1st Bletchley Amicus

Tonight was ‘Favourite Movie Clip’ night at Amicus. We recently enjoyed a musical walk down memory lane, researching and listening to the songs which were number one when we were all born. Tonight we each had to bring a DVD/VHS/Youtube clip from our favourite movie (or TV series in one case) and explain why we liked it. We explored a few absolute classics…

[ Disclaimer: one or two clips contain swearing - but not as much as Chris' second choice clip ]

{continue reading after the clips}

If you made it this far – well done!

Thanks to Steph & Nick who made the tea and coffee, and to those individuals who brought cakes to share – mmmm. Somehow the Multimedia room felt so much more spacious this evening – probably because David has had a major haircut and now has short, manageable hair! gasp! We also viewed the inspiration for a possible future Amicus activity – some were fascinated and amused, whilst some (Nicci) were disgusted. See for yourself – what do you think? Should we do it?

Ikea Breakfast: to celebrate the half term break in our usual style, we’ll be invading the Ikea restaurant on Tuesday morning for a tasty breakfast. Meet outside the doors downstairs at 9:30 – prompt!

Next Week: Sport – all night – come dressed appropriately, and don’t forget to bring your lucozade, and be prepared to work off the Ikea breakfast!

This week at Amicus was Pizza night. We’ve had a number of variations on this theme in the past, with some excellent results.  Who can forget the legendary Christmas Dinner Pizza [photo]!  Tonight though there was a further twist…

We split into two teams and were given a budget of £5 (pizza base provided) and a time limit of 25 minutes to get to Tesco, shop and get back.  One member of each team had to remain at the Church Centre, and would be blindfolded on their team’s return.  The team had to purchase ingredients which would enable them to create a pizza which was a portrait of one of their team members.  If that wasn’t hard enough – the blindfolded member would be assembling the pizza, still blindfolded, and under directions from the team.  Let the madness commence…

We witnessed the worst spreading the world has ever seen (Nick Bosdet)! And it’s on video, so there’s no denying it.  And frankly Chris was so good it was like he does this kind of thing all the time – a regular activity in the Buttenshaw house?  Also, Yolanda revealed that she thought Matt & Graham were a couple – nice.

During the course of the evening, the following joyous quotes were uttered:

‘careful, there’s grated cheese’ – Graham Dungate

‘now move it towards my voice’ – Steph Dungate

‘squeeze it like you mean it’ – David Putman

Some of the fun of the evening was captured in the photos below, the rest is on video and I hope I’ll manage to edit it soon.

Meanwhile, here’s the video of the big reveal, as Chris and Nick peeled off their blindfolds (after an hour!) and permanently scarred their retina. Keep watching Chris’ face as he realises the genius of his creation…

Aside from the fun, this is a huge week for the Dungates:

• Graham’s first week at Amicus this session (welcome back!)
• Steph’s 18th birthday at the weekend
• Matt passed his driving test at last (congratulations!!)

One or two others not having such a good week – ask no questions, but please pray for the group as a whole.

Next week: Favourite Movie Clips – bring along your favourite movie clip (on DVD, VHS or preferably YouTube) and tell us why you’ve shared it.

During the summer we honoured a couple of our Promise Auction commitments: supreme cleaning and ‘brute force’ gardening. Last week we continued the gardening theme with Plasticine Play-doh Gardening – organised by Steph.  Each member was given a sheet of paper as a blank canvas for their garden, and access to fluorescent play-doh and gray clay and tasked with creating their own garden.  A special prize awaited the most imaginative/best crafted “garden”.  Each creation was different, with it’s own strengths, but the eventual winner was…… well, you’ll have to take a look through the pictures below to see who has the lolly:

There were a number of notable quotes during the evening, which were shared via the Amicus Twitter account:

‘Oh no! I’ve stained myself!‘ – James Coward

‘Do you often come down in the night and find small vampires nibbling at your telly?‘ – Ali Bradley

David led our closing devotions and encouraged us to consider God through the process of photosynthesis (yeah, really).  By his own admission it was a bit last minute – but it showed promise and led to some interesting discussions and biology revision. It also involved some memorable quotes:

‘God’s pretty clever…‘ – David Putman

‘In biology we’re studying plants and stuff which is very interesting. But I won’t bore you with it.‘ – David Putman

Please remember to return your consent forms and pay your £10 membership fee if you haven’t already.  Our activities are limited until the forms are returned and fees paid.

We’ve been invited to join Newport Pagnell Amicus for a trip to Alton Towers – see below for details:

Date: Sunday, 18th October
Time: 7am – 9pm (approx)
Cost: £30 – cheaper with 2 for 1 deal (visit WH Smith) or Tesco Clubcard vouchers
Transport: cars & drivers required (fuel will be paid)

If you are interested in joining them, we need to know as soon as possible.  Neither Ricky or Nick are able to make it – so we are in need of one or two willing drivers.  Without these drivers, we won’t be able to join them.

Details of the programme for the next few months are in the Amicus Calendar, which can now be accessed via the new Calendar page.  Email reminders will be sent a week before each activity and will include details of individual responsibilities (organiser, assistant, devotions).  If you are listed as responsible for any activity but are unable to make it, please find a replacement as soon as you can.

This evening given the appalling and sudden downpours of the last couple of days we decided no to revisit Leon Rec for sports and instead engaged in a game of Trivial Pursuit. It wasn’t to everyone’s liking or strengths, but we all seemed to enjoy the evening nonetheless. There were claims of cheating, and one or two disinterested players, but overall it was a good natured game and ended closer than we imagined.

There were some frankly bizarre questions which came up during the game, and some dubious answers too (some which we decided to research online for ourselves. These questions didn’t come up tonight but:

Possibly the best Trivial Pursuit question:
What did the first Spanish dog to be fitted with contact lenses not see the day after the fitting? * answer below

Possibly the worst Trivial Pursuit question:
What African animal’s name is made up of the letters n,g and u? ** answer below

We were joined tonight by Matt Chapman who has just finished his first year at Uni – good to see him back – and re-joined by Sarah and Tim who visited a couple of weeks ago. At the end of our game of Trivial Pursuit this evening Tim said he had an announcement to make, and once the room hushed he revealed that he and Katie are now engaged.  Massive congratulations from all at Amicus!

As you’ll know if you follow Amicus on Twitter, I finally got round to doing the rest of the Promise Auction admin and the final total raised is confirmed as £1015.19.

As you know I’ve now finished my degree (woohoo!) but I just want to say a huge ‘thank you‘ to everyone at Amicus for their support and understanding over the last three years. I’ve done my best to keep ahead of the game at Amicus but haven’t always been successful. So thanks for:

• being patient when I was tired and grumpy
• being reasonable when I was disorganised
• being lovely that’s exactly what I needed
• being supportive and interested particularly when my essay deadlines were close
• being will for me to learn as I went along, not just these last three years, but from since before the start of Amicus

Your support and the challenges you provided (ahem) have made all the difference to my learning experience at University. I should know my final module grades by next Wednesday (so hopefully we’ll be celebrating) but for now, take a quick look at my degree in numbers – quite staggering.

Having failed at updating the website over the last few months, I feel I owe you some treats.

Take a look at this video of a ‘sand animation artist’. Using a back-lit work surface she draws and animates and amazing story simply using sand and her hands. You really need to see it to appreciate just what a talent this is – not your average Susan Boyle talent, but real talent:

I don’t know how to describe ToneMatrix except to say that it is completely addictive and makes me feel like an accomplished musician. It is described by the author as a “simple sinewave synthesizer triggered by an ordinary 16step sequencer. Each triggered step causes a force on the underlaying wave-map, which makes it more cute.” Take a look and judge for yourself.

Finally, take a look at the great pics on awkwardfamilyphotos.com

Next Week: for our final evening of the session we’ll be having our usual end-of-term knees up.  Please bring along snacks, nibbles, cakes, desserts and drinks – we’ll step out in faith and not organise anything formally and trust that we’ll get the usual great spread of goodies.  We’ll bring along a Wii and various games for the usual entertainment (ie, mocking one another’s poor attempts at playing).  If you’re not too full I might even let you play footie as an end of session treat ;o)

Answers:
* The car that killed him
** Gnu