OUT AND ABOUT
The first half of the month was taken up with a surprising number of visits outside London – surprising because they were unplanned. A fellow member of the ACW (Association of Christian Writers), Arnold, told me of a conference in Cambridge for the British Christian Writers Association. So I went (on a rail strike day) and stayed with my niece Ali with her husband and two children for the weekend. On Sunday I went to church with my nephew Jonty, his wife and two children. Children grow up so fast and it was lovely getting to know my family better.
The conference was interesting, but the best bit was Arnold telling me in the afternoon of another conference in three days time, for the Christian Retail Trade, held over two days in Derbyshire. This was much more interesting and I got some brilliant contacts, a possible publisher for my next big book, plus someone who said he would get my two audiobooks accepted by Audible. Also an excellent talk on websites, which I need to get a grip on.
On the Saturday of my return I got a phone call from my other nephew, in London, inviting me to ‘Macbeth’ at the Globe that afternoon. I had a lovely lunch with the family and then had fairly comfortable seats for that bleak play. Two days later my stepson Peter phoned up offering two tickets to the musical ‘Hamilton’ to Linda and me. We said yes. It is indeed a fantastic show.
Two days later I went to the annual celebration of CDARS – Community Drug and Alcohol Services. I supported it when I was vicar in Hackbridge, and knew Dorothea Bickerton who started it. They were relaunching her very painful book about her son David, whose addiction gave her the inspiration to start a service to support the families of addicts. It was held in the Poppy Factory in Richmond – an amazing place for helping people.
BOOK LAUNCH
I tried to make progress on the book launch of ‘Daily Prayers from the World’s Faiths’ which will take place on 19th October. But mostly things just fell into my lap.
On 14th I attended a meeting of RBKC (Kensington and Chelsea) Interfaith Forum and had some good conversations. But the main thing was that they sent me the contact detail of all the 74 religious organisations in the Royal Borough, and then on 25th they circulated my publicity to them. All I needed to do was to send an email!
While I was waiting by the Thames to go to the CDARS day, I was wondering how to produce a press release for me to send to newspapers etc. I suddenly thought of AI, and indeed with the help of first AI and then Linda, I got the press release completed in one day!
At the same time my computer developed a terrible glitch and I thought I had lost all my past documents. Thank God for Apple Support! It took all day and four phone calls to sort out the problem, which was basically having accepted Dropbox into my system. Don’t touch it!
Last month I had produced 250 flyers advertising the launch. They looked pretty but were useless because it did not include the Eventbrite URLs. This month I produced a better flyer which people can easily reproduce from e-mails, because no colour ink is needed. It also mentions both parts of “Daily Prayers, the prayers themselves, and the description of each faith in just 500 words. Visually it has symbols of each of the faiths I mentions. Printed on gold paper, it look good, and has all the necessary information.
Meanwhile I had to recruit people to take part in the book launch and the interfaith symposium. Andrew Willson has been very helpful with ideas for inviting IC students to take part in the book launch.. Also my friend David is seeing if he can get a group together to sing his settings of texts from the Gita and the Bible. There will be good wine, bread and cheese at the launch!
With the Interfaith Symposium on Prayer, I am probably half way there, with a Jewish student rabbi and a Hindu booked, and a friend of mine who is writing a song specially for the occasion.
CRISIS!
Pinakin Patel of the Interfaith Forum had helpfully circulated my flyers to all the religious places in Kensington and Chelsea. On Wednesday 27th Chris Luxton, secretary to Churches Together, told me that people could not open the leaflets properly AND that I had the wrong date for the launch in Eventbrite! I spent Wednesday afternoon putting a new ad on Eventbrite and getting improved pdf leaflets circulated.
On Wednesday evening I got ChatGBT’s advice on how to send out requests for book reviews. Next morning I sent emails to the people I hope will provide nice comments, with an electronic copy of the book, and in the afternoon I sent out requests for a book review to papers like the Church Times. Saturday morning I paid for 100 copies of the book, with every hope I will receive them well before the launch date on 19th. I already have two orders!
OTHER STUFF
There have been other events that are of little general interest but have taken up time, such as my knee, my ears, Linda’s friend Kristin in hospital, and planning the Hobbs family holiday in Bigbury-on-Sea at the end of the month. We are looking forward to the break!