My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

About, and User’s Guide

Welcome to all diary enthusiasts

My personal record of life and living in Somerset, Following the example of great diarists, join me in my adventures
Brian Snellgrove

Users Guide

You can search for any place or topic  including Bath,  Frome,  Wells,  Bristol,  Glastonbury, Cheddar, or you can search topics such as Christian,  meditation,  philosophy. You will also find extensive writings on  Swansea,  Cardiff, Weston Super Mare, London, Avebury.

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Creative Listening Service

Finally  if you would like to take advantage of my creative listening services then click here

Have a great day and may you have many more.

Brian Snellgrove,  Editor and diarist

About me

#  My consuming interest is energy and coaching work which I have done for most of my life.

# I have kept a Samuel Pepys style diary for the past 7 years (see below)

# Over the years I have been privileged to compile two very large web reference directories based on 5G and also on cov*id and all that they imply for our society.  They are for the serious student and for those who want to know what is going on behind the scenes.

# I am also interested in extra terrestrial life – so called ‘exo-politics’.  Over 120 extra terrestrial civilizations have visited the earth. All have left their influences.

# I also study spiritual matters, life after death, consciousness and the nature of human kind.  There will be a section of this website devoted to such matters. I am a Christian and view the world from this view point. I consider Christianity the ultimate all-inclusive ‘vehicle’ for the bringing of heaven to earth.

Samuel Pepys Diary Club

I have admired the diaries of Samuel Pepys and have used his work as a role model to write my own version.

Over the past seven years I have written nearly a million words and they reflect my daily life experience in Somerset, UK, which is where I live as well as my thoughts as a human being.

I encourage you all to keep a log or diary. It is a great form of therapy. The act of sharing raises the consciousness, and the daily discipline of writing sharpens the mind and the observation powers. Diarists of the world – Unite!  There are many articles on journaling, Scroll down on this link. It sets out most of the principles. If you would like to be part of a collective, or know someone who does similar, do let me know and we can do some networking.

Contact me

bsnellgrove@fastmail.fm  or +44 (0)1761 415473



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

And today’s winner of the day for an overheard conversation is….

You need to be sharp eyed to see what this is. Clue – it is in Frome.

This is the high season for anything involving outdoor celebrations whether themed or locally based.  There is the Priddy Folk Festival which is £120 for two days.  No day tickets are available as the weekend tickets have taken  priority. We have our local fair in Midsomer Norton. There is a large Festival in Bath.

We awoke to a dull morning.  What to do?  Will it rain? The Bath Carnival presents itself. It consists of a procession, lots of food stalls, many bands playing loud music, big crowds. As an EMF sensitive person I have to factor in the blasts from hundreds of mobile phones.

So, we decided against going to Bath. The variable weather proved our decision to be correct.  Our question for all events should be  ‘what is the right environment for us’. We are not teenagers any more.  We shall go to our local Fair then on to Frome where the Frome Arts Festival has just started. We would not like to live in Frome too expensive, too many hills, not enough gardens, a bit snobby but visiting a cultural place that is less than 10 miles away is a winner.

Off to midsummer town center where we parked in Sainsbury’s car park. Allow up to 2 hours which is enough for most purposes. I’m sure not everyone who parks there actually uses the store but a bit of give and take doesn’t do any harm. We walked to the fair and arrived about 12 15. Many people arriving though it was only due to start at 12:30.

The show consists of what it normally does, hot dogs and hamburger stalls, lots of local charities and societies, bouncy castles are various sizes and shapes, and at the entrance you are greeted to a mechanical organ that always sets the tone for such a traditional event. As we arrive, children doing maypole dancing I suppose you could call it and a local band was playing.

Clocks with enameled paintings of animals. Very attractive. Well done someone.

The usual queues for tea and homemade cakes. This must be an intrinsic part of country life.

Flower competitions, up to their usual high standard but a bit early in the year for some varieties.

Amusing and creative use of vegetables

I met the lady in charge of the competition. She seemed very competent. I asked her if I could buy on of the cakes that were being judged. She said that I could have her entry which was a sponge cake. She did not need the money but I could give a donation to a breast cancer association. Her colleague told me that she had raised over £4000 in the past two weeks from a dinner for 120 people which she had cooked herself. My, what a woman.

I also met a male social worker who had served for 25 years in Bristol with disturbed children. Play lived with them. They said they saw transformation in some people but a less not in others. We agreed that children were aggressive because they themselves had to survive aggression and the only way that the young people could see was by more aggression

So how do you judge between these avatars? May be I am in the wrong generation.

I met one of the more senior allotment holders who commiserated me on the politics of the recent upheaval where I was unceremoniously pushed to resign from the position of secretary and chairman, a post that I had held for 7 years. He said ‘ there is not much so say’. I replied  that I was most sorry about the website which was being read all over the world and I believed constituted a good role model for other associations. Ah well, life goes on.

The first prize was for the straightest trio or bundle of rhubarb. Mine would never have won.

Outside now. I like the good sense of humour of printing musical notes on the waste bin.

Lovely creative idea. Take an ordinary brown shopping bag. Paint it brightly. Turn it into a work of art.

Not the best composed image in my whole life but it is part of the leisure park where people can sit in the arena and listen to performers, in this case local bands.

Men in Sheds has taken off nationally and is quite important to many as you can see from the signage.

Off to Frome. We arrived about 2:00 p.m.. we parked our car in the central car park in front of the Cheese and Grain. It costs £2 for 3 hours which is very reasonable and is an incentive not to park in the numerous rather narrow side streets.

We visited the Frome small publishers fair which is a day for readers, writers, publishers, artists, illustrators and visitors of all ages with books and small press publications to interest, and buy. A must for all book lovers.

Alas we arrived a little bit late with only half an hour to spare but managed to make the most of the time

I sat around outside waiting for Francoise to do her rounds. Outside the event there is a courtyard which can be used as a bar area and four performances. From across the courtyard I heard the famous ‘overheard phrase of the day from a middle -aged lady, one of the Frome Writers. ‘I told them I was a pensioner and they believed me, funnily enough. I paid £5 to get in. I just love these type of open-ended fragments because you can weave into it what you like to imagine. Anyway, I cheekily informed her she had won  ‘prize of the day’ and we had a jolly chat which ended up in my being encouraged to join the Frome writers Collective.

Evidently they meet every month on a Thursday at the Archangel pub for exchange and chat. I have no one locally who is a writer with whom I can chat so this seems a good investment. The annual subscription is only 15 pounds and one of the members gives publishing advice. That has to be a yes for me. The lady receptionist was called Sian (Welsh I believe)

Within went around the corner to a gallery in Rock Lane. We met Karen from Hull who may or may not be interested in Francoise’s Hasselblad camera. Karen had a mixed accent which I could not pick out. I dont normally meet people from Hull. Shes does photography courses. We gave her our address in case she was interested or knew someone who might be interested.

There are dozens of places where you can post flyers. I may have shown this before but this is an outreach project advert which I find inclusive and non-patronizing.

We met a couple who had just bought a marriage ring. They were getting married in September. She was from Cornwall. He was from Bristol, a software engineer. They had lived in London. I did my usual spontaneous thing of saying that if you ‘box clever’ you can get it right and get a social life to suit.

I enjoy Frome because the level of awareness is above survival level ‘Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs’ and I have the luxury of knowing I will be understood before I open my mouth



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

Sanity and Insanity – where do we go when we die?

BJ – My compilations of thoughts have reached about 12 so far and when I revisit them it’s a little bit like having a greenhouse and tending plants. Nothing is static including my own learning and I tend to tweak ideas here and there. The whole thing is very therapeutic. We know that words and ideas have energy so making clean and unambiguous thoughts which is a part of our energy field seems to me to be good for the health.

JB – We might well discuss the definition of sanity. I mean how do you determine it well it’s a bit like Rene Descatres ” I think therefore I am. It is not a tautological statement (needless repetition of an idea, statement, or word) because the criteria on which you define it are very difficult.

BJ – If if you use it as a measure of how you interact with other people in other words if my reference group relates to me well then I can’t be insane. That’s one criter but you could all be seriously off what are the absolute criteria?

JB – 30 million people in this country have taken a vaccine. Is that same?

BJ – There are same actions and sane thoughts. I haven’t looked up the etymology of sanity very fully (pause whilst I do it). most of the most of the definitions of mechanistic and bloody wasted time yeah

“The state of having a healthy mind and not being mentally ill: He’d been behaving so strangely that they began to doubt / question his sanity. to keep / preserve / retain your sanity the fact of showing good judgment and understanding: The closer we got to the deadline for action, the more I questioned the sanity of the decision we had taken.”

JB – words not used appropriately can be very fluffy in their in their definition. Turning to the word n about the word ‘ice’ we were not allowed to use the word nice in my grammar school. They said ‘Nice is not a nice word’. I was taught that so when I write I very rarely use that word.

BJ I think it’s the most meaningless word it’s like people call me locally my lovely or my darling. Oh my darling I neither I’m not a darling type definitely and as for my lovely well that’s a matter of opinion but they call everybody and it just devalues the whole thing. They could try my using my name which is Brian.

Yesterday’s diary was lovely. I went rambled through an area near south of Frome, of 2,000 acres. It is beautifully maintained and it was it was just such a pleasure to walk in and talk informally and meet people on the way. You talk to the dog and wonder if the dog attack and if it doesn’t smell me am I not interesting enough? It just gives me such a refreshment of soul so I could say a dose of sanity.

I think there’s normality and sanity. I think sanity is basic functionality. Maybe we learn via the antonym. What are insane people like? actually and you have to look at people who are insane. If you’re in a prison cell on your own you go insane because you can’t relate to anyone or even set eyes on anyone. People can go mad because they miss feedback from others. We are hard wired as pack animals so to speak.

There is the basic minima that we need access to in order to avoid insanity. Is there such a thing as collective insanity as with the vaccinations.

JB – and the climate change nonsense …. and almost everything. The problem is if I go around preaching that all of these things are a con it’s quite likely a great number of people are going to think I’m insane.

BJ – And I believe the early disciples people thought they were in saying because they were speaking in tongues

JB – I bring those little points up because some of these words can get very fluffy if inappropriately used and a lot of people especially sociologists use these fluffy words like they are hard words as if they have their solid meaning.

BJ – I’m not sure what I’m going to call this essay maybe I will title it ‘normally’ but that I know is only a component.

People who choose to live on their own have developed characteristics that they require to remain same thing to do to go into it  because otherwise they couldn’t be functional so I think functionality is a part of sanity.

JB – there is going to be a normality to the metaverse when it comes. The same argument can be can be made for coming into reality in the first place from insubstantial dimensions.

It like you said normality is almost like a group effort. If you’re with a bunch of people and they’re all behaving in a similar sort of ways and it becomes a normality. It doesn’t mean it’s necessary right or logical. Its a repeat of the Hitler thing, the Germans and  now the vaccines and the climate change and all of those things. They are using these same principles to effectively get a whole group of people to think in a ‘new normal’ way and they are doing very well. They have really studied the mechanisms by which you can persuade people of the veracity of your argument.

Definition of words including the word ‘normal’.

Normal – the definition depends on which discipline you are using the term with. For example in psychology:

Normality is a behavior that can be normal for an individual (intrapersonal normality) when it is consistent with the most common behavior for that person. Normal is also used to describe individual behavior that conforms to the most common behavior in society (known as conformity).

Whereas a norm:

Norms are a fundamental concept in the social sciences. They are most commonly defined as rules or expectations that are socially enforced. Norms may be prescriptive (encouraging positive behavior; for example, “be honest”) or proscriptive (discouraging negative behavior; for example, “do not cheat”)

Normalisation has many meanings in science and statistics. If we are talking about behaviour then

Normalization refers to social processes through which ideas and actions come to be seen as ‘normal’ and become taken-for-granted or ‘natural’ in everyday life. There are different behavioral attitudes that humans accept as normal, such as grief for a loved one, avoiding danger, and not participating in cannibalism.

The ‘New Normal’ is political in nature

A year after COVID-19 pandemic has emerged, we have suddenly been forced to adapt to the ‘new normal’: work-from-home setting, parents home-schooling their children in a new blended learning setting, lockdown and quarantine, and the mandatory wearing of face mask and face shields in public.

BJ – I was going to go to a lecture where somebody was going to talk about zero carbon and I felt like saying ‘look, the wind blows from the Atlantic’ If you kill cows here that’s not going to affect anything. Carbon is only 0.04% of the atmosphere yet it is vital for plant growth, trees etc. We actually need more.  Why do they not have one single scientist giving a countervailing view?

JB – most scientists have been cancelled;  they’ve been blocked because they all know it is rubbish.

BJ – so we can have collective abnormality really and collective insanity and as the nudge unit and their paper written in 2010. They want to change people without their realizing it they’re doing it. I seem to have two life roles, writing and speaking, and so far not much has manifested but it could be that just one personal action somewhere could tip the balance as with  Rosa Parkes and her refusal to give up her seat on the bus.

You just never know when TPTB  the powers that be will give the opportunity to do this and obviously you have to be a worthy vessel. I’m very observant of my own behavior to make sure there are good standards at all times. Of course I regularly fail but at least I have this as some sort of measure.

BJ How many sane ones are left including Christians? Are you ready to die?

JB – yes.

BJ -I’m looking forward

JB – not really I mean I’ve got stuff I think would still beneficial and useful to do and I’m in pretty good health so therefore I have an expectation that I can complete certain tasks.

… reminiscence of a pub where we used to drink which has now closed……

BJ – I am afraid the closures are going to come thick and fast not only because of the destructive agenda for society  but  because when they get us to retrospectively fit our own houses because it doesn’t support their lunatic agenda. What’s going to stop them? I don’t know.

JB – I mean France are doing the right things but burning everything. I wouldn’t blame people here in the UK for reacting against this madness and stupidity

BJ – I mean we don’t know what the tipping point is and all the psychics and mystics are saying ‘oh they’ve lost already and the forces of good will come. Maybe there will be the return of Enki.

JB – we’re going to have to be patient for that

BJ – The only factor that matters is our collective consciousness. And there is nothing else and people who say Jesus come and save us …

JB – and they don’t understand the point and the logic of it.

BJ What about the second coming of Jesus which was expected in the first century. And they say don’t worry it will be soon and they are not ‘getting it’ after 20th centuries that it’s not going to happen in the way we think.

JB – correct in what you say

I dont think there is going to be someone walking through the streets going I am Christ. I think there will be an effect that is propagated through the planet based on what whoever is left. If those people are commensurate and congruent with the the feelings of being able to go to what we typically call Heaven, then they will actually go. That’s what’s going to happen effectively constitutes a mechanism for people that have that sort of mind set when they die otherwise they will effect a comeback or they will rest in the edges of atoms to be ghosts.

BJ – So heaven is going to happen is just a continuation of the present life with the vectors of thrust you already have but you just to cast off this particular body.

JB – Yes its your intention, you actually use your will to be in that place where all Souls are essentially one thing, which means that this is why you have to practice bringing things together in this life time.

Some would say being nice to people but but nice isn’t the correct word. You’ve got to be appropriately nice. Niceness is not always perceived as being kindness. You need wisdom. Caring is not Necessarily observably nice or kind. We are essentially talking about tough love You’re talking about tough love. Sometimes if somebody’s got a problem or whatever and you observe it from the outside it’s better to tell them than to just ignore it. Is this being nice and you don’t get thanks it. The point is that you recognize that togetherness will bring things together. Addition is a more more powerful simulation of what where it is you want to go.

The key is in terms of the way in which you think because all you are left with is thought at the end, or do you want to put your thought into separateness and to hold materialism as your sort of main tenant of life. There is no punishment or anything like that, you go where you fit.

BJ The law of cause and effect. Too simple to be true. I think you can get stuck in an image of yourself that bus not change.

I was watching Julia Hartley Brewer on UK news or and she has people on and the only reason she has them on is to be a trigger for her announcing her own points of view. You can’t be the interviewer and the interviewee at the same time. There are very few people who are good interviewers, Michael Salla (UFO’s etc) listens to people. I could number on the fingers of one hand the good interviewers. The rest their ego gets in the way. Do you have a favorite?

JB – the guys on Epoch Times are good. I don’t have a specific favorite.

JB – I get worried when people like me.

BJ – If people are not made uncomfortable by us then we are seriously derelict. It’s a bit like someone who’s driving along the road the wrong way. You say ‘excuse me you’re driving the wrong way’. They’re not going to thank you. Well they will thank you eventually but they’ve got to turn around and they don’t want to turn around.

How can this chapter be described? What we are talking about is what is abnormal. are we as a consensus of the prevailing group

BJ – are we saying that normally is relativistic and sanity is absolute as a quality.

JB – sanity by a definition is illogical. logic seems to transcend everything and therefore if something is illogical it can be considered to be un sane from a big perspective. Insanity in terms of society is really anything that doesn’t conform to the norms and rules of that Society. You would be considered insane if you start disagreeing with the prevailing thoughts and memes etc.

Consider the saying that “in the land of the blind the one eyed man is king”. And that’s not true because in the land of the blind they will kill the one-eyed, They will say ‘dont do this or dont do that so that will be the difference, so the situation would be insane again. Difference is really the salient thing here.

BJ – From my aphorism book “Can we put our heads above the parapet just a little bit? Will people notice?” Now there is a obviously a problem with this. You either stick your head up or you don’t and if you do you’ll be seen and attacked. I really feel sorry for people who are working, you know, employees in particular because they have to assent to all sorts of nonsense especially teachers by the way.

JB – There were rules about what I could teach. I couldn’t tell people about the stuff I am aware of but I could imply  and find subtle ways around the limitations. My students came to me later as they continue to talk to me. They said those things that we discussed were really important in their lives now. There was apparently not material directly to do with what I was supposed to be teaching them.

BJ – do you think France (the riots) is the turning point in all this?

JB – It may be. The thing is you cant tell. It depends on how powerfully they suppress it and how much fight there is in the people left If they could trigger it …… it’s already beginning in Switzerland as well.

BJ – and Sweden. They have kicked everything out. It just depends on who’s going to break from the press point of view they’re all bribed to Hell. The BBC will never do it because they received 62 million pounds from Bill Gates. GB news …  I don’t know where they’re funding comes from. I think it’s Middle East somewhere but you know you’ve got to look at the funding and then you know how much truth you’re going to get.

I get no funding so the 100% truth from me. I don’t think you can under understand anything about any subject unless you look at our origins in space unless you take an exopolitical point of view because we’re so local we’re like saying you know Clapham Junction is the only station on the on the British Rail system.

JB – Its like standing on Clapham Junction station there are no such thing as trains.

BJ – Oh, one more thing.  Do you think the Holy Spirit is like Batman in other words people  ask indeed beg that the Holy Spirit come upon us as if the Holy Spirit is sitting in a box somewhere waiting to be called and it comes. Is this a Catholic thing?

JB – The Holy Spirit is your own soul. It’s nothing else.  Calling upon it is just recognizing that part of you which is in the other universe. We could say ‘focusing on it’. It is not ‘outside’.

BJ – our own soul is the intermediary between us moral people and the spiritual realm. The functionality of that gateway is described in the article here.   What are the seven roles of the Holy Spirit.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

A world away from everyday ‘reality’ + toxic family enmeshment (Nexus)

We decided to follow an invitation in the Mendip Times ‘Afternoon Tea every Sunday in July with Marston Music. Says I ‘why not?’. The estate is about 3 miles south of Frome and contains an amazingly restored and maintained church. The concert was in a church on the Marston Estate. When we showed up at 2.40 pm there were about a dozen people listening to a decent jazz band. We helped ourselves to some tea and cake and sat down in one of the pews.

The group were featured on a poster which was made available. The acoustics were not that good, a bit echoey. I felt it would have been better to hear then in a smoky bar rather than a church but they made a jolly enough noise.


I was not in the mood for jazz and so stepped outside ad admired the scenery. There was a lot of it to admire. Also my EMF meter read between 43-46 out of 100 which is quite low. There is nowhere that reads zero so smog is everywhere. Here is a general view of the landscape.

This is a view of a small group of people who obviously know each other well. ‘Close knit’ is the term. They were not unfriendly but I cant say they reached out.  Maybe they were just trying to figure out the tasks as it was the first music session of the year.

About 3.30 we went for a lovely walk in the very large estate. It is well managed. The huge ‘Lord of the Manor’ house has been purchased by a company and is being renovated. The Marston House estate  has the remains of pleasure grounds dating to 1724-45 by Stephen Switzer. There is also a late-18th century landscape park. Further work was undertaken from 1819-22 by Sir Jeffry Wyatville, and more re-workings in the later 19th century.
Pleasure grounds laid out by Stephen Switzer between 1724 and 1745 and altered with advice from William Sawrey Gilpin around the 1820s, and a late 18th-/early 19th-century park around a country house.

We saw a huge ‘English Oak’ tree and enjoyed the carefully mown wide walking areas friendly to visitors.

On our walk we met a young couple who were having a delayed over night birthday break. Her birthday had been January and his had been March but they put it off until better weather. They were staying at The Lighthouse, a B and B not far away in Tytherington. At £125 per night it is amongst the more posh establishments and indeed has good reviews. We were prompted to say that for a short break you don’t have to travel far.

13 signs you’re suffering from toxic family enmeshment, An excellent analytical article for those  who tend to over-involve themselves in the activities of their family members.



My Somerset Life

A diary by Brian Snellgrove

A new day, revived energies – what is leadership?

I had a strange night last night. I could not quite finish digesting my food which sat in my stomach for about four hours. Went to bed at 10:00pm  and slept until about 2:30 am. Then got up and sat in the living room where I flicked over various TV programs and finally went to sleep.

I woke up about 8:30 am  I realized that the pains that had been assailing me had gone. Put it another way, the body had finished doing what it does best which is self-healing. It occurred to me that sometimes we have to give it a chance as previously mentioned.

Generally, we are not pack animals and should not treat ourselves as such. Yesterday was very valuable. I decided to let go of everything, cancelled  all engagements, and focused on myself and my own needs. Let us face it, if the body had no self healing abilities we would all be dead. So with regard to my body, the storm has passed. I suspect we are programmed to thinking that the only way of being healed is to go to the doctor or seek some sort of medical advice but it may be that for most conditions, the answer lies within us. I feel we can make things worse for us when we worry about such things. Is this a lack of trust?

Healing is an inside job. Come to that. freedom itself is an inside job.

The sun is shining, I am sitting around doing a few entries to my various databases including this diary.

This evening – to the Frome Christian Mens group held at the Rugby Club.  10.6 miles is a short journey if you are in the countryside. There were about 16 of us. The meeting was advertised to start at 7.30 but when I arrived at 7.20 I found three other men slightly confused and wandering around.  There were no signs of life in the room allocated to us.  Had we got the right evening?

We eventually repaired to the bar and engaged in the usual good natured small talk prior to the meeting. We returned to the allocated room to find a small group of men waiting for something. Evidently the cook was ill and he had kindly offered to prepare the curry at home and have someone pick it up.

I was one of the first at the buffet Style servery. I had the choice of going to sit at an empty table or to join people who were already seated. It can be a little daunting to go and sit on your own and eat but I find that inevitably I get joined by others so with this knowledge it is quite easy to survive a few minutes knowing that the situation is temporary.

We were addressed by Charles Burgess, one of three Leadership Enablers  of The Church Pastoral Aid Society CPAS. He had a very easy style and was comfortable with himself and his speaking role. This is less common than you might imagine. Faith does shine through as the ideal ‘carrier wave’.

Charles’ role as a leadership enabler involves leading and facilitating training as well as supporting church leaders in building a stronger culture of leadership and mission in their churches.  In previous roles, Charles managed the engine programme for the RAF’s Typhoon fighter aircraft, led a team based at Rolls-Royce in Bristol and, for many years, worked closely with NATO colleagues in Europe and Canada.

His topic was the subject of leadership. We were asked to say who had inspired us as a leader and what qualities they had. He became a Christian before joining at RAF. That must have been when was 18 years of age.
Snatches from his talk – comfort zones. Most us has prefer to be within them and can tolerate being outside them for only short period of times. He calls this the ‘red zone’  As we grow more experienced and confident, the green zone increases in bandwidth. In the RAF we were pushed in at the deep end and thus our comfort zone was almost pushed to increase. He was an engineer officer so he flew in the VC 10 on many occasions but he never flew the Typhoon and Tornado as a pilot, but rather managed the engine fleets.

Later he felt God’s guidance on decision-making with regard to engine problems of nearly 1000 planes. Trust was an integral part of his work, an essential element. He feels that the church has much to learn from this. He now trains clergy in leadership, in person and on line.

Leadership is complex and messy and depends partly on the context. After group discussion we decided on some of the qualities needed. Can you be an autocrat and still be a good leader. We can be a good manager yet not a good leader. What we model as a leader is critical.  Human beings are very good at sussing people out over a period of time though you can fool people in the short term. Eventually any flaws will reveal themselves. Leaders who care for individuals and inspire them brings about loyalty.

Leaders nowadays need to more open and real. They must now earn their authority and respect. There is a generational shift in attitude. There is now a tendency to establish relationships and rapport with workers as opposed to barking orders. How do we get people to channel their energies in the same direction? I mentioned that I was impressed with people who are in control of their subject.

There should be a much greater emphasis on well being of the individual. In the church, the idea that ‘vicar knows best’ is dying.  The congregants may well contain experienced and qualified people.  How are group members complementing others’ weakness and strengths? How do we best get to know people? Gp Capt. Leonard Cheshire VC knew the name of all those who worked for him and details of their families. He was loved by all.

I said I was put off by ‘Mr. Perfect’. If people admit their mistakes or imperfections I am on their side immediately as I can identify with them more easily.

Are leaders born or made?  We are looking for sensitivity, competence, compassion, setting the example, people who listen, people who we can trust, the extent of micro management or excessive control, professional humility…. the list goes on. There is one quality that cannot be manufactured and that is ‘charisma’.  I wonder if you can ever tie that one down but it is compelling.

Charles said that the ‘management style’ of Jesus is fascinating and relevant but must be the topic of another occasion. I was so excited by this that I later offered my assistance as a catalyst/writer.

What happens when vested interests collide with an inventing Genius. Tesla, pyramids and the like.