HEMS London's Air Ambulance

Tuesday February 2nd 2006: The HEMS (Helicopter Emergency Medical Service) chopper has just flown over the college building in Acton where I lecture, and dropped down into the park 100 feet away, giving me a full-frame view of the bird in flight from my top floor window.. Guess what -- no camera on me! As it happens, I posted this photo here on the blog just 4 days ago -- I took this Summer 2005. Now for the original posting I made last week...

Saturday January 28th 2006: (original post) This is the London Air Ambulance and this is no exercise. The crew have just dropped off an RTA casualty in the park across from our home. It is used for a landing pad for our local hospital - they were bringing in a casualty from an accident on the M25 orbital motorway. The one aircraft serves the entire Greater London area, and can access an Accident & Emergency (A&E) department in less than 5 minutes flight time, they tell me, from any location in greater London. Not bad! The service is under-funded, however, with Sir Richard Branson chipping in a few hundred thousand quid each year - hence the "Virgin" livery. Link to: London Air Ambulance fact file.

Postscript: The London Air Ambulance doesn't just fly for the fun of it. At the back of my mind five hours ago today (2/2/06) I was wondering what emergency the medics were responding to. I found out via my students, who told me a "B&Q" tractor-trailer unit (articulated lorry) had caught a 21 year-old girl on a bicycle and crushed both her and the bike, and that the (unconfirmed) report is that she was dead at the scene. Doesn't make me feel very proud that my first instinct was to reach for a camera. On the other hand, to respond to emergencies like this is the reason that HEMS serves London. Click on my links above it you want to donate directly to keep the team airborne.
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US Security Alert Gizmo

Homeland Security Advisory

I posted this little alert gizmo on my other blog Chaplains Call (dedicated to workplace ministry) last year, (from the US Dept for Homeland Security so it reflects USA not Britian). Thought we should have it up here too. This blog is dedicated to my own personal faith journey. Which I think is self-explainitory looking at the title!

Personal Church Survey - Take Two!

After a term of studying Catholic theologian Avery Dulles at St. Mary's College, Twickenham, my results for the Church Survey (on which it is based) are somewhat different this time around. (I'll be honest: I'd not even heard of Dulles' book, "Models of the Church" when I posted my first survey results on this blog, 10th August 2005.) Is there some ecclesiological 'morphing' going on in my life, I wonder? No easy answer, as it represents a stage in my on-going journey of faith and devotion to Christ. Anyhow, here's the second time around results:

"You scored as Sacrament model. Your model of the church is Sacrament. The church is the effective sign of the revelation that is the person of Jesus Christ. Christians are transformed by Christ and then become a beacon of Christ wherever they go. This model has a remarkable capacity for integrating other models of the church. "

Sacrament model		83%
Herald Model		67%
Mystical Communion Model		56%
Institutional Model		56%
Servant Model		33%

What is your model of the church? [Dulles]
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Still Active!

Anyone even bothering to click on my blog will notice nothing new at all... This is a reflection of my battle with passwords, log-ins etc., that very often defeat all my best intentions! Also, my writing has been directed mostly of late in the essays required on the MA Pastoral Theology degree I'm undertaking at St. Mary's College, University of Surrey. Having now got the website up and running for my gardening friend, Edyta, at www.edytagarden.com my confidence is on a roll, and I may just get around to re-do and update my ancient freelygiven website (at http://www.freelygiven.net/ ) It needs work for sure! Don't loose sleep, but --- let's hope I get things a bit more up to date in the not too distant future. - John