fish... The two big questions investors want answered...
Welcome back to your weekend edition of Money Morning.
This is where we highlight some of the best bits from our free emails, newsletters, blog and MoneyWeek magazine that we’ve published in the past week.
● The markets have had a good week this week. Greece is becoming a distant memory, the Eurocrats are threatening to exterminate speculators, and investors even took a surge in Chinese inflation in their stride.
Sterling is still being battered of course. And as my colleague David Stevenson pointed out this week, our ever-expanding trade deficit shows it’s still not doing us any good.
Despite the weak pound, “the country's exporters – the ones who are meant to save us from perpetual stagnation – aren't benefiting. Although their goods are now much cheaper for global customers to buy, they're selling fewer of them. January export goods volumes dropped by 8%. Excluding some data distortions three years ago, that was the worst monthly drop since 2002.”
● That puts the whole debate about “rebalancing” the British economy into perspective. We’ve relied too much on financial services, and unfortunately, we’ve thrown away what little money we had left on bailing out the banks. The good news is, the world’s more entrepreneurial scientists aren’t waiting for governments to get behind them.
“Craig Venter said he was going to change medicine – everyone thought he was a maniac,” points out Dr Mike Tubbs in his Research Investments newsletter.
“But seven years ago the former Vietnam veteran beat an army of government scientists to the biggest medical advance in decades – decoding the human genome.
“The state sponsored Human Genome Project had been busy sequencing the three billion biochemical blocks in our DNA for years... and running up a $3bn bill in the process.
“But Dr Venter beat them to it. And in an instant, a colossal new medical sector came of age. By deconstructing the human body cell by cell, scientists believe they will uncover the genetic roots of the most complex diseases – from cancer to Alzheimer’s.
“That heralds a new age of personalised medicine – allowing doctors to gauge our risk for conditions like cancer and diabetes and taking pre-emptive action.
“And so today a vast industry has sprung up – using the techniques developed by the likes of Craig Venter in a race to decode these diseases and use this knowledge to find new treatments. The market for personalised medicine will reach $42bn by 2015, according to PriceWaterhouseCoopers.”
Mike’s Research Investments newsletter is based around buying companies that put serious investment into research and development in areas like these. And he’s not the only one who believes that scientific developments provide a ripe hunting ground for investors.
● “Last month I met a man who has been in the business of making money from science for the last 25 years. Phil Atkin has watched successive governments downplay the efforts of his kind while applauding the relentless rise of the financial sector,” says Tom Bulford in his Penny Sleuth free email.
“Finally we have woken up to the realisation that the latter does not produce any real wealth at all. And this means Atkin’s time may finally have come – especially after a special announcement made last week…”
Atkins heads up Scientific Digital Imaging (SDI). As with most science companies, explaining what it does is complicated, so you can read Tom’s piece if you want to know the details. But basically it makes various measurement and imaging devices for laboratories.
“SDI is certainly one to keep an eye on,” says Tom. “Chairman Harry Tee was the driving force behind Roxboro, which made plenty of money for investors in the 1990s. He is also chairman of another fast growing company, Dialight (DIA).
“Better than our politicians he understands what is required to build a science-based business. This one is definitely on the Red Hot Penny Shares radar screen.”
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● Last week’s debate on ethical investing attracted quite a few thoughtful responses. Most agreed with our view that we should be presenting readers with money-making opportunities and leaving the ethical decisions to them.
But I just had to share this reader’s take on the ethics of investing in tobacco firms… “Until a couple of years ago, I too avoided owning any tobacco company shares, figuring that it would be unethical to profit from a company that depends for its continued growth on getting more people addicted to a substance known to directly cause several serious health issues.
“However, I changed my mind when we returned from a family holiday in France. Sitting at a table on the ferry (in an open area) two people sat down at the same table with us and, without asking if it would be ok and ignoring the fact that we had our young son sitting with us, proceeded to light up and blow smoke around. The problem was that the wind blew it straight to us on the other side of the table.
“This inconsiderate behaviour so incensed me that I vowed as soon as we got home that I would buy some BAT shares, so that I felt I could at least get my own back in some way by part funding my retirement thanks to the behaviour of people that ignore all the warnings and inflict their brand of poison on those around them as well.
“If you can’t beat them, profit from them!”
● Riccardo Marzi, the ex-City trader behind the Events Trader newsletter, knows how to draw a reader’s attention. Here’s the headline from his latest issue: “How you could profit from a deadly virus outbreak in Chile”.
I winced as I thought of the complaints that would flood in. Then I read the piece. The “deadly virus” in question is killing off salmon, not people. Phew. Still, it’s a pretty miserable experience for Chile’s salmon farmers. The country is the world’s second-largest producer of the fish. And with its annual production down about 70% year-on-year, salmon prices are going up.
And you can guess what that means for the rest of the world’s salmon farmers. A profit bonanza. “Norway is the world’s biggest exporter of salmon. It will take at least 18 months for the Chilean salmon industry to raise fish to maturity – if they manage to get the disease under control. In that time Norwegian salmon groups will enjoy a major boost to their earnings,” says Riccardo.
● We’re sceptical on China’s growth ‘miracle’. But that’s no reason to write off the whole of Asia. Cris Sholto Heaton, the man behind the MoneyWeek Asia free email (if you don’t already get it, I advise you to sign up for it right now) is currently testing out a newsletter in which he tips individual stocks. The second edition came out earlier this week. If you’d like to be kept informed of when it goes live, just give us your email here.
In Cris’s latest piece, he looks at one vital piece of infrastructure that many parts of Asia are entirely lacking right now, and will need a lot of in the future. It’s not roads, or sewage systems, or railways - it’s software. I’ll let Cris explain.
“In the West, banks have used computers for processing data and transactions since the sixties. But these were huge, complex and costly systems dedicated to specific functions. Picture a huge humming room of densely packed computers running a bank's data – the kind you would see in Cold War movies. If you had two different systems working on a similar task, they couldn’t talk to each other and share data.
“But over that last decade or so, things have become much more sophisticated. State-of-the-art banking systems are tightly integrated, with all the key software running in the same framework and sharing information. And as a result of this, they’ve become much more powerful and useful.
“Computers no longer simply store data, but can monitor accounts for fraud, improve risk management by credit-scoring potential borrowers, and on top of that, they run schemes such as airmiles and loyalty cards to gather information about customers and increase usage.
“Systems like this are standard in Europe and North America. But in the emerging world, it’s obviously much more variable. Some countries and banks are pretty advanced. Others make what a British bank was using twenty years ago seem sophisticated.
“So most emerging market banks are going to have to invest billions in better IT over the next couple of decades. Not only do many have a long way to go to bring their existing systems up to modern standards, but they’re also going to need to expand to cope with hundreds of millions of new potential customers. And this means that emerging markets should offer very good growth prospects for the firms that develop and maintain these highly specialised systems.”
● Last week I wrote a piece about what people could learn from the plight of the ‘king and queen of buy-to-let’. Fergus and Judith Wilson are two ex-maths teachers who built a portfolio of hundreds of houses in Kent during the boom times. They ran into some difficulties in the crunch, but when the Bank of England slashed interest rates, it had the knock-on effect of cutting their costs.
The piece drew a lot of comment – as most of our property pieces do, which is as strong an indicator as any that we’re still in bubble territory. But I also got an email from Fergus himself. He described the piece as a “very fair article”, so I gave him a call to get his take on the market.
The way Fergus sees it, the real problem is with flats, rather than the houses that he predominately lets out. “These blocks of flats in northern cities have been a complete disaster. I have 30 flats which I regret having. They’ve fallen in value, whereas the houses have seen a reasonable increase in the last two years.”
Now, on the one hand, I’d agree that the epicentre of the housing market collapse was always going to be in the market for dodgy flats. And with the bank rate as low as it is, at 0.5%, Fergus is in a sweet spot – he reckons the typical £180,000 house, with a £140,000 mortgage, is costing him about £300 a month on the mortgage. If it’s let for £700 a month, with £100 going to the letting agent, then he clears £300.
But with the market stagnant, it can’t be easy to offload all those properties to first-time buyers – they can’t afford it. And what happens if interest rates rise?
Fergus, who’s nearly 62, reckons we’ll be lucky to see a 2.5% bank rate again in his lifetime. “The government won’t be that stupid. Every time rates go up, more people will become homeless.”
I can’t say I’m convinced. The Bank of England needs to take far more into account when it sets the bank rate than just its impact on the property market. The only way that interest rates can remain that low for that long, is if Britain goes the way of Japan. And in Japan, house prices are still 60% lower than they were at the start of the bust.
I certainly don’t wish the Wilsons any ill. But our chat just confirmed in my mind that the current rebound is a temporary blip before the market starts heading down again.
● And it’s not just the property market that’s set for harder times ahead. Tim Price of PFP Wealth Management tells readers of The Price Report newsletter to watch out. “Last week I was invited to present at the Private Wealth Management Conference in Smithfield. There I listened to a lot of people I’ve known and respected for most of my career. And there were two very clear concerns coming through.
“First, how do I avoid getting burned by stocks again? After the gyrations in the market over the last two years, there was a lot of talk of not placing too much faith in equities – because it’s unwarranted. The question everyone wanted to ask was – how long could this bear market in stocks go on for?
“The second real concern among private wealth managers is inflation. I’m not the only one worried about governments printing their way out of this crisis, as it turns out. If there is a dangerous bout of inflation on the way, how do we protect our wealth?”
I’m running out of space to go into the details here, but suffice to say, Tim reckons that there’s another down-leg to come in the bear market. As for inflation, he doesn’t see it taking off just yet, but there are some assets you should be holding for when it does. To find out more about The Price Report newsletter, click here.
● Useful links. Want to find out more about any of the newsletters and contributors I've quoted today? Just click on these links:
Tom Bulford's newsletter Red Hot Penny Shares
Riccardo Marzi’s newsletter Events Trader
Tim Price’s newsletter, The Price Report
Dr Mike Tubbs' Research Investments newsletter - enquiries for this exclusive service are by phone only, call 020 7633 3600
If you have any other comments, please feel free to email me at editor@moneyweek.com.
Until next week,
John Stepek
Editor, MoneyWeek
New Business Editor of the Year, BSME Awards 2009
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Or if you prefer to place your order over A city roundup accordin to Take Ten
The FTSE climbed within striking distance of an 18-month high.
Nationwide reported the first fall in UK house prices for ten months.
Revised figures for the last quarter of 2009 showed that the UK economy grew by 0.3% rather than the 0.1% previously recorded.
Three more Japanese vehicle-makers – Nissan, Suzuki and Daihatsu – recalled half a million cars because of reported problems with electronics.
Santander has moved into pole position to take over the 320 branches in England being sold by Royal Bank of Scotland.
The supertax on bank bonuses will reap more than £2.5bn for the Treasury, giving the UK government an unexpectedly large windfall to spend ahead of the general election.
Google in the Dock
In September a new video was uploaded to Google Video in Italy. It showed an autistic schoolboy in Turin being abused, physically and verbally, by his classmates.
On Wednesday, three executives from Google who had never worked in Italy, or had any idea of the video's existence before it was deleted two months later , were found guilty (in absentia) of invading the teenager's privacy, and given six-month suspended sentences by an Italian court, after charges were brought by a local Down's syndrome charity.
David Drummond, Google’s chief legal officer, and one of those convicted, claimed the ruling "poses a grave danger to the continued freedom and operation of the many internet services that users around the world, including many Italians have come to rely on".
The prosecutors argued that Google had a duty to ensure that such videos complied with privacy law before they were made public, that comments beneath the video suggesting that it was inappropriate were ignored, and that it should have been spotted when it made the "most viewed" list on the site.
Google countered that it took the video down within three hours of being alerted by the authorities, that European (and Italian) law states that responsibility for such videos lies with those who post them, and that taking a random set of executives from its hierarchy to court was hardly the way to resolve the issue.
This ruling implies that Google, or indeed who operates a website is responsible for every offensive video, photo or comment that appears there. So why does this cause a problem and why it can't material just be blocked before it is uploaded, as the Italian court wants?
There are two objections, one philosophical and one practical. The first is whether it is desirable for Internet companies to have the power to decide what is tasteful or ethical.
The practical implications are also critical. YouTube, the video service bought by Google in 2006, receives 20 hours of video every single minute, so much information that no human being could reasonably pre-screen.
Bill Eggers, the global director of Deloitte Research, points out that it took the Library of Congress more than 200 years to amass a collection of 29 million books and periodicals, 2.4 million audio recordings, 12 million photographs, 4.8 million maps and 57 million manuscripts. The same amount of data is now being added to the Internet every five minutes.
Spam Comes to Twitter
The Social Media world was attacked twice last week by spammers. Twitter users were warned not to click links in some tweets, after the microblogging service fell victim to its second phishing attack in a week.
Users have received Direct Messages with links that when clicked, direct users to a malicious website, which looks just like the Twitter home page, where they are prompted to enter their login details.
As soon as they hit enter, the malicious message is sent to everyone on their Twitter friends list, helping the scam to spread across the internet. Security experts fear that cyber criminals could use this login information to hack in to other accounts, or gain remote access to a computer.
Twitter users were receiving direct messages that said: "This you????" and contained a link. Now another phishing message, reading "hi, i'm 24/female/horny ... i have to get off here but message me on my windows live messenger name", is also spreading across the service.
"It's bad enough if hackers gain control of your Twitter account, but if you also use that same password on other websites and our research shows that 33 per cent of people do that all the time then they could access your Gmail, Hotmail, Facebook, eBay and PayPal accounts too," said Graham Cluley, a security expert with Sophos.
"Our advice is to be cautious about the links you click on, choose a strong password, and, if you find that you're spreading suspicious messages from your Twitter account, change your passwords immediately.
"You should also check the Settings/Connections area of your Twitter account. If there are any third-party applications you don't recognise listed there, revoke their permission to access your account."
Twitter said that it was aware of the problem, and was working hard to secure the site against similar future attacks.
Libraries Struggles to Achieve Web.
The UK's online heritage could be lost forever if the government does not grant a "right to archive", a group of leading libraries has said. The British Library, along with other institutions, has been archiving UK websites since 2004 but has only been able to cover 6,000 of an estimated 8m.
Currently, it must ask permission from website owners before archiving them. We've got the know-how but we need the rules to say we don't need to ask permission," said a spokesman for the British Library. "We're archiving for the nation rather than commercial gain."
The British Library believes the UK Web Archive could prove as useful to historians as ancient pamphlets and other ephemeral material in its archive. The consortium, which also includes the National Library of Wales and the Wellcome Library, is lobbying the government to clarify elements of the Legal Deposit Libraries Act.
The act, which among other things means that every UK print publication is automatically deposited by publishers in the British Library, was extended in 2003 to cover online material. But the British Library says it never clarified what steps had to be taken before electronic material was recorded.
"We're in the ridiculous position where we have to ask permission of each webmaster before we archive a site," the spokesman said. The Department of Culture Media and Sport is currently consulting on the act.
"We can't make a judgement about what people in the future will find useful," said the British Library spokesman. The British Library said research showed that the average life expectancy of a website was just 44 to 75 days, and suggested that at least 10% of all UK websites were either lost or replaced by new material every six months.
There are other achieves, including the WayBack Machine http://www.archive.org which aim to catalogue and record websites as they change over the years.
Broadband Tax Condemned by MPs
A government proposal to charge people with fixed phone lines 50p per month to help fund ultra-fast broadband has been condemned as "unfair" by MPs.
The cross-party Business Innovation and Skills Committee said most of those who would pay the tax would not benefit from the faster broadband service. The focus should be on providing basic broadband for all and allowing markets to deliver higher speeds, it said.
The government said the plan was the "best way to drive further investment". It maintains that faster speeds are "vital to the UK's growth". However, the committee argued: "We believe that a 50p levy placed on fixed telecommunication lines is an ill-directed charge. "It will place a disproportionate cost on a majority who will not, or are unable to, reap the benefits of that charge."
The government's broadband plans outlined in its Digital Economy Bill, have two main concepts. It wants to ensure a minimum speed of 2Mbps to all parts of Britain by 2012, and then deliver ultra-fast broadband to most of the country by 2017.
The committee agreed that the government should help deliver 2Mbps to all by 2012 but said that it was "concerned" that the government had not defined what it guaranteed. Broadband speeds rarely meet the advertised speeds, depending on the number of users online and distance from an exchange.
The committee believes that the government should commit to delivering a minimum of 2Mbps "under normal circumstances, to all users at all times". But the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills said that the government wanted everyone to "access the huge social, economic and health benefits" that high speeds offer.
“We are currently consulting on the most effective way to deploy this investment with public and commercial benefits in mind, and will consider the Committee's report in our final response," said the spokesman.
When Gordon Brown and the Cabinet visited Exeter recently, Nigel Wilkinson from WNW Design took the opportunity to raise this matter with Justice Minister Jack Straw. With the government wanting to promote a high-skills, low carbon economy in the south west it is vital that ultra fast broadband is available outside the main urban areas. Nigel was able to highlight this point to Mr Straw, who promised to feedback these concerns to the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills.
Regards
Nigel Wilkinson, Managing Director, WNW Design
Visit our regularly updated blog www.wnwdesign.co.uk/wordpress
A city roundup accordin to Take Ten
Stock markets rallied around the world as fears that Greece’s sovereign debt crisis eased.
In the UK, unemployment in the last quarter fell by 3,000 to 2.46 million, with the jobless rate remaining at 7.8%.
Readers Digest’s UK arm went into administration.
The Toyota saga rumbled on with the possible recall of the Corolla.
John Stumpf, the chairman of Wells Fargo, earned $18m last year to become America’s highest-paid banker.
The chief executive of Lloyds Banking Group was under intense pressure to give up his £2.25m bonus after the head of rival Royal Bank of Scotland rejected a £1.6m reward.
30 Years on, expowest Events Remain Pivotal as Businesses Plan for 2010
BUSINESSES AND exhibitors alike are busy preparing for the remaining two expowest events, which are now in their 30th year.
The expowest Cornwall event, to be held at the Royal Cornwall Showground, Wadebridge on March 2,3 and 4 will be the next opportunity for businesses to help plan and prepare for the forthcoming season. As ever the event will feature a comprehensive range of exhibitors offering everything to meet the needs of anyone in the hospitality and catering industry and now also the care and health sector.
The expowest South Wales event, will follow on March 23 and 24 2010 at the United Counties Showground, Carmarthen and will feature a similar range of suppliers.
The expowest events have, over the last three decades, become firmly established as a crucial trading time for businesses as they look to plan for the coming season. People attending expowest will include owners and managers of hotels, guest houses, pubs, clubs, restaurants, cafes and convenience food outlets as well as people from the care and nursing home sector and educational establishments.
Peter Sugden, Managing Director of Truro-based organisers Exhibitions South West said '' We are delighted to be celebrating our 30th year in Cornwall and to once again be bringing forward the single biggest opportunity for businesses across the hospitality, catering and care sectors to find all the goods and services they need.
''Following a successful expowest Westcountry event, we're once again looking forward to bringing together under one roof, a massive range of local and national suppliers at both the Cornwall and South Wales events''
Expowest exhibitions are specialist shows for trade only. Businesses that would like to exhibit at the shows should call 01872 245220
Trade visitors can register for a free ticket at www.expowestexhibitions.com WNW Design Newsletter
Times change and technology moves on and it was time to change the layout of the WNW Design newsletter. With more people choosing to read their email on smart phones or notebooks a cleaner, more simplified layout was needed to fit the way people work.
The basic format, where we seek to highlight important trends within the technology industry and changes that may affect you, will stay the same. Only the template and delivery method will be different.
We hope you will continue to enjoy our newsletter and that 2010 has started in a positive manner for you and your business.
Technology Wars
It seems like something from a sci-fi political thriller but the activities of hackers and international government interests meant that Hollywood was behind reality for a change.
Hackers in China managed to exploit a hole in Internet Explorer that enabled them to attack Google’s infrastructure to target the email activities of Chinese political activists. Google promptly threatened to withdraw from China, expecting Microsoft, its fiercest rival, and others to back its stance. Only to be met with a deafening silence from the technology giant.
Next Germany and France, never big fans of the ubiquitous Microsoft, decided to recommend to their citizens that they change browsers to prevent them becoming victims to the potential security hole. Meanwhile the UK government downplayed the threat and said there was "no evidence that moving from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure".
Microsoft has now taken the unusual step of patching the hole nearly three weeks ahead of its regular security update. The new patch is available via the Microsoft Update site and will also be fed out to those who have their machines set to update automatically. All versions of Internet Explorer will receive the update.
"It addresses the vulnerability related to recent attacks against Google and small subset of corporations, as well as several other vulnerabilities," the firm said.
"Once applied, customers are protected against the known attacks that have been widely publicised." Microsoft has admitted that it has known about the vulnerability since "since early September" 2009 and had planned to patch it in February.
The bad publicity Microsoft received has allowed rivals such as Firefox to gain market share. According to web analytics company StatCounter, Firefox is now a close second to Internet Explorer (IE) in Europe, with 40% of the market compared to Microsoft's 45% share. In Germany and Austria, Firefox has overtaken IE, the firm said, whilst Google’s Chrome browser has also gained market share.
BT Launches 40Mbps Broadband
Based around fibre optic cables, BT has launched a broadband service that offers speeds of up to 40 megabits per second (Mbps), calling their service Infinity.
Trials have been held in London's Muswell Hill, Whitchurch and Glasgow, where BT said it will give some customers an upload speed of up to 10 Mbps. Often broadband even in areas close to exchanges has remarkably slow upload times, not a problem for general home viewing but a real challenge for businesses or individuals wanting to send or share information.
BT said that four million homes and businesses would be able to get it by 2011.
The current highest speed service from BT available to homes is 20 megabits per second (Mbps), though not all homes can get this headline speed. BT Retail said the basic 40Mbps service will be offered for £19.99 per month on an 18 month contract. It will also charge an installation fee of £50 for those on the lowest tariff.
Only those who opt for BT's most expensive tariff, £24.99 per month, will get the 10Mbps upload speed. With the basic package upload speed is up to 2Mbps.
BT said the higher speed would make it easier to share broadband among multiple computers and improve video streaming and net TV services.
Of course there is a problem in that only those closest to the street cabinets that the fibre connects to are likely to get the full 40Mbps. And of course how much of the country has fibre cables anyway?
A spokesman for Virgin Media wondered why anyone would buy a service from BT that has yet to launch when it could get higher speeds via cable already. He said Virgin was already trialling future technology that could see cable speeds reach 200Mbps.
With increasing demands placed on the existing infrastructure and the rapidly changing pace of technology, speeds in excess of 100Mbps are widely seen as the only realistic way to avoid a bandwidth meltdown.
Bill Gates Joins Twitter
A new “verified” account went live last week when ex-Microsoft boss Bill Gates joined the growing number of people on Twitter. Within seven hours he passed 50,000 followers and ended the day on 142,000 people reading his comments.
Six months ago he ceased his Facebook account as he was inundated with “friend requests” but this too has returned, now in the guise of a fan page, where readers can follow his musings without becoming actual friends.
This is all backed up by the launch of http://www.thegatesnotes.com/ Bill’s own website, where you can follow his thoughts and activities in more detail than allowed by Twitter's 140 character rule.
With Gates these days focusing on his charitable foundation, rather than running Mircosoft, much of the Tweeting has been about Haiti and the relief effort, not that subjects from appearing with Jon Stewart on the Daily Show to visiting the Sundance Film Festival have escaped attention.
Follow Bill Gates at http://twitter.com/billgates
What about the iPad?
So rumours of Apple’s new product being called the iTablet or iSlate, were wide of the mark. The iPad is the next must-have gadget for the geek about town, with prices starting at $499 in the USA.
This product is likely to either revolutionise the world or be a big over-hyped “so what!” Or maybe just be useful to some people in a certain way. The reviews are so based on opinion and speculation it is hard to know what to believe.
James McQuivey, principal analyst at Forrester Research says, "That’s the challenge for Apple. They have to create a new category, and it can’t just be like the last time — in 2001, 2002 — when tablets were created and were viewed as productivity devices."
Those early tablets "were going to make us really effective at work," he said. "Heaven knows that’s not something we all care about when we wake up in the morning. What we do care about is, how are we going to spend our idle time? How are we going to keep our busy minds occupied with interesting and fun things, such as movies, TV, music and reading newspapers and magazines. That’s where the Apple tablet is going to forge new ground."
With a screen of 9.7 inches measured diagonally and weighing in at 1.5 pounds and 0.5 inch thin, Apple claim it has a 10 hour battery life, allowing you to connect by WiFi or 3G, much like an iPhone, to browse the Internet or watch video. For more detail visit http://www.apple.com/ipad/design/
WNW Design Celebrate Ten Years by Linking with West of England School
On 1st January 2010 WNW Design celebrated our 10th birthday and to mark this landmark, we have linked up with local children’s charity The West of England School and College for Children and Young People with Little or No Sight.
We will be donating £100 to the School for each new web hosting client during the whole of 2010. So if you know anyone who is looking either to start a new website or is looking to change their website hosting provider, help us help the School and contact us for a quotation.
If you would like more information about this offer or the work of the School, please visit www.wnwdesign.co.uk/WESchool and follow the link to their website.
And Finally
We would like to welcome Glenn Dalley to the WNW Design team. Working directly with new clients Glenn’s role as Business Development Manager is to help them analyse the best options and explain how WNW Design can assist them in the long term.
If you need help with your website, e-commerce or getting found on the search engines, contact Glenn at glenn@wnwdesign.co.uk
Regards
Nigel Wilkinson, Managing Director, WNW Design
Follow us www.twitter.com/nigelwnw
Visit our regularly updated blog www.wnwdesign.co.uk/wordpress
Latest Useless Event in our Campaign for a simplified Events Licence for Communities
Dear 2day Reader
Below is a photo of myself tearing up a cheque for hundreds of pounds at our Chillaton bonfire party.You may remember that we have to do this in order to comply with current (manic) government event regulations. But for the regulations, which would have required us to have prohibitively expensive insurance plus a Temporary Events Licence etc… the event would have raised £529 for the local church. However compliance with all the government regulations and licenses would have cost more than we would have made. The only way to make the event legal was to ensure that no charity benefited from it.
I have been running bonfire parties safely for 30 years - and nobody has been injured yet. The only contribution the current regulations make is to ensure that charities don’t get any of the money. Charities are estimated to lose tens of million pounds a year as a direct results of events ‘not’ being held for them – due to government regulations.
This is all part of an ongoing campaign to run useless events around the country. The first was launched this summer by our MP, Geoffrey Cox, in a vintage Tiger Mother plane when he tore up a £500 cheque – necessary or the organizers would have faced a £20,000 fine or 6 months in prison. The only way the event could proceed legally was to ensure that no charity benefited – by tearing up the cheque.
Please see www.communityevents.2day.ws for full details and to sign our petition on the 10 Downing Street website. Our objective is to get our legislation into the Conservative Parties election manifesto
Please feel free to ring me any time for more information.
All good wishes,
Richard
Richard Searight
East Quither Farm
Milton Abbot
Tavistock
Devon PL19 0PZ
Telephone 01822 860148 or 01822 600001
www.2day.ws or www.mycommunity.2day.ws Why we need a community license for events
Right now if a charity or community holds an event, it risks breaking the law, getting fined up to £20,000 or jail – just because of the enormity of paperwork and red tape!
Imagine how many charities and communities just give up? How many feel it's not worthwhile, or are fearful of the penalties they may face if they get the forms wrong???
We want to see all this replaced with a simple license as follows.
• ‘universal license’, for simple, low risk, and relatively small events.
• not limited to a single event but a general permission for small groups to operate within certain restrictions and parameters.
• Ideally, such a license would be:
1. Available for free, or at a low cost;
2. Permanent or cover a generous time period;
3. For up to 1500 people - to cover normal community sized events;
4. Linked to the organisation such as church, club, WI or community group, as opposed to an individual;
5. Flexible, allowing multiple small events at short notice, not just for a specific event.
• Enforcement would simply involve the license being immediately withdrawn were it misused.
Lets *encourage* people to hold community events rather than put them off through fear of law-breaking, fines and/or jail!
For more information and to SIGN THE PETITION please CLICK HERE
Saturday 04-Jul-2009
Press release issued 4th July 2009 for immediate use
Charities lose £thousands unless people break the law
A Devon man is to challenge the event licensing processes that he claims are stifling charities and community group fundraising.
Richard Searight of Tavistock wants to see an end to the crippling legal regulations that people face when putting on a fundraising event. He proposes replacing the myriad of forms and fines that usually put people off holding events, with a simple permanent license.
Richard claims that paperwork and forms are now are required for everything from charging for glass of wine in church, to running the village dog show.
To illustrate the issue, his plan is to run legal protest events run all over the UK when charity cheques will to be torn up. He said: “If the money goes to any good causes the organisers could face fines up to £20,000 or 6 months in prison! Basic premise ‘If it’s useless it’s legal’”
The first of these mass-cheque-tear-up events will be held in Devon on 5th, 6th and 7th July to demonstrate how the back-breaking legislation process is preventing a simple fundraising activity.
Richard Searight of Tavistock, organiser of the first event said: “Last summer we tried to create a fantastic community building event but it was destroyed by the regulations, licenses and miles of red tape. It was then that I realised the same legislation is killing thousands perhaps tens of thousands of other community events every year. For example, organisations like Christian Aid have to create specific legislation every year in order just to run Christian Aid week legally.”
“Local communities don’t have that privilege. If they want to sell a glass of wine at the back of church, play ‘My Way’ over the sound system, put on a panto, have a firework party with refreshments … they have to get multiple licenses – or dodge around them – or simply break the law. An example of what communities do NOT want to apply for is the ten page Temporary Events Notice license form (http://www.hart.gov.uk/tens_form.pdf ) - and / or be subject to a £20,000 fine or 6 months in prison if they fill it in wrong!”
Speaking about the event in July, Richard said: “It became clear that the only way to hold our event and stay legal was to exclude the community and not raise money – in other words hold a completely useless event. Hence this year we are Tearing Up Cheques for charity. It is legal because it is useless.”
According to Richard it is crucial that a simple, permanent, community events licence be created which is designed to encourage community events - not regulate them out of existence.
Richard’s event is designed to underline the stupidity of the current burgeoning law: “Our MP Geoffrey Cox is attending; we have a vintage plane providing rides on a strictly invitation only, expenses only basis. However people will be encouraged to bring along cheques which they would have donated to their favourite charities. Every single one will be torn up otherwise we will break the regulations”. The event has to be useless to be legal
Geoffrey Cox MP, QC “While health and safety restrictions and other regulations are often well-intentioned and may even be sensible enough on their own, the cumulative impact of them is to stifle and render impractical the very events that they are meant to ensure the safety for.
It is a tragedy that so many charitable and community events , often ones which have been taking place for many years, have to be cancelled because of the slightest hint of risk. If local authorities and health and safety officers always exercised as much common sense as the event organisers, it would be far better for all concerned”
Richard continues: “I don’t think many people realise the implications of this. Charity events go on every day, and frankly the vast majority of them are simply breaking the law because they have not complied with the one or other the licences that they should have lodged. We need a simple permanent licence which allows communities to carry on being community.”
For more information and to SIGN THE PETITION please
CLICK HERE
For more information see: Richard Searight's
Community Events Website
Release issued by: Sue Haswell, BFM, 01626 864458 or sue.h@big-future.com
Links/Background on Geoffrey Cox QC MP
11 March, 2010
- Three high-yielding European stocks to buy
- Recommended article: Three signals to watch for safer investing
- Yesterday's close: FTSE 100 up 0.7% at 5,640… Gold down 1.2% to $1,108.41 an ounce… £/$ - 1.4978
With the pound falling so far, Britain is fast becoming poor value for money, for its inhabitants at least.
If you live here, you’re probably fed up with it. Overseas holidays are more expensive. Imported goods are more costly. You’re seeing prices being pushed up both in the shops and at the petrol pump.
Even the people who should be cashing in, the exporters, aren’t. The UK’s last trade figures were rubbish, as we note below.
So, everyone’s a loser? No, not at all - you could gain from the plunging pound. Not only would you protect your money – you can also collect a decent income stream while you’re doing it.
We spotlighted one way of doing this last week by investing in the US. Here’s another – this time in Europe...
The current outlook for sterling is grim
You won’t need reminding that we’re not too keen on our nation’s currency right now. We don’t want to see the pound drop – we just reckon that under current government policy (if that’s the right word for it), it will. For our spendthrift politicians it’s just a case of spend and overspend – then getting the Bank of England to print plenty more money to fuel their habit.
The trouble is that the plunging pound doesn’t seem to be doing anyone in Britain much good. With a few notable exceptions, the country’s exporters – the ones who are meant to save us from perpetual stagnation – aren’t benefiting. Although their goods are now much cheaper for global customers to buy, they’re selling fewer of them. January export goods volumes dropped by 8%. Excluding some data distortions three years ago, that was the worst monthly drop since 2002.
Sterling fell yet further on this news. Even against the much-maligned euro, it’s now dropped below €1.10 to its lowest level since last November. Maybe that’s no great surprise.
The countries that have dragged the euro down, such as Ireland, Greece and Portugal, are now starting to plug the holes in their public finances. They may well fail to do so, but at least they’re showing the right attitude.
Not so in the UK. Electioneering and austerity don’t go well together. And the longer our government delays before cutting – or being forced by the markets to slash – our budget deficit, the grimmer the outlook gets for sterling.
In the meantime, the UK’s bank base rate remains at just 0.5%. So while the pound is falling, the interest rates paid on savings accounts, which are broadly linked to the base rate, are still desperately poor.
How to beat the falling pound
However, as long as you’re content to take some risk with your capital – and do understand that investing in the stock market is risky – then you can beat both negligible interest rates and the falling pound.
That’s because there are still some high-yielding shares around that provide a decent income. Even better, there are four reasons why buying such shares – in Europe – could, over time, make you good capital profits as well.
First, if sterling falls further, you could make money on the currency front as well as in the stock market. Although the reverse is clearly true, too, so you need more reason to like these stocks than simply because they trade in euros or another European currency.
Second, a healthy dividend yield means that a share price is low compared with the level of its payouts to shareholders. That suggests it’s also good value relative to the underlying company's profits and assets. And in the long run, you’ll make more money buying cheap shares than expensive ones.
Third, and this is a very long-term view, increasing numbers of ‘baby boomers’ – those born within 20 years of WWII – will be retiring over the next two decades. This will mean steadily more investors looking for better income returns than the bank is currently paying. In turn, as they buy high-yielding shares, they’ll push up prices.
Fourth, as the European equity strategy team at Morgan Stanley points out, when stock markets are roaring ahead, they don’t worry too much about dividends. Traders are more excited in ‘churning and burning’ – buying and then selling out fast for quick profits. But when those markets become more ‘range-bound’, i.e. there’s much less scope for big share price rises overall, income becomes a much larger part of investors’ thinking.
Indeed – and this statistic is fascinating – since 1926, European shares have risen in real, i.e. inflation-adjusted, terms by just 1.3% a year. But add in dividends which are reinvested in more shares, and the annual total real return jumps up to 5.6% over that same period.
Three top European stocks to buy now
So what are the top dividend paying stocks in Europe right now?
Well, if you’ve been reading Money Morning regularly over the last few months, you’ll have seen quite a few high-yield tips appearing. So I’ll stick to three of those we haven’t yet mentioned.
Top of Morgan Stanley’s list of stocks “with a high and secure dividend yield” is Italian utility A2A (IM: A2A). It produces and distributes electricity, sells gas and collects rubbish in the North of Italy. It’s on a p/e of 12 and prospective yield of 7.4%. If there’s a slight caveat for me, it’s that the payout is only covered 1.1 times by earnings. But that’s probably being picky, as the company’s cash flow is 2.5 times the dividend – so there’s plenty of cash coming in to cover it.
Dividend cover is certainly not an issue at Zurich Financial Services (VX: ZURN), where the payment is almost twice covered. Yet Zurich is on a forecast multiple for this year of just 8.6, with a prospective 6% yield. Meanwhile, across the border in Germany, energy supplier RWE (GY: RWE) looks just as solid. A 2010 forecast p/e of 9.2, and a prospective yield of 5.8%, mark this stock down as very good value.
We wouldn’t advise putting all of your investment money into any one currency, be it sterling, euros, dollars or yen. But at times like these in particular, it’s not a bad idea to be diversified. And more to the point, these are solid stocks – so even if the currency moves against you, you know the underlying asset remains solid. And look on the bright side. If you buy shares like these, the next time you hear about another slide in sterling, you’ll know at least someone who’s managed to get on to a winner.
Until tomorrow,
David Stevenson
Associate editor, MoneyWeek
PS If you’re interested in high-yielding, blue-chip stocks, you should take a look at Stephen Bland’s Dividend Letter. Stephen aims to produce a solid, steadily growing income by investing in large companies – you can learn more about his strategy here.
Our recommended article for today...
Three signals to watch for safer investing
- When you've been investing for a while, you come to notice certain signals that the stock market throws up, says Tom Bulford. Here, he outlines three that should keep you one step ahead of the market's movements: Three signals to watch for safer investing.
And for yesterday’s market update, see below...
Market update
Click here for the latest stock market news and charts.
The FTSE 100 was back on the rise again yesterday as commodity and banking stocks lifted the market to its highest since June 2008. The index closed up 0.7% at 5,640.
Miners were in demand, with precious metals miner Fresnillo heading the sector with a 3.2% rise. ENRC and Xstrata both gained 2.7%, Kazakhmys rose 1.4% and BHP Billiton added 1.1%.
Energy stocks were boosted by a rise in the crude oil price. BG Group gained 0.8%, BP 0.9%, Royal Dutch Shell 1.1%, and Cairn Energy 1.1%. But Tullow Oil shed 0.3%.
And financials fared well too. Among banks, Lloyds led the way, closing 3.9% higher, RBS rose 3.6% and HSBC added 0.7%. Barclays added 0.6%, and Standard Chartered gained 0.5%. Insurers Prudential, Resolution and Old Mutual climbed between 2.9% and 1.6%.
In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 rose 33 points to end at 3,943; while the German Xetra Dax was 51 points higher at 5,936.
In the US, the Dow Jones Industrial Average added 0.03% to close at 10,567; the wider S&P 500 gained 0.5% to 1,145; while the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed up 0.8% at 2,358.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 1% to 10,664 and the broader Topix index gained 0.9% to 930. And in China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.1% to 3,051 while the CSI 300 slid 0.1% to 3,276.
Brent spot was trading at $79.60 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $81.63. Spot gold was trading at $1,108 an ounce, silver was at $17.00 and platinum was at $1,583.
In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.4981 and against the euro at 1.0970. The dollar was trading at 0.7326 against the euro and 90.40 against the Japanese yen.
And in the UK, supermarket group Wm Morrison saw a 21% rise in annual profits to £767m. Like-for-like sales were up 6% in the year to 31 January, down from 8.2% the previous year. The company raised its dividend from 5.7p to 8.2p. Morrison's chairman, Ian Gibson, said: "We expect the economic environment to remain challenging, disposable incomes to be under pressure and value to remain a high priority for consumers."
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© 2010 MoneyWeek Ltd. All Rights Reserved. The content of this email may not be reproduced without the written consent of MoneyWeek Ltd. Registered Office: Sea Containers House, 7th Floor, 20 Upper Ground, London, SE1 9JD. Registered in England No. 04016750. VAT No. GB 760 8510 33. MoneyWeek and Money Morning are registered trade marks owned by MoneyWeek Limited.
The past is not a reliable indicator of future performance. Shares are by their nature are speculative and can be volatile and you should never invest more than you can safely afford to lose. Information in Money Morning is for general information only and is not intended to be relied upon by individual readers in making (or not making) specific investment decisions. Appropriate independent advice should be obtained before making any such decision. MoneyWeek do not accept liability for any loss suffered by readers as a result of any such decision. 8 March, 2010
- Money is pouring out of the UK - here's how to protect yourself
- Recommended article: What should the cash-rich investor do?
- Friday's close: FTSE 100 up 1.3% at 5,600… Gold up 0.22% to $1,134.65 an ounce… £/$ - 1.5137
You may have heard that scientists are hunting for a new word to describe figures bigger than 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 (that’s 27 zeros, by the way). The likes of ‘kila’ and ‘giga’ just aren’t cutting the mustard anymore.
And it’s not just the scientific community that’s having problems with gigantic numbers. Financial market students have been blown away by the sheer size of the sums of money sloshing around. Only a few years ago, you rarely encountered the word ‘trillion’ on the business pages. Now it crops up in almost every edition.
It’s enough to give you number blindness. So it’s perhaps little wonder that yet another huge number which came out on Friday was largely ignored by the press. But it contains a huge threat to Britain’s well-being - here’s why...
It matters if the pound falls
As you may have noticed, sterling has been slumping. We’ve covered the short-term reasons in Money Morning, so I’ll not repeat them here. But there’s another, longer-term, problem brewing that’s likely to prove a lot more dangerous.
Many pundits have said it doesn’t matter if the pound drops sharply. It’s best to get sterling’s slide ‘out of the way now’, as if this is just a nasty dose of medicine that Britain must take before it can get better again.
They say that our trade deficit will be sorted out because a weak pound will make Britain’s exports cheaper. But the trouble is, apart from the likes of electronics and precision engineering, which we’ve spotlighted in the current issue of MoneyWeek magazine: Profit from the return of British manufacturing (if you're not already a subscriber, claim your first three issues free here), our falling currency isn’t making a serious dent here.
That’s as maybe, say the pundits. But at least a sterling plunge would force the government - whatever the hue - to tackle our near-£1 trillion public debt. That’s partly true. There’s no doubt the deficit needs tackling fast.
But currency slumps have a knack of getting out of control and turning into dangerous crashes. And the trouble is, there are far bigger perils in a plunging pound.
I’m talking about UK banks’ external liabilities (what they owe foreign investors) and claims (what foreign investors owe them). Yes, I know - discussing these sounds like a handy way of dealing with insomnia. But please bear with me for a moment. They matter - almost more than any other mega-number.
Bad news - foreign investors have lost confidence in the City
Banks’ external liabilities are the cash that’s held in the UK on behalf of foreign investors – foreign investors’ deposit accounts if you like. On Friday, we learned that the money in these had dropped by $29bn to just under $6 trillion (that’s a mere 12 zeros this time). On the surface, this isn’t an obvious cause for concern.
Trouble is, the flip side of these deposits is the pile of assets they’re funding. These are investments worldwide, and are known as ‘external claims’ – effectively, what Britain’s banks are investing in on behalf of these foreign investors. Broadly they move in line with the deposits, and in the last quarter they declined in value by $74bn (when you’re dealing in trillions, a difference of $45bn is small beer!)
In short, these figures measure the amount of money going in and out of our financial industry. And what they show, is that foreign investors are giving our financial industry less business. And given that finance is still such a vital part of our economy that could prove to be a major confidence problem for the UK.
Over the last two years, the decline in foreign money rushing through our banks amounts to almost $2 trillion.
In a nutshell, we’re now seeing a major ‘capital flight’. It’s a dramatic reversal of the long-term uptrend since Bank of England stats began in 1986, as this chart points out…
Source: Bank of England
The fall in external liabilities coincides pretty well with sterling’s fall from more than $2 to the pound, to the sub-$1.40 levels seen during the credit crunch.
But the latest Bank figures only cover until the end of 2009. The real damage to sterling has happened since then. That suggests there’s been another vast outflow during the current quarter.
To repeat, we’re talking about some massive numbers here. And as the pound weakens, foreign investors will become ever less keen to hold their money in the UK. Colin Ellis at Daiwa Securities cautioned a year ago that “foreign investors will be smarting from the sharp fall in the exchange rate – raising the question of what could possibly tempt overseas investors to return to the UK”.
Money is pouring out of the UK
Jump forward 12 months, and it seems he was right to be concerned. Everything points to the ‘run on London’ gathering pace in 2010. Even worse, the “slide in sterling is seemingly becoming a self-fulfilling phenomenon”, according to Sean O’Grady in The Independent. “The danger is that the heavy depreciation of the pound could become a rout if confidence completely evaporates”.
In other words, the latest sterling slide really matters. International investors have had enough. Money is already pouring out of the country. Unless the government slashes the budget deficit and takes some action to defend the pound - don’t hold your breath - before sterling collapses, there’s big trouble ahead.
As the pound keeps dropping, it’ll get a great deal tougher persuading foreigners to buy the UK government bonds - gilts - needed to plug the gap between taxes and spending. Much higher long-term interest rates - i.e. higher bond yields - will be the only working weapon left in the Treasury’s armoury. That will push up borrowing costs across the economy.
How to profit despite sterling's problems
This sort of downward spiral doesn’t make a very pretty picture at all. So how do you avoid getting caught up in it? As John Stepek pointed out last week, ‘shorting’ sterling - selling with the intention of buying back lower down - via the likes of spread betting can be risky. But holding UK shares that do well when the pound is weak, is one idea (Five stocks to profit from a weak pound).
Buying international stocks that pay decent dividends is another. That way you get both a good starting yield, and the value of your investment climbs as sterling drops. We tipped four US shares last week. And we’ll be looking for other ways to protect your portfolio in the coming weeks.
Until tomorrow,
David Stevenson
Associate editor, MoneyWeek
Our recommended article for today...
What should the cash-rich investor do?
- For cash-rich investors who don’t want to risk it all, there are very few options that offer much of a return, says Merryn Somerset Webb. Here, she picks two of the best savings accounts around at the moment, and, for the more adventurous, two cheap ways to get into in China: What should the cash-rich investor do?
And for Friday’s market update, see below...
Market update
Click here for the latest stock market news and charts.
The FTSE 100 added another 1.3% on Friday to close at 5,600 after positive jobs data from the US, leaving the index 5% higher for the week.
Miners performed well. Xstrata was the sector's leading climber, up 5.6%, while Fresnillo, BHP Billiton, Vedanta and Antofagasta gained between 4.2% and 3.8%.
Energy stocks also made good gains. Tullow Oil and Cairn Energy added 2.4% and 2.2% respectively. BG Group and BP rose 0.9%, and Royal Dutch Shell gained 0.7%.
Banks were higher too, led by Standard Chartered, which added 3.5%. HSBC and Barclays rose 2.5%, RBS was 1.6% higher, and Lloyds rose 0.2%.
In Europe, the Paris CAC 40 rose 82 points to end at 3,910; the German Xetra Dax was also 82 points higher at 5,877.
In the US better than expected non-farms payroll data was the driving force behind strong markets. The Dow Jones Industrial Average rose 1.2% to close at 10,566; the wider S&P 500 added 1.4% to 1,138; and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite closed up 1.5% at 2,326.
In Japan, the Nikkei 225 rose 2.1% to 10,585; and the broader Topix index climbed 1.8% to 927. And in China, the Shanghai Composite rose 0.7% to 3,053; and the CSI 300 added 0.8% to 3,586.
Brent spot was trading at $79.92 early today, and in New York, crude oil was at $82.04. Spot gold was trading at $1,135 an ounce, silver was at $17.41 and platinum was at $1,584.
In the forex markets this morning, sterling was trading against the US dollar at 1.5189 and against the euro at 1.1111. The dollar was trading at 0.7318 against the euro and 90.26 against the Japanese yen.
And in the UK, the Confederation of British Industry (CBI) has warned the government to increase the pace of public finance reform. The CBI cautioned against raising taxes in the forthcoming budget, and advised cuts in public spending. Ian McCafferty, the CBI's chief economic adviser, said: "The Government should aim to balance the books sooner than it currently plans... in our view, fiscal balance should be achieved by curbing spending rather than increasing taxes, and cutting current rather than capital spending." The Treasury has said it wants to halve the UK's £178bn deficit by 2014.
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An image problem
http://www.wordlive.org
Prayer : Prepare
Credit crunch, negative equity, toxic debt. Leave it to one side and focus on the real value maker.
Mark 12:13-17
'Then Jesus said to them, "Give back to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's."'
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Bible passage: Mark 12:13-17
Is It Right to Pay Taxes to Caesar?
13 Later the religious leaders sent some of the Pharisees and Herodians to Jesus. They wanted to trap him with his own words.
14 They came to him and said, "Teacher, we know you are a man of honor. You don't let others tell you what to do or say. You don't care how important they are. But you teach the way of God truthfully. Is it right to pay taxes to Caesar or not? 15 Should we pay or shouldn't we?"
But Jesus knew what they were trying to do. So he asked, "Why are you trying to trap me? Bring me a silver coin. Let me look at it."
16 They brought the coin.
He asked them, "Whose picture is this? And whose words?"
"Caesar's," they replied.
17 Then Jesus said to them, "Give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar. And give to God what belongs to God."
They were amazed at him.
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Text: Main point: An image problem
God's or Caesar's?
So, is it really that simple, then? Divide up your life into what belongs to God and what belongs to 'Caesar' - the demands of the world, our boss at work, the government, all the things that press so heavily upon us.
Does what we do on Sunday have any impact on the rest of it?
Whose image?
Let's be clear about what Jesus is saying here. The coin he asks the Pharisees to produce is an offensive item to the Jews (though this does not stop them producing one readily when Jesus asks!).
It bears the image of their oppressor, and any image was against the Jewish law. Round the edge was the inscription 'Son of the Divine Augustus', and on the back 'High Priest'. What could be worse?
We are God's.
This is Caesar's. Let Caesar have it. But if something has God's image, then by the same token it belongs to him.
Each one of us is created in the image of God, and as believers we bear the inscription of the Son of God (see Ephesians 1:13). We are God's, and the whole of our life is his.
Does it show?
Following him will not usually mean revolution: like others we pay our taxes and do our jobs - perhaps with more motivation in fact (see Colossians 3:23)! But in all of it we are to live in a way that honours the one whose name and image we bear.
Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...
Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78031
Respond: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78037
Deeper study: 'Face' - the facts : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78039
Background: No compromise : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78040
Worthy King: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78041
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78042
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=78043
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14670&activityid=77857
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Choose from this week's activities...
Welcome: 'On being bullied.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078
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Inconvenient truth
http://www.wordlive.org
Prayer : Prepare
Terms and conditions may apply. But there is no small print with Jesus. Prepare to converse.
Mark 12:1-12
'Jesus then began to speak to them in parables: "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a pit for the winepress and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place."'
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Bible passage: Mark 12:1-12
Mark 12
The Story of the Renters
1 Jesus began to speak to the people by using stories. He said, "A man planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it. He dug a pit for a winepress. He also built a lookout tower. He rented the vineyard out to some farmers. Then he went away on a journey.
2 "At harvest time he sent a servant to the renters. He told the servant to collect from them some of the fruit of the vineyard. 3 But they grabbed the servant and beat him up. Then they sent him away with nothing. 4 So the man sent another servant to the renters. They hit this one on the head and treated him badly. 5 The man sent still another servant. The renters killed him. The man sent many others. The renters beat up some of them. They killed the others.
6 "The man had one person left to send. It was his son, and he loved him. He sent him last of all. He said, 'They will respect my son.'
7 "But the renters said to each other, 'This is the one who will receive all the owner's property someday. Come, let's kill him. Then everything will be ours.' 8 So they took him and killed him. They threw him out of the vineyard.
9 "What will the owner of the vineyard do then? He will come and kill those renters. He will give the vineyard to others.
10 "Haven't you read what Scripture says,
" 'The stone the builders didn't accept
has become the most important stone of all.
11 The Lord has done it.
It is wonderful in our eyes'?" -(Psalm 118:22,23)
12 Then the religious leaders looked for a way to arrest Jesus. They knew he had told the story against them. But they were afraid of the crowd. So they left him and went away.
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Text: Main point: Inconvenient truth
To cap it all.
Imagine you are building something: you need lots of bricks the same size and shape. Finding one that doesn't fit, you put it aside and carry on.
But you need an arch in your building, and when you get to the top of the arch you find that the standard bricks aren't right - you need a specially shaped one to be the capstone, the very top stone in the arch. And if you haven't got that special shape, if you got rid of it because it wasn't like all the others, you're stuck.
Does it fit?
Jesus definitely does not fit into the plans of the religious establishment. He is simply not the right shape for their convenience, and they would like nothing better than to get rid of him.
But as the parable makes clear (v 7), getting rid of what is inconvenient does not always help.
The 'Jesus nut'
Sometimes when Jesus told a parable he had to explain it to his disciples (eg Mark 4:10), but this one is clear to everyone who hears it. The picture of Israel as God's vineyard was familiar to them all (see Isaiah 5:1-7). They understand the parable well enough, but it does not suit them to change their ways.
Jesus may not fit into our plans. But we can only build our life properly by giving him his proper place in them.
Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...
Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78012
Respond: Speak Lord: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78014
Deeper study: Murder most foul: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78015
Application: Power corrupts : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78016
Holding all together: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78017
Farm Apprentice: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78018
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=78021
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14669&activityid=77856
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Choose from this week's activities...
Welcome: 'On being bullied.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078
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On the spot
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Prayer : Prepare
Follow the leader. But what leader and on whose authority? Still yourself and seek.
Mark 11:27-33
'They arrived again in Jerusalem, and while Jesus was walking in the temple courts, the chief priests, the teachers of the law and the elders came to him. "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "And who gave you authority to do this?"'
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Bible passage: Mark 11:27-33
The Authority of Jesus Is Questioned
27 Jesus and his disciples arrived again in Jerusalem. He was walking in the temple courtyards. Then the chief priests came to him. The teachers of the law and the elders came too.
28 "By what authority are you doing these things?" they asked. "Who gave you authority to do this?"
29 Jesus replied, "I will ask you one question. Answer me, and I will tell you by what authority I am doing these things. 30 Was John's baptism from heaven? Or did it come from men? Tell me!"
31 They talked to each other about it. They said, "If we say, 'From heaven,' he will ask, 'Then why didn't you believe him?' 32 But what if we say, 'From men'?" They were afraid of the people. Everyone believed that John really was a prophet.
33 So they answered Jesus, "We don't know."
Jesus said, "Then I won't tell you by what authority I am doing these things either."
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Text: Main point: On the spot
Whose authority?
Something has to be said. Jesus has not been in Jerusalem long but his actions cannot be ignored any longer.
Of course the question in verse 28 is not designed to get information. What the priests want is for Jesus to say something incriminating so that they can turn the people against him.
God's or man's?
In fact, it is the priests' own authority that is at stake. Jesus' authority has been plain for all to see from the beginning. The people have recognised it in his teaching (see 1:22) and in his healing (2:10).
Here was something new, quite different from anything they had seen in their leaders before. But as those leaders try to seize the initiative, again Jesus turns the question round to expose the hollowness of their position.
Leave it to God!
Often we can feel that we are put on the spot when we are asked questions about our faith, some of which are obviously hostile. There is not always a 'right answer' that will convince everyone of the truth of the gospel.
Be prepared to say what you believe, and then leave the result in God's hands!
Jane Cornish
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Prayer : Prayer points
'Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how to answer everyone' (Colossians 4:6).
Difficult questions? How will you respond if people ask about your faith today?
● Pray through your day, thinking about those with whom you might speak. Use the words of Colossians 4:6 as a prayer, thinking about: conversations with family, friends, work meetings, telephone conversations, emails.
● Pray that God will give you the words you need.
● Ask God to help you to rely on him as you speak - leave the results with him.
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Choose from today's activities...
Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78000
Deeper study: Divide and conquer: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78003
Jeremy Paxman meets his match! : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78004
Surrender all: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78005
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78006
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=78007
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14668&activityid=77855
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Choose from this week's activities...
Welcome: 'On being bullied.': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078
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High expectations
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Prayer : Prepare
It's a new week, a new day. What are you expecting? Stop, look, listen.
Mark 11:1-11
'As they approached Jerusalem and came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives, Jesus sent two of his disciples, saying to them, "Go to the village ahead of you, and just as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here."'
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Bible passage: Mark 11:1-11
Mark 11
Jesus Enters Jerusalem
1 As they all approached Jerusalem, they came to Bethphage and Bethany at the Mount of Olives. Jesus sent out two of his disciples. 2 He said to them, "Go to the village ahead of you. Just as you enter it, you will find a donkey's colt tied there. No one has ever ridden it. Untie it and bring it here. 3 Someone may ask you, 'Why are you doing this?' If so, say, 'The Lord needs it. But he will send it back here soon.' "
4 So they left. They found a colt out in the street. It was tied at a doorway. They untied it. 5 Some people standing there asked, "What are you doing? Why are you untying that colt?" 6 They answered as Jesus had told them to. So the people let them go.
7 They brought the colt to Jesus. They threw their coats over it. Then he sat on it.
8 Many people spread their coats on the road. Others spread branches they had cut in the fields. 9 Those in front and those in back shouted,
"Hosanna!"
"Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!" -(Psalm 118:25,26)
10 "Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!"
"Hosanna in the highest heaven!"
11 Jesus entered Jerusalem and went to the temple. He looked around at everything. But it was already late. So he went out to Bethany with the Twelve.
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Text: Main point: High expectations
Sometimes we know we are witnessing history. Through television we have the opportunity to see historic events live, but only occasionally can we say, 'I was there'. The crowds who saw Jesus enter Jerusalem knew that they were eyewitnesses to something truly momentous.
A royal welcome
About five hundred years before this event the prophet Zechariah had written:
'Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and having salvation, lowly and riding on a donkey ...' (Zechariah 9:9).
Here was a clear sign, for those who had not been sure, that Jesus was the one they had been waiting for. The palm branches, the cloaks and the shouting ('hosanna' means 'save') are a royal welcome for the king who would set them free.
Not what you expect?
Four days later a crowd would be shouting equally enthusiastically for his death. As we follow the story of those days in our readings we will see something of what happened to make them respond like that.
But as we come to Jesus today, as we acknowledge that he is our king who will save us, it is worth reflecting that his ways may not be those that we want or expect.
Jane Cornish
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Choose from today's activities...
Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77975
Respond: Praise and worship: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77979
Deeper study: The divine imperative: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77980
Application: Size matters : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77981
Worthy of worship: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77982
The colt's tale: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77983
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77984
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77853
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Choose from this week's activities...
Editorial: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77985
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77986
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14665&activityid=77078
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Pass it on
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Prayer : Prepare
Sometimes it is good to repeat the past. Forgetting it and moving on isn't always the right action.
Psalm 78:1-13
'My people, hear my teaching; listen to the words of my mouth. I will open my mouth with a parable; I will teach you lessons from the past'
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Bible passage: Psalm 78:1-13
Psalm 78
A maskil of Asaph.
1 My people, listen to my teaching.
Pay attention to what I say.
2 I will open my mouth and tell stories.
I will speak about things that were hidden.
They happened a long time ago.
3 We have heard about them and we know them.
Our people who lived before us have told us about them.
4 We won't hide them from our children.
We will tell them to those who live after us.
We will tell them about what the Lord has done that is worthy of praise.
We will talk about his power and the wonderful things he has done.
5 He gave laws to the people of Jacob.
He gave Israel their law.
He commanded our people who lived before us
to teach his laws to their children.
6 Then those born later would know his laws.
Even their children yet to come would know them.
And they in turn would tell their children.
7 Then they would put their trust in God.
They would not forget what he had done.
They would obey his commands.
8 They would not be like their people who lived before them.
Those people were stubborn. They refused to obey God.
Their hearts were not true to him.
Their spirits were not faithful to him.
9 The soldiers of Ephraim were armed with bows.
But they ran away on the day of battle.
10 They didn't keep the covenant God had made with them.
They refused to live by his law.
11 They forgot what he had done.
They didn't remember the wonders he had shown them.
12 He did miracles right in front of our people who lived long ago.
At that time they were living in the land of Egypt, in the area of Zoan.
13 God parted the Red Sea and led them through it.
He made the water stand up like a wall.
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Text: Main point: Pass it on
Some of you might remember chanting the multiplication tables in unison, or learning a song by constant repetition.
Tell others.
This psalm was written for very much the same purpose. For a population who were largely illiterate, 'singing history' was the best way of learning.
'Hear my teaching,' says the psalmist (v 1), remember 'what our ancestors have told us' (v 3). Pass it on to your children (v 4), he exhorts. In this way the generations learned of how God had brought their ancestors out of Egypt and moulded them into a nation.
Obey God's laws
Before the account of what God has done, which starts at verse 13 (and continues for the rest of the 72 verses), the psalmist urges obedience to God's laws - obedience that comes from gratitude to God because of his mighty deeds of deliverance (v 7).
'Faith comes from hearing' (Romans 10:17)
Telling someone face-to-face about your own experience of God's help and guidance in your life can be just as powerful as preaching. It doesn't have to be 'heavy' or over-earnest evangelism, just a chat over a drink or when you bump into someone you haven't seen for a while.
We owe it to God to tell others of his 'power, and the wonders he has done' (v 4b).
Gillian Peall
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Choose from today's activities...
Deeper study: Once upon a time.: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14664&activityid=77970
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14664&activityid=77971
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14664&activityid=77852
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Choose from this week's activities...
Welcome: 'We don't do God': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77900
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77901
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77078
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Our daily bread
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Prayer : Prepare
Again, ask yourself what you really need, then seek God's perspective this day.
John 6:25-59
'Jesus answered, "Very truly I tell you, you are looking for me, not because you saw the signs I performed but because you ate the loaves and had your fill. Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you. On him God the Father has placed his seal of approval."'
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Bible passage: John 6:25-59
Jesus Is the Bread of Life
25 They found him on the other side of the lake. They asked him, "Rabbi, when did you get here?"
26 Jesus answered, "What I'm about to tell you is true. You are not looking for me because you saw miraculous signs. You are looking for me because you ate the loaves until you were full. 27 Do not work for food that spoils. Work for food that lasts forever. That is the food the Son of Man will give you. God the Father has put his seal of approval on him."
28 Then they asked him, "What does God want from us? What works does he want us to do?"
29 Jesus answered, "God's work is to believe in the One he has sent."
30 So they asked him, "What miraculous sign will you give us? What will you do so we can see it and believe you? 31 Long ago our people ate the manna in the desert. It is written in Scripture, 'The Lord gave them bread from heaven to eat.' "-(Exodus 16:4; Nehemiah 9:15; Psalm 78:24,25)
32 Jesus said to them, "What I'm about to tell you is true. It is not Moses who has given you the bread from heaven. It is my Father who gives you the true bread from heaven. 33 The bread of God is the One who comes down from heaven. He gives life to the world."
34 "Sir," they said, "give us this bread from now on."
35 Then Jesus said, "I am the bread of life. No one who comes to me will ever go hungry. And no one who believes in me will ever be thirsty.
36 "But it is just as I told you. You have seen me, and you still do not believe. 37 Everyone the Father gives me will come to me. I will never send away anyone who comes to me.
38 "I have not come down from heaven to do what I want to do. I have come to do what the One who sent me wants me to do. 39 The One who sent me doesn't want me to lose anyone he has given me. He wants me to raise them up on the last day. 40 My Father wants all who look to the Son and believe in him to have eternal life. I will raise them up on the last day."
41 Then the Jews began to complain about Jesus. That was because he said, "I am the bread that came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Isn't this Jesus, the son of Joseph? Don't we know his father and mother? How can he now say, 'I came down from heaven'?"
43 "Stop complaining among yourselves," Jesus answered. 44 "No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me brings him. Then I will raise him up on the last day.
45 "It is written in the Prophets, 'God will teach all of them.'-(Isaiah 54:13) Everyone who listens to the Father and learns from him comes to me.
46 "No one has seen the Father except the One who has come from God. Only he has seen the Father. 47 What I'm about to tell you is true. Everyone who believes has life forever.
48 "I am the bread of life. 49 Long ago your people ate the manna in the desert, and they still died. 50 But here is the bread that comes down from heaven. A person can eat it and not die. 51 I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Everyone who eats some of this bread will live forever. The bread is my body. I will give it for the life of the world."
52 Then the Jews began to argue sharply among themselves. They said, "How can this man give us his body to eat?"
53 Jesus said to them, "What I'm about to tell you is true. You must eat the Son of Man's body and drink his blood. If you don't, you have no life in you. 54 Anyone who eats my body and drinks my blood has eternal life. I will raise him up on the last day.
55 "My body is real food. My blood is real drink. 56 Anyone who eats my body and drinks my blood remains in me. And I remain in him.
57 "The living Father sent me, and I live because of him. In the same way, those who feed on me will live because of me. 58 This is the bread that came down from heaven. Long ago your people ate manna and died. But those who feed on this bread will live forever."
59 He said this while he was teaching in the synagogue in Capernaum.
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Text: Main point: Our daily bread
Jesus - our daily bread
The disciples, like all Jewish men, would have been well-versed in the exodus story and would know about the manna God sent to the Israelites (see Exodus 16:14-23). Jesus goes further - bread is essential to physical life, but he is the bread that is essential for our spiritual life, and the life we will have in eternity.
Jesus - our sustenance.
What Jesus is saying is hard for the Jews, and for us, to grasp. He himself is the bread; we must feed on him (vs 50,51,54-57). The idea of eating the flesh and drinking the blood of Jesus would have been abhorrent and shocking to the Jews, and is still very strange to us.
But unless we take Jesus as our sustenance, read or hear his words, take them into our very being, measure everything against them, and learn to live entirely his way, we will certainly starve spiritually, and our mental and physical health can be affected.
for all eternity
Medical practitioners everywhere now realise that our bodies are not just a collection of organs, bones and muscles. Research has shown that our mental and spiritual health is just as important for our complete well-being.
The manna God sent the Israelites fed them a day at a time. Jesus is our nourishment day by day - and for all eternity.
Gillian Peall
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Choose from today's activities...
Deeper study: How to be his: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14661&activityid=77961
Jesus, the bread of life: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14661&activityid=77962
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14661&activityid=77850
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Choose from this week's activities...
Welcome: 'We don't do God': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77900
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77901
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77078
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God speaks
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Prayer : Prepare
Contract, guarantee, agreement, covenant - all terms of relationship. How's yours with God?
Exodus 19:1-25
'Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.'
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Bible passage: Exodus 19:1-25
Exodus 19
Israel Comes to Mount Sinai
1 Exactly three months after the people of Israel left Egypt, they came to the Desert of Sinai. 2 After they started out from Rephidim, they entered the Desert of Sinai. They camped there in the desert in front of the mountain.
3 Then Moses went up to God. The Lord called out to him from the mountain. He said, "Here is what I want you to say to my people, who came from Jacob's family. Tell the Israelites, 4 "You have seen for yourselves what I did to Egypt. You saw how I carried you on the wings of eagles and brought you to myself.
5 " 'Now obey me completely. Keep my covenant. If you do, then out of all of the nations you will be my special treasure. The whole earth is mine. 6 But you will be a kingdom of priests to serve me. You will be my holy nation.' That is what you must tell the Israelites."
7 So Moses went back. He sent for the elders of the people. He explained to them everything the Lord had commanded him to say. 8 All of the people answered together. They said, "We will do everything the Lord has said."
So Moses brought their answer back to the Lord.
9 The Lord spoke to Moses. He said, "I am going to come to you in a thick cloud. The people will hear me speaking with you. They will always put their trust in you." Then Moses told the Lord what the people had said.
10 The Lord said to Moses, "Go to the people. Today and tomorrow set them apart for me. Have them wash their clothes. 11 Have the people ready by the third day. On that day I will come down on Mount Sinai. Everyone will see it.
12 "Put limits for the people around the mountain. Tell them, 'Be careful that you do not go up the mountain. Do not even touch the foot of it. You can be sure that all who touch the mountain will be put to death. 13 Do not lay a hand on any of them. Kill them with stones or shoot them with arrows. Whether they are people or animals, do not let them live.' They may go up to the mountain only when the ram's horn gives out a long blast."
14 Moses went down the mountain to the people. After he set them apart for the Lord, they washed their clothes. 15 Then he spoke to the people. He said, "Get ready for the third day. Don't make love."
16 On the morning of the third day there was thunder and lightning. A thick cloud covered the mountain. A trumpet gave out a very loud blast. Everyone in the camp trembled with fear.
17 Then Moses led the people out of the camp to meet with God. They stood at the foot of the mountain.
18 Smoke covered Mount Sinai, because the Lord came down on it in fire. The smoke rose up from it like smoke from a furnace. The whole mountain trembled and shook. 19 The sound of the trumpet got louder and louder. Then Moses spoke. And the voice of God answered him.
20 The Lord came down to the top of Mount Sinai. He told Moses to come to the top of the mountain. So Moses went up.
21 The Lord said to him, "Go down and warn the people. They must not force their way through to see me. If they do, many of them will die. 22 The priests approach me when they serve me. But even they must set themselves apart for me. If they do not, my anger will break out against them."
23 Moses said to the Lord, "The people can't come up Mount Sinai. You yourself warned us. You said, 'Put limits around the mountain. Set it apart as holy.' "
24 The Lord replied, "Go down. Bring Aaron up with you. But the priests and the people must not force their way through. They must not come up to me. If they do, my anger will break out against them."
25 So Moses went down to the people and told them.
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Text: Main point: God speaks
It is three months later and the Israelites have reached Sinai. Here God speaks to Moses on Mount Sinai and declares Israel his 'treasured possession' (v 5b). But God demands obedience and faith in return (v 5a) for his amazing promise.
In what promises to be a startling and terrifying event, God will actually allow the people to hear him speaking with Moses (v 9).
God is holy
The consecration and purification of the people, and making holy the mountain, are all there to read (vs 10-15). Note that sexual relations are by no means sinful, but they might leave the participants ceremonially unclean.
When God descends to the mountain there is thunder, lightning, smoke and fire. God is terrifying here (vs 16,18,19).
Worship him
Now we know that God is love (see 1 John 4:8), a God of compassion and mercy. In Jesus we see God incarnate, human like ourselves, accepting us as we are and offering a new start.
But God is still a God who brings thunder and lightning, both real and symbolic, in our lives, and he still demands purity and holiness. We too must worship him in awe and reverence, living lives of obedience and faith.
Gillian Peall
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Choose from today's activities...
Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77934
Respond: Talk together: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77937
Deeper study: At the foot of the mountain: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77939
Application: A new day : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77947
Coming to God: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77949
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77950
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77951
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14659&activityid=77849
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Choose from this week's activities...
Welcome: 'We don't do God': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77900
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77901
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77078
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Hard paths
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Prayer : Prepare
The Lord be with you. And also with you. but only when things are going well, eh?
Exodus 17:1-16
'The whole Israelite community set out from the Desert of Sin, traveling from place to place as the LORD commanded. They camped at Rephidim, but there was no water for the people to drink. So they quarreled with Moses and said, "Give us water to drink."'
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Bible passage: Exodus 17:1-16
Exodus 17
The Lord Gives Israel Water Out of the Rock
1 The whole community of Israel started out from the Desert of Sin. They traveled from place to place, just as the Lord commanded.
They camped at Rephidim. But there wasn't any water for the people to drink. 2 So they argued with Moses. They said, "Give us water to drink."
Moses replied, "Why are you arguing with me? Why are you putting the Lord to the test?"
3 But the people were thirsty for water there. So they told Moses they weren't happy with him. They said, "Why did you bring us up out of Egypt? Did you want us, our children and our livestock to die of thirst?"
4 Then Moses cried out to the Lord. He said, "What am I going to do with these people? They are almost ready to kill me by throwing stones at me."
5 The Lord answered Moses. He said, "Walk on ahead of the people. Take some of the elders of Israel along with you. Take in your hand the wooden staff you used when you struck the Nile River. Go. 6 I will stand there in front of you by the rock at Mount Horeb. Hit the rock. Then water will come out of it for the people to drink." So Moses hit the rock in the sight of the elders of Israel.
7 Moses called the place Massah and Meribah. That's because the people of Israel argued with him there. They also put the Lord to the test. They asked, "Is the Lord among us or not?"
Joshua Wins the Battle Over the Amalekites
8 The Amalekites came and attacked the Israelites at Rephidim. 9 Moses said to Joshua, "Choose some of our men. Then go out and fight against the Amalekites. Tomorrow I will stand on top of the hill. I'll stand there with the staff of God in my hands."
10 So Joshua fought against the Amalekites, just as Moses had ordered.
Moses, Aaron and Hur went to the top of the hill. 11 As long as Moses held his hands up, the Israelites were winning. But every time he lowered his hands, the Amalekites began to win.
12 When Moses' arms got tired, Aaron and Hur got a stone and put it under him. Then he sat on it. Aaron and Hur held his hands up. Aaron was on one side, and Hur was on the other. Moses' hands remained steady until sunset.
13 So Joshua destroyed the Amalekite army with swords.
14 Then the Lord said to Moses, "That is something to be remembered. So write it on a scroll. Make sure Joshua knows you have done it. I will completely erase the memory of the Amalekites from the earth."
15 Then Moses built an altar. He called it The Lord Is My Banner. 16 He said, "I raised my hands toward the throne of the Lord. The Lord will fight against the Amalekites for all time to come."
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Text: Main point: Hard paths
The Israelites are rebellious again, and this time it is getting dangerous (v 4). No water for three days is a serious business, and the thirsty people are yet again questioning the presence of the Lord with them.
God steps in
Moses becomes exasperated with these people God has commanded him to lead (v 4). God steps in and, leading him and the elders as witnesses, takes them to the rock at Horeb, where water gushes forth.
Life is not always cosy.
We may wonder why God did not provide water earlier for the Israelites and their livestock. Was it to test their faithfulness and trust in him? Neither trust nor faithfulness was evident as they rebelled against Moses (v 2).
God can seem to lead us along hard and difficult paths, but this is not because he is a hard and malicious God who wants to catch us out, but because life is not always warm and cosy.
Keep talking with God
The Sinai desert is arid, and water is scarce. When Moses appealed to God after three days, God provided. We know that Jesus is always with us in both good times and bad (see Matthew 28:20). We need to talk with him constantly along the way (see Jude 20).
Gillian Peall
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Prayer : Respond
Who has held you up - or helped you - in the last 24 hours?
Think about everything that others have done for you, then thank God for those people. Praise God for what he has done for you.
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Choose from today's activities...
Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14657&activityid=77914
Deeper study: Reading the signs : http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14657&activityid=77917
Application: His ways for our days: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14657&activityid=77918
Intercede: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14657&activityid=77919
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14657&activityid=77920
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14657&activityid=77921
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14657&activityid=77846
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Choose from this week's activities...
Welcome: 'We don't do God': http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77900
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77901
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77078
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Never satisfied?
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Prayer : Prepare
Half-full or half-empty? At least you have the glass. Have your blessings become transparent?
Exodus 16:1-16
'Then the LORD said to Moses, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people are to go out each day and gather enough for that day. In this way I will test them and see whether they will follow my instructions."'
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Bible passage: Exodus 16:1-16
Exodus 16
The Lord Gives Israel Food Every Day
1 The whole community of Israel started out from Elim. They came to the Desert of Sin. It was between Elim and Sinai. They arrived there on the 15th day of the second month after they had come out of Egypt.
2 In the desert the whole community told Moses and Aaron they weren't happy with them. 3 The Israelites said to them, "We wish the Lord had put us to death in Egypt. There we sat around pots of meat. We ate all of the food we wanted. But you have brought us out into this desert. You must want this entire community to die of hunger."
4 Then the Lord spoke to Moses. He said, "I will rain down bread from heaven for you. The people must go out each day. Have them gather enough bread for that day. Here is how I will put them to the test. I will see if they will follow my directions.
5 "On the sixth day they must prepare what they bring in. On that day they must gather twice as much as on the other days."
6 So Moses and Aaron spoke to all of the people of Israel. They said, "In the evening you will know that the Lord brought you out of Egypt. 7 And in the morning you will see the glory of the Lord. He has heard you say you aren't happy with him. Who are we? Why are you telling us you aren't happy with us?"
8 Moses also said, "You will know that the Lord has heard you speak against him. He will give you meat to eat in the evening. He'll give you all of the bread you want in the morning. But who are we? You aren't speaking against us. You are speaking against the Lord."
9 Then Moses told Aaron, "Talk to the whole community of Israel. Say to them, 'Come to the Lord. He has heard you speak against him.' "
10 While Aaron was talking to the whole community of Israel, they looked toward the desert. There was the glory of the Lord appearing in the cloud!
11 The Lord said to Moses, 12 "I have heard the people of Israel talking about how unhappy they are. Tell them, 'When the sun goes down, you will eat meat. In the morning you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God.' "
13 That evening quail came and covered the camp. In the morning the ground around the camp was covered with dew. 14 When the dew was gone, thin flakes appeared on the desert floor. They looked like frost on the ground. 15 The people of Israel saw the flakes. They asked each other, "What's that?" They didn't know what it was.
Moses said to them, "It's the bread the Lord has given you to eat. 16 Here is what the Lord has commanded. He has said, 'Each one of you should gather as much as you need. Take two quarts for each person who lives in your tent.' "
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Text: Main point: Never satisfied?
Trust God
The whole assembly of Israelites are grumbling, threatening rebellion (vs 1,2). Moses and Aaron (who is speaking for Moses; see Exodus 4:13-17) warn the Israelites that they are testing the Lord, and doubting his word, which they have no right to do (v 8).
God's reply is to demonstrate his power to the Israelites. They get an abundance of quail for supper and manna for the morning.
God is not a vending machine
We all grumble about the lack of things we want. I wish I had this or that or more of the other, we say. Are we really testing God and doubting his power to provide?
We pray that God will answer our prayers the way we want, but often have an alternative plan in our minds in case he doesn't come up with the goods. But God is not a vending machine - pray this and get that.
Do something
The Israelites did not have miraculous pots of quail stew descend from heaven. They had to go and gather up the birds, kill and prepare them.
Likewise, they had to gather the manna from the ground every morning. When God provides for us we may have to work for it, like the Israelites, or perhaps receive from the hands of others.
Gillian Peall
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Text: Respond
Watch out for your 'grumbles' today.
What do you moan about. . to other people?. to yourself?. to God? Every time you catch yourself, take a minute to thank God for ways in which he's blessing you and providing for you.
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Choose from today's activities...
Audio Bible passage: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77823
Deeper study: Reality bites: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77826
Application: No more drama?: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77833
Life as it should be?: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77834
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77837
Podcast: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77838
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77844
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Choose from this week's activities...
Editorial: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77900
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77901
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14652&activityid=77078
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Justice and salvation
http://www.wordlive.org
Prayer : Pray first
Ask God to reveal himself to you today in a new way. Then you can share this vision with others.
Psalm 98
'Sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done marvellous things; his right hand and his holy arm have worked salvation for him.'
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Bible passage: Psalm 98
Psalm 98
A psalm.
1 Sing a new song to the Lord.
He has done wonderful things.
By the power of his right hand and his holy arm
he has saved his people.
2 The Lord has made known his power to save.
He has shown the nations that he does what is right.
3 He has shown his faithful love
to the people of Israel.
People from one end of the earth to the other
have seen that our God has saved us.
4 Shout to the Lord with joy, everyone on earth.
Burst into joyful songs and make music.
5 Make music to the Lord with the harp.
Sing and make music with the harp.
6 Blow the trumpets. Give a blast on the ram's horn.
Shout to the Lord with joy. He is the King.
7 Let the ocean and everything in it roar.
Let the world and all who live in it shout.
8 Let the rivers clap their hands.
Let the mountains sing together with joy.
9 Let them sing to the Lord,
because he is coming to judge the earth.
He will judge the nations of the world
in keeping with what is right and fair.
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Text: Main point: Justice and salvation
'That's not fair!'
This is a cry we often hear from children. But it is also an inbuilt part of human nature.
We expect the world to operate in a way that we would describe as 'fair'. Maybe this is part of what it means to be creatures made in the image of God - an innate sense that things should be done in a way that is just.
Rejoicing in judgement
In contrast to the reading from Zechariah, the psalmist rejoices in God's judgement. This is because when judgement comes salvation and righteousness will be revealed for what they really are - God's ultimate demonstration of 'fairness'.
Our future hope
That is not to suggest that the world will be 'fair' now. The world is not as God intended - it is broken and in need of restoration.
While we wait for God's salvation to be revealed we have to suffer the consequences of that brokenness. But the psalmist reminds us of that future hope - promised by God.
Praise God for righteous judgement
So in the here and now we lift our voices to sing praises to the God who is continually at work in his world and who remains loving and faithful throughout the whole of history. In doing so, we join with the whole of creation in praising God for his righteous judgement.
John Stephenson
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Choose from today's activities...
Prophecy's last horizon: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14643&activityid=77730
Worship song: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14643&activityid=77731
Bible in a year: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14643&activityid=77627
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Choose from this week's activities...
Editorial: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14633&activityid=77654
WordLive for small groups: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14633&activityid=77655
WordLive Forum: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14633&activityid=77078
Topical: Close Encounters: http://www.scriptureunion.org.uk/2981.id?sessionid=14633&activityid=78177
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Rural Change & Portals
Parish councils are making deliberations that may offer opportunities for veterinary practices. Within the next few weeks important decisions will be taken about the establishment of Unitary Authorities and Community Boards. If you have started to yawn already you may miss the whole thrust and benefit of microportals.
One of the very successful microportals is being managed by a veterinary surgeon, John Lund, not for veterinary benefit but in support of his community. Within the rural areas the central activities revolve around the church, parish council and village hall. Good, old, sleepy, activities of great relevance to a few but of less interest to many. The parish magazine, or in many areas the group parishes magazine, publishes the various activities and is supported by advertising. Entries are usually small and cheap offering plumbing and candlestick making, providing basic information with a ’phone number. Not so in Bridford.
Try and imagine something that you want to know about, or do, starting from your home. If your area has a community hub you will already have it as your home page on the computer. You will already have entered your postcode. A single mouse click and up comes the hub. Rather importantly the use of hubs is going way beyond the people who surf the web. In this area very few folk spend time accessing websites for information. They could, but they choose to carry on as before, possibly because the activity lacks personality. Whereas, everything on the community portal is relevant to their household, local plumbers, pubs, doctors, events, buses, trains, parish history, church services, whatever, and the activities and offerings of the local veterinary practices.
So, what would you like to say to the people living within five miles, or ten miles of your practice? Would you wish to list the address and ’phone number or possibly the website? Would you wish to highlight a particular activity or clinical success or participation in sport, money raising, new surgery, changes in staff or disease alerts? Would you wish to talk to the community with a piece of video? Would you wish to change what is on the hub every month or week? I hope you are beginning to see that this microportal development is very much more than having a website.
The beginnings of the existing microportals have often developed in order to involve and inform people about goings on locally and also to raise money for the church or village hall. Church based portals have been credited with increasing footfall, donations and wellbeing. Individual parishes have latched on to the idea and from slow beginnings the number of people within the area going to the portal each day increases rapidly. Thousands of hits are recorded. People go to the portal for one item but then come across other things of interest. In a holiday area, such as Bridford on the edge of Dartmoor, people are encouraged to look at the hub from their home wherever it is and very rapidly the extent of aspects of interest are able to be noted.
So, at the moment the whole idea of community microportals is known to a few but major expansion is anticipated. The current establishment of county councils and district councils is to be replaced by unitary authorities. Each county will be voting on this soon and some areas will change and others may not. However, locally, the idea of shedding five chief executives of the district councils, plus all the buildings and infrastructure, with the frustrating inefficiencies and expense, has an appeal. No doubt the single authority will absorb most of the people and sites but that is not the main thrust of interest. Underlying the large authority will be the community boards, based in this area on market towns. Each parish council will be represented on these boards and there will be a community budget for the development of, yes, communities. So it is not difficult to consider that microportal community hubs will pop up covering all the communities within a community board. The opportunities for the promotion of veterinary practices, or indeed veterinary activity in general is very real.
Moving on, there are microportals for associations and professional groups. Here again these are different from websites as such and websites with links, partly because of the one click concept and ease of access. With specific groups the quality of the portal presentation may become a bigger issue. Within a community portal there will be a variety of presentations from the simple to the complex, the plain to the colourful, whereas for an association site there may be issues of quality of presentation and appearance that incur additional mastering and expense. A list of portals is available at www.2day.ws/sites and it is easy to view a range and get some idea of the breadth of the topic.
The other aspect to consider is that veterinary surgeons and veterinary businesses are targets for the services of others. As you interact with a microportal so you are open to becoming interested in a topic you had not initially thought to access. These will range from the expected to the unexpected.
For example, it was unexpected to find the topic of workplace grievances, conflict resolution and stress management. Thinking about it where better to introduce the availability of mediation than on a microportal. To promote your abilities to resolve issues between people at a local level appears worthwhile. There is a relevance here to partnerships and one of the areas highlighted is the difficulties that arise between partners as the relationship evolves over the years. This aspect of partnerships is well recognised for accountants, solicitors and of course veterinary surgeons. The point made is that it is often the local issues that bring matters to a head, with chatter between wives, clients and third parties. If there are general workplace issues that need to be aired, it may be that local microportals will form part of the tools available to a professional mediator that handles these very local matters in a confidential manner.
The topic of microportals seems to be moving rapidly from village hall activities and church services to professional concerns. Here abouts there is a distinct thrust to buy local. A veterinary practice as part of the local community appears important.
If you have experience of microportals or wish to discuss developments please contact rgard@agmed.freeserve.co.uk.
Richard Gard
4th September 2008.
First Published Veterinary Review
www.veterinaryreview.com
August 2008
We have to upgrade both the 2day servers due to very heavy daily traffic from all over the UK.
July 2008
We add 22,000 community sites and 35,000 School plus University Community sites - making us one of the largest community networks in the UK!
May 2008
We break the 200,000 visits a day threshold!
September 2007
2day's flood beating backups. We now backup our system onto a server in the USA.
August 2007
To cope with new traffic levels 2day commissions a second server.
July 2007
2day daily hits break the 200,000 barrier
March 2007
2day hits go over 100,000 in one day and our server is upgraded to take the new level of traffic
February 2007
Three new templates are launched. One community one and two conventional website ones.
Our hits go up to over one per second!
April 06 - Lacock repeats history!
Richard Searight - the new Fox-Talbot!
Unique window on the internet - The Microportal
A tiny village in Wiltshire, which is credited with being the birthplace of photography, is repeating history by introducing a new way of looking at the world wide web - The Microportal, or personal website!
More than 170 years ago William Henry Fox Talbot took the first photograph of a lattice window in his home at Lacock Abbey - now 2Day Microportals, headed up by Lacock-based Richard Searight, is offering communities another window, that to the World Wide Web.
The uniqueness of the system is that once users have introduced their postcode, everything they need is within three clicks of the mouse. Every day over 30,000 people use the 2Day Microportal to look something up.
The first 2Day microportal was www.lacock.2day.ws, which is now one of the most used community sites in the whole of the UK, with over 100,000 hits a year from a population of just 1,300 people.
Users can not only find contact details for everyday needs, such as the cinema, eating out, weather and local schools, but also use the site for instant access to things such as a route planner, directory inquiries and news headlines. There are also live links to train, road and airport information - all available within three clicks. People can even take their local site on holiday because it refocuses on any location in the UK.
Richard Searight says his aim is to provide every community in the UK with a personalised one-stop shop. Communities are empowered by being able to run the embedded local sections themselves and even post advertising to pay for the site!
Particularly interesting is the fact that churches have adopted the system as a means of getting themselves back into the centre of communities. 'So far we have over 200 church sites, including one in the Shetland Isles, which is receiving over 250 hits per day', says Richard.
'The vision is to create sites so complete that everyone has to make them their homepage. Once a whole community does that it starts to communicate and gel together as a social unit. The church understands this,' he said. Up until the advent of Microportals, achieving a totally comprehensive community website was completely impossible for the average local webmaster.
For further information: Richard Searight, 2Day Microportals Ltd., 01249 730439 or 07770 846450. Or visit www.2day.ws.
