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The venue for synod was the Invercargill Working Men's Club. It is big, well equipped, comfortable. Everything - the heaters, the sound system, the projector - works perfectly. The food is great. But the best part is the people. I look out at the rows of people sitting 8 each around a table and know them all. I had feared that we might all get a bit tense and argumentative, what with the lack of money and the uncertainty and everything, but no. The need for change has been accepted, and we are getting past the understandable but futile desire to find a quick fix. We aren't lacking in clever people, and we have all the money and buildings we need; it's just that the organisation we have evolved over the last 150 years is now on the verge of being unworkable. **** People spoke with respect and they listened. A number of people made excellent contributions, but I was particularly grateful to Ginny Kitchingman our accountant, and Diccon Sim our chancellor for being calm, ...

The cancer society runs a Relay for Life every year but alternates the venue between Dunedin and Invercargill. The idea is that organisations enter teams of people who walk, in relay, for 24 hours and through sponsorship raise money for cancer research. The Diocese usually has a team, and of course I have a bit of a vested interest.   It was Dunedin last year so we set out for Invercargill at about 8:30, stopped for coffee in Mataura, arrived at Rugby Park (proud to be home to the Southland Stags)at about 11.40 and found the Anglican Tent. The team this year was smaller than last time, and the whole event seemed not as big or as busy as previous years, with fewer teams and smaller. There was continual live music and a range of stalls selling or giving stuff away, and many of the teams dress up, giving the event a sort of carnival atmosphere. I registered and got my purple sash which marks me as a cancer survivor. Then I joined the crowd for the first lap of the track....

photo (c) Wynston Cooper 2014 Today was almost a rest day. We had a leisurely breakfast with our hosts, Liz and Evan Cheyne before making our way to St. John's for the 10 am service where I was preaching. After the service we held the first of our regional events outside under the trees. As the rain was threatening we kept it brief. I acted as MC, Phil Clark spoke with his usual witty eloquence and John Franklin prayed a blessing on the city. We had a pretty good turnout, most of whom stayed for lunch afterwards and a few of whom walked with us in the blustery wind and light rain across the city to Gladstone. It was a day for talking, making links between Christian communities of our own and others' denominations, and listening to what is going on this energetic little city Invercargill is a beautiful town, which I knew already but knew even more so when I had walked through Queen's Park and down a couple of leafy little walkways known to the locals. I stopped to hav...

photo (c) Wynston Cooper 2014 Today was our first real day of walking. We were at Stirling Point, the place with the signpost that everyone likes to take a picture of,  at about 9:00. As the list of people who like to take pictures of the signpost includes us, we started walking about 9:20 and arrived outside St. Johns about 7 hours later. I was happy with this time for the 30 km distance considering the fact that we had a number of people walking parts of the road with us who were well beyond their normal limits of exercise.  The part of State Highway 1 which runs from Bluff to Invercargill doesn't appear on many of those New Zealand: A Scenic Wonderland type calendars. It is flat and straightish and runs through peatland that is given over to sheep and deer farms and to stands of battered looking macrocarpa. There is a fertiliser factory and a few small settlements but no towns. The road is not busy but very large trucks rumble by at regular intervals going to or fr...

The more astute amongst you will have noticed nothing: ie the sum total of activity on here for a few weeks. Over the past month or so I have discovered new depths of meaning to the word "busy" which has meant that on my weekly sabbath I have been able to muster the energy to wander alone down an empty beach and drink in the strange quality of light as the weather shifts from insistent Northwest to sulking Southerly but not for anything else. It's nothing to complain about. I want things to change and many of the things I am involved about are because of present or imminent change, and it's all starting to ease back a little as the holiday season approaches. Yesterday I had a gentlerday. I drove to Invercargill, had a chat with a prospective ordinand, talked to a parish about a prospective new ministry arrangement, talked to a techie about a prospective change to the diocesan website and drove home again. In between chats I visited the soup kitchen at St. Johns...