Since we started Orison almost a year ago, I've been blogging stories and photos here to keep an archive record of what's been happening and also as a place to share the stories with whoever's interested.

The exciting news is that the Orison website now has its very own blog space. At http://orisonschools.org.uk/news you'll find up to date stories of Orison prayer spaces in schools, information about available resources and anything else which might be relevant. There's also a space where you can read twitter updates tagged with #orison for brief news as it happens.

I popped into the local sorting office today to pick up a letter that the post office told me should have been stamped as a large letter. When I got there they showed me an A5 envelope, that clearly held a letter to a child in Africa, and included a £1 coin. We then demonstrated that the envelope fitted through the small letter slot.

But, to my surprise the manager would not let me have the letter without paying the £1.19 fine. She told me that a small letter had to be landscape, not portrait. (see this diagramme)

Here's John's Story:

Dim lights

In the context of the recent Channel 4 DISPATCHES programme we think it is important for all our donors and sponsors to know that Grassroots will not pay for fundraising places in sporting events such as the London Marathon.

Nor will Grassroots register with fundraising websites that are charging 5% of the final donation for their services. Instead we will try to make these services available ourselves in other ways. These may not look quite as flash on the screen, but we believe donors give the money to be used for specific things and they should not be used for lining other people's pockets.

Money really does grow on trees...

Christopher was given a child sponsorship as a present from his God mother. He wanted to know how to help boazi his new Tananian friend and the community he lived in. Christopher set up a stall by the bus stop in his village of Epperstone to sell money trees and raise awareness of Tanania. Christopher raised £75 the money was put towards planting trees in Mbeya..

Each time we travel to Tanzania our bags are full of blankets and teddies kindly knitted by volunteers from all over the country. We have now reformatted the pattern of the teddy so it is much smaller. This way we can fit more into our bags and give away more to children. This teddy brings such a smile onto the faces of the children, many of whom do not have any toys. The pattern can be found on our website.

Just click on this link and the pattern will open.