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Looking at You – daily life in the 21st century
Beware – it’s asthma time again Will Aid – help transform lives Help stamp out the cowboy builders and rogue traders Bullying at school You don’t need a lotta bottle… Why do we still call it the RUSH-hour? Pumpkin prize time! Are you frightened that Friday the 13th is coming?
Beware – it’s asthma time again Asthma peaks in the autumn. By now up to 10 times as many children as usual will have been admitted to hospital with asthma attacks. The exact reason is unknown, but almost certainly the biggest factor is the return to school.
When children return from their holidays, they bring back viruses that can trigger an attack in an asthma sufferer. These viruses take a couple of weeks to infect others, which is why we don’t see the rise right at the start of the term. There are many fungal spores around at this time, the mornings are getting colder, and the children are starting to do exercise again. All these can provoke an attack in some people.
A further consideration is that over the summer, many children will have got out of the routine of asthma treatment, and have been less careful about using their inhalers.
One in seven of us will be diagnosed with asthma at some stage in our lives.
Will Aid – help transform lives Here is an opportunity to help your loved ones and transform the lives of others in the UK and around the world
If you have not made a Will or haven’t reviewed it for a few years, it’s time to take action. The bi-annual Will Aid campaign returns this November and offers you the opportunity to put your affairs in order and help charity at the same time. But you need to act soon to make an appointment with a Will Aid solicitor.
There is no substitute for a proper Will, professionally drawn up by a qualified solicitor. Without a proper Will, we are risking the future security of our loved ones.
Will Aid solicitors volunteer their time free of charge to draw up basic Wills and instead of charging their usual fee will ask Will Aid clients to consider making a donation. The suggested donation is £75 for a single Will, £110 for a pair of matching Wills and £40 for a codicil to an existing Will.
The money raised is shared between nine of the UK’s best respected charities: ActionAid, British Red Cross, Christian Aid, Help the Aged, NSPCC, Save the Children UK, Sight Savers International, SCIAF (Scotland) and Trocaire (N. Ireland). Since its launch in 1988 Will Aid has raised over £6 m in donations and millions more have been promised in legacies.
This money goes a long way to help people in need in the UK and around the world. For example: Maria’s community of Manchina in Mozambique lost all their livestock when they had to flee during the civil war in the 1980s. They returned only to be dispossessed again by the 2000 floods.
Now, with the help of ActionAid, Maria has one cow and two calves. It is very unusual for women in Mozambique to own cows. “I would never have believed that I would have my own cow,” says Maria. “I used to use a hoe, now I can use the cow to plough. This means I can get much more from my fields. Before we were often hungry. I can now pay for school books for my children.”
This is just one of the countless examples of how the Will Aid charities can transform the lives of people all over the world.
To find a convenient Will Aid solicitor, call 0870 6060239 or visit www.willaid.org.uk.
Help stamp out the cowboy builders and rogue traders A new Government-backed scheme called TrustMark has been launched in the UK to help you find reputable firms for repairs, maintenance and improvements in your home.
There are countless stories of cowboy builders and rogue traders doing botched jobs in people’s homes. Perhaps you have had them in your home! The aim of the TrustMark scheme is to stamp out unscrupulous workmen in the home improvement sector – a £1.5billion problem, according to statistics from the Office of Fair Trading.
Finding good trades-people can be daunting. Just the huge range of accreditations and trade association logos can be baffling. Now the single TrustMark logo will help you source trades-people for whatever work needs doing, inside or outside your home.
So next time you are looking for a reputable tradesman, log on to www.trustmark.org.uk or call Consumer Direct on 08454 04 05 06. From there you can get information on a wide range of TrustMark approved organisations in your area, including general builders, electricians and heating engineers.
Bullying at school Bullying at school can be a terrible experience – but what if it is your child who is the culprit! It’s comforting to believe that bullies are always from someone else’s family. But the terrible truth is that many children have the potential to be a school bully – power and control can feel pretty good even to a child of nine.
If you are concerned about your child – either as the bully or the bullied, see the Department for Education’s website www.dfes.gov.uk/bullying. It gives contact details for voluntary organizations that can help you. Take action now – before somebody’s child gets hurt!
You don’t need a lotta bottle… People who buy bottled water on health grounds are wasting their money, according to a recent report from the watchdog organisation, The Consumer Council for Water. It says that tap water is just as healthy as the bottled variety, does far less damage to the environment, and is at least 500 times cheaper.
It costs less than £1 a year for a person to drink eight glasses of tap water a day, compared with £500 for the same amount in bottled water. The water industry says the average household pays 0.1p for a litre of tap water. A typical litre of bottled water costs 50p to £1.
These comments come at a time when the Drinking Water Inspectorate says that England’s tap water is safer than ever before. In tests, 99.96 per cent of drinking water samples in England and Wales met British and European quality standards.
However, the demand for bottled water is soaring. Last year we spent a total of £1.5billion on bottled water for the home.
Why do we still call it the RUSH-hour? Nowadays, a rush-hour motorist spends up to half the journey at a complete standstill, according to a recent study.
Our average speed of rush-hour traffic in Britain is now 14.4mph, with an average of 22 minutes spend standing still in a one-hour morning commute.
The recent study, commissioned by the car maker Citroen, also found that the average speed in London is 6.8mph. The city most at standstill is Cardiff, while the least congested is Edinburgh.
Pumpkin prize time! Who in this church grows pumpkins? If you do, please contact the editor of this magazine…. We are giving out prizes for the heaviest pumpkin and the smallest pumpkin!
Are you frightened that Friday the 13th is coming? This month we have a Friday that is also the 13th. You’d be surprised at the number of people who still get quite worked up about Friday the 13th! Some English town councils still miss out number 13 when numbering houses in streets. In most New York skyscrapers the floor numbers jump from 12 to 14.
There is even a name for fear of Friday the 13th: triskaidekaphobia. It is a fear of the number 13 in general and of Friday 13th in particular. Phobos, of course, was the Greek god who provoked fear into his enemies, giving us the word ‘phobia’ for a personalised feeling of dread.
Triskaidekaphobians have been known to lock themselves up in their homes on Friday 13th, through fear of being involved in accidents beyond their control. In some cases, the phobia can even induce anxiety symptoms such as sweating, nausea or dizziness. At worst, it can control your life, strain relationships and wreck careers.
If you are in any way frightened about this, or any other ‘superstition’, please contact our minister, the Rev……………on …………... He/she will be glad to pray with you.
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