NorthernMoor.Org

My church has been homeless for three months now - it's hard to say where the experience has led us.

Unlike the "established" churches, which have recognisable buildings, the Community Church doesn't have a building of its own, and has met in a number of different locations since its establishment in 1988. For many years we had the use of Pier Hill School on Yew Tree Lane. That venue fitted well with our style because we were able to use a number of different rooms including the large gym, where our kids and teens could run around and play loud games.

When Piper Hill School moved to their new facility at St Paul's, the previous building was closed down, and the church moved to Rack House Primary School. In many ways Rack House was not such a good "fit" for us, but in some ways it was better. Unfortunately after just a few months we had to leave, because the caretaker was not allowed to open up for us on a Sunday. Our last Sunday meeting at Piper Hill was 6^th June.

We have looked at all the public venues in Northern Moor that are large enough to accommodate our church, but they're either unsuitable or unavailable on Sundays.

Over the summer we have had our Sunday meetings in St Michael's Community Hall, in Lawton Moor Methodist church, and even in Wythenshawe Park. We have also have a few "go out" days, where the whole church was involved in some community activity.

Now the summer is over and our future still looks uncertain, but it's not all doom and gloom. There's an old saying - the church is not really the building, but the group of people who worship inside the building. We have certainly proved that to be true over the last three months. Even though we don't have a home, we're still very much a church together.

Northern Moor Community Church will meet in the back hall of Lawton Moor Methodist Church on Sunday mornings in September. After that, we have no idea!

Just a few weeks ago it was all luscious and green, but today our garden is very definitely "over".

The bean pole is still standing, but that's only because I re-strung it - a few weeks ago it collapsed under the weight of the beans! I had no idea that could happen. The whole garden is overrun with grass, docks, and a few nettles, although in the few areas where we still have vegetables growing, we've pretty much kept the weeds down.

It's been a calm and peaceful autumn - ideal for reflecting on what we've achieved, and learned.

• When we acquired this little parcel of land, it was full of brambles and bindweed. We spent hundreds of painstaking hours digging out the roots, and I'm pleased to say we've seen very little of either of those pests. So I can confidently say, digging out bindweed by the roots does work!
• At first all the youngsters in the church wanted to help, with a huge burst of enthusiasm. It didn't last though - by early summer it was difficult to get anyone to come and work in the garden. That's not been a surprise - it's difficult to get teenagers to do anything that requires commitment and hard work.
• Even though our site is surrounded by trees and gets only partial sunshine, some of our vegetables did very well. The crops we'll certainly grow again include potatoes, mange-tout, sprouts, sweet corn, parsnips, onions, shallots, elephant garlic, and also flowers for the table.
• The problem with the shade is roughly as serious as I thought it would be. The things we planted at the South end near to the shed didn't do well, and those on the North border did better. But our potatoes did well throughout the garden - they seemed to cope with the partial shade.
• Our primary pests have been slugs and aphids. In the last few weeks an army of ladybirds have appeared and gobbled up the aphids, but they're much too late to make an impression on our productivity. We set beer traps for the slugs, but although they do work, they're quite a bit of effort given the number of slugs we had. In the end we resorted to slug pellets. We also had a pesky squirrel chew our sweet corn.

The garden looked beautiful and organised for a really short space of time. In fact the whole season was very short - it went from bare earth to promising shoots, through tidy and beautiful, to overgrown and productive, in just a few weeks!

Having an allotment is not really a way of saving money on food. Or if it is, the money that it saves is insignificant compared to the effort involved! But it is a great way of keeping fit, of getting more "in touch" with how food grows, and of meeting some great people. It's also good to eat fresh food knowing "what went into it", and to take a pride in the health and quality of the soil.

I've wanted to replace the existing NorthernMoor.Org Web site for ages - ideally to publish something that would enable users to contribute, and make the site really "live" with up-to-date information. But it also needed to be quite low-maintenance from our perspective; Delta Lights is a small business, and we can't spare the time to update it regularly on an ongoing basis.

There's loads of social networking site already on the Internet, and it would be possible to use one of those. Indeed there's already several Northern Moor groups on Facebook. But they don't really compare with the flexibility and power offered by having a dedicated site.

To get "up and running" quickly I needed to install a Content Management System (CMS), and I evaluated several before settling on Drupal. Most of the facilities offered on NorthernMoor.Org are provided "out of the box" with Drupal, although it did still take quite a while to set it up. There's plenty more work to do on the site, but it's OK for a "first cut".

I hope that all the clubs / societies / churches / groups in Northern Moor will add their details on the site, and if anyone wants to start a new group, I trust that this site will help them to do that.

Any comments about the site? Add them below.

It's really great that we've heard from Michael, that he's properly installed on the ship, with a cabin, and with a job of work to do. Although we still don't know very much about either.

The first week on board has obviously been really busy, and Michael has only been able to get online for short periods. He uploaded these photos, and he hopes to be able to add some words, and perhaps some more photos, when he gets a moment.

	A select group of people went to Manchester airport on 20th August to see Michael safely away - parents/grandparents, and a few people from church.
	This is where "GO" (the Global Orientation Conference) took place in Holland. Lots of new OMers (~300?) spent 10 days here.
	On 1st Sept, the new Logos Hope crew members flew to Scarborough, in Tobago. This seems to be some of them just after their arrival.
	PST (Pre-Ship Training) took place in Trinidad. This is where Michael and ~80 others stayed for 10 days.
	On 10th September they took the ferry back to Tobago, to join the ship.
	It was docked in Scarborough, but it has since moved to Trinidad (where Michael and others had PST), and is currently docked in Port of Spain.

It's been raining loads throughout this month, and many of our vegges are now lying flat on the ground. Lots of things are coming ready to harvest.

On Saturday we dug up one of the beds of "earlies".

Everything has grown so much in the last few weeks! The garden looks full and productive.

The Old Testament First Fruits ceremony was an opportunity for thanksgiving - a reminder that all provision ultimately comes from God. The early crops are not necessarily the biggest, or the best - their value is more symbolic, as a foretaste of good things to come.

Michael expects to start work on the ship in September, but we hadn't actually seen the ship (almost no-one has - it's still really new) so at the end of May we went to Cardiff to have a look at it.