Going to do this update and go to bed. Well, I’ll pack first. Reasons below.

I’m still doing fine. God’s still looking after me, and my prayer life is still… okish. Not as good as a few weeks ago, but in terms of random praying, still good. More to work on there. Bible study is still up to date.

I’m still really living in the “wow”ness of what God’s doing for me. I don’t remember feeling this good for so long when I’ve been single. Wow. God is so good.

Work is ok at the moment. It’s been fairly quiet (I’ve a little to do tomorrow), but my biggest recent project, sorting out my boss’s predecessor’s filing system is nearly done. Still has to be tidied up, loads of papers to refile (he had about a dozen folders full of miscellaneous papers that will be better filed differently), loads of duplicate folders to sort out. I’ll tackle that the week after next – next week is NIPSA conference in Newcastle.

Talking of which, I met with the NIPSA president this morning, and the Standing Orders Committee an hour later. We were challenging rulings on two motions – one with a political element submitted by another branch that had been allowed to stay on the agenda (Billy explained it was because his predecessors had been challenged on similar motions and they’d been reinstated to the agenda), and one of our own which had been ruled out of order due to conflicting with the Constitution.

We haven’t quite decided what to do about the second one yet. Its aim is to get NIPSA HQ to leave Assistant Secretaries (read: Headquarters Officials with responsibility for various departments etc) with given portfolios for a period of not less than two years, unless they absolutely have to be moved. Apparently NIPSA’s current practice is to allocate portfolios for three years, if not four, but for one reason or another our department has gone through five in as many years – promotion, retirement, sick leave etc. So we’ll discuss what to do on Tuesday morning – I’ve to let the President know whether that challenge is proceeding by teatime.

Billy’s dead on. He’s one of the Time For Change folks (read: Socialist Party/Militant Tendency), but he’s approachable. Some of his predecessors are rather scarier.

We were talking to the Standing Orders Committee about two other motions. The first one was about making more use of e-mail for distribution, which they say is NIPSA policy and our motion doesn’t seek to change policy or complain about policy not being adhered to. Not much we can do about that.

The other one is about making it possible to apply for employment with NIPSA via the website. At the moment, forms etc are available online, but you still have to print them off to fill them in, whereas many employers are now providing facilities to apply online via CGI scripts – including the Home Civil Service. Their argument is that it’s an administrative matter (with a small a) and would not need a decision as such – correspondence would be entered into after Conference, and the matter would definitely be addressed – as opposed to the scenario where it could get defeated outright, remitted to General Council for them to decide what to do about it, or guillotined (treated as remitted). I’m not sure yet, so I’ve e-mailed the other Branch Committee members and will talk to our branch’s other delegate on Tuesday about it.

Tonight was our first pre-Global Day of PrayerPrayer Walk, just around the City Centre. I missed the start of it, because Mark found a purse at the City Hall which I took off to the police station (just as well – it took half an hour to get the form filled in!), and we cut it short without doing the last mile or so because time was pressing on. It was however good just to walk the City Centre in prayer.

The team are organising another nine, but with this weekend and the NIPSA conference, I’ll be missing them all except for the last two. Oops…

So that brings me to why I need to pack. Tomorrow I’m off to a Worship weekend at the Christian Renewal Centre in Rostrevor. Organised by Gateway, I’ll be leading two two-hour worship times – one on Sunday from 2-4 and Monday from 10-12. I plan to spend a lot of time just talking with God, writing stuff and so on, relaxing, and riding the ubiquitous bike. It’s going to be a great weekend!

Back on Monday night for a while.