Laughter Yoga

June and Elaine went to laughter yoga in the gardens (near the band rotunda) this morning - we really enjoyed it - laughed a lot - and had a picnic lunch afterwards.  We met lots of nice people - and even started a conversation about Laughter Yoga becoming allies* with Networking for Well-being.  Sally ran the session and taught us lots about the value of laughter (even if it is being acted) it.  

We are keen to go again - but it is another year before it will be in the gardens - the network usually meets in St Albans.  We hope others might join us - we'd go maybe once or twice a month - and put it on our list of spontaneous* happenings*

For more details check out Christchurch Laughter Yoga

June has found the following snippet about health benefits from Wikipedia

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Notes on all the stars* from above above: Here are explanations of ideas that are gradually becoming used within N4W.  This is because N4W is trying to create fresh ways of networking. 

* Allies - Allies are groups or networks (or individual people) who have similar underpinning values to those on N4W.  They are not part of N4W because they are their own entities.  But N4W is NOT trying to create networks or groups unless there is a need growing within N4W for an activity.  Our current Allies are all tentative (like we have no formal agreement) - but N4W will promote what they do and keep them informed about what we are doing, when it is relevant. include: 

• The Third Age Foundation which runs the Flourishing Groups - which we support - nine people from 7+ worked through these workshops in 2022.  We are planning to support a second group that will begin in a couple of months.  
  
• Christchurch Workers Education Authority where several of us are involved with attending classes or workshops. 
  
• and other smaller groups which have links with our members. 
  

* Spontaneous - some events within the N4W networks occur regularly (for example, Seven Plus has meetings on Wednesday mornings).  Other events in N4W arise because one or two people decide they are going somewhere - and let other people know about the time and place - so they can turn up if they feel like it.  As part of our development this year, N4W needs to clarify who would like to be contacted when spontaneous events come up. 

* Happenings - Happenings are unusual events that might attract interest from lots of people.  They are planned by a network within N4W and advertised widely among those who might be interested.  For example, if N4W chatted up the St Albans Laughter Yoga group to run a special session for us at a weekend, that would be a Happening.  

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Technical notes on developing this blog ... 

• Links are easy - but posting a Screenshot is less than perfect - and I have not taken the time to position it - I assume these issues are simple to solve - but that is not a priority today. 
• This feels like a useful Blog for ways of sharing background ideas and possibilities.  It feels as thought the blog is allowing emerging ideas to be shared and developed.  
• The Stars are for later use (I mean we can move them so they are more accessible)  - I visualise that there will be a link to a glossary where all our common terms like this can be looked up.
   

About calendars - we are making progress!

I have been trying to get access to the 7+calendar from the blog - and found that giving all of us access to the calendar is miles easier.

So, Bron, Niki, Karen - I am giving you access to the calendar to make changes to events.  Let's see what glitches we run into before we go any further.  As usual - this is all experimental.  Please comment below - I think one of the uses of a blog is that clarifications and discussions are visible.  And again - this is a slow development - no hurry.

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Here is the background.   

1.  The calendar for 7+ is working effectively

2. We can give four levels of access directly to the calendar:

• see only free/busy
• see event details
• make changes to events
• make changes to events and manage sharing 

I suggest we leave the fourth item to 7+ and anyone who wants to be an "administrator" - 7+ gave me as Elaine that permission temporarily .

I suggest that Niki, Karen, Bron, Kevin, Russ, and anyone else who takes on responsibility for enabling events be invited to "make changes to events" 

And that everyone else in the N4W networks who wants it is offered access to "see event details". 

What do you reckon? 

 

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Notes and what's next ..

(1) Clearly developments like this need to go along with the idea of a buddy system for those who do not want to bother with calendars - we would still send out notices - but buddies would be able to look things up for their non-techie mates.  

(2) I have learnt a bit about calendars through this exercise - and am keen to share knowledge through 1-1 conversations - you probably know more than I did.

(3) More invitations 

And - Kevin, Russ and anyone else - you are welcome to request the right to change events whenever you like!

 Velda - I have sent you an invitation to see event details - June, Devon - I'll send the same to you as soon as you ask. 

(4) 

Blog progress

Whew - thanks to Bron, Niki, Karen for feedback - I am hoping that we four are now:  

• add posts (notice this post comes from the real me, Elaine, not the N4W entity m - at least I hope it does!) , 
• get notifications of fresh posts (this would be relevant if we reach the stage where we want to edit posts before they go up - right now we don't care - so I suggest we don't turn it on) and 
• See responses to posts (ditto to the above - don't accept unless you are really interested in what is happening).  

And thanks to Velda, June, Devon - I worry a little that this might all be a bit over the top when you first meet this blog - YOU are NOT expected to understand what is going on!  I am looking forward to conversations with each of you about what is happening.  You are all important because you can help us understand how to make this thing work for people who are not tech savey - your questions were magic, Velda. 

Russ  - if you happen to join in, I suspect you might help massively around supporting others within 7+  .. and .. in figuring out how we can use historic data and ChatGBT to write draft pages of information about various things or whatever.  . 

Blog - technical - 1 -getting started

From Elaine - About Blogs and the idea of a Blog Beam.

I have been playing with this blog, on and off, for several months.   I am now confident about setting up the LAYOUT of a blog - confident means I can show others - and adjust things easily.  It is time, therefore to consult the Blog Team.  I think six people have indicated an interest anytime I have talked about this - so you are the team at the moment.  

 

Please have a look and see what you think ... but there is no hurry.

Devon, June, Velda - I am assuming your are new to blogs. Basically you can think of them as log books (as in navigation etc. - just keeping a note of what is going on as it happens) but these are on the web - so they are WebLOGS or BLOGs for short.  Have an explore - no hurry!  Let us know what you reckon. 

Niki, Karen, Bron - same thing - have an explore when it suits you and give feedback and advice - I do not know all sorts of stuff - but this is a start. 

 

What next? ... these are both aims for the day for me. 

1. I am writing this from within sevenplusfg@gmail.com and therefore I expect this post to have the 7+ signature (not Elaine's)- I need to figure out how I join, and how I invite you folk to join. I want to join as an individual searching for the blog - and I want to be able to invite you to join - these are two different things - and when I have succeeded we will be able to invite others to join. 
2. I have read up on how to insert a calendar in a blog a couple of months ago - it involves html but looks quite simple - I need to find that again, and do it.   

 

Information:  about LAYOUT  (Kren/Niki - Small writing is where I do not have the technical language - help please OR also, additional knowledge that is not relevant today but I do not want to lose it.)

Layout is a heading with the side bar in the background administration of this blog ?? (what word to I use for the control of the blog - it is called Post: Edit at the moment because I am editing a post) Contol? back room? editing?

Gadgets are the things (called widgets on my cell phone?) that can be "laid out" in various places on the page (or blog - not the post - but the appearance of the entire blog).  Layout is just one aspect of appearance - there are eight others.) There are 25 gadgets available.

These are the gadgets I have chosen: 

Full width - 

• Navbar - this is the blue row right at the top - something to do with navigation!  Ah - now that I look at it - there are several useful looking places to go - one could be to search for blogs and another is to sign in to this blog - or something - this might solve my question 1. 
• Header - this is where I have blathered on about N4W - the wording is up to the organisation to tidy up and sort out - I have just made up stuff that is goodenough for now.  

Left column 

• Text - the first and fourth items are simply text - I have used them as temporary explanations about the development. It is not possible to have any formatting - like paragraphs.  
• Pages - these are for permanent reference - this is where we will describe each of our networks and groups so they can be looked up easily by anyone who visits the blog. At the moment I have popped a little info into a couple of them - but these need to be agreed by the groups concerned.
  
• Blog archives - this is simply a list that shows how may items have been posted each month and it lets us jump back to the blogs from each month

Centre column

• Blog posts - This is the heart of a blog - this is where the posts appear. The gadget has has choices - I have chosen that we see the date of the post, the author of the post, but not the time of the post. 

Right column 

• Labels - Labels are magic in a blog - imagine all sorts of posts appearing about all sorts of stuff - and you do not want to scroll through them all.  If we use the label of "Blog-tech" whenever posts fit into something like "technical knowledge around this blog and blogging in general" then it will be easy for anyone interested to find them, and anyone who is not interested can ignore them.
  
• Search - this lets us search for any word or phrase within the blog
  
• List - This was an experiment with what a list looks like - I have, recently started giving books to N4W and circulating them. It's sort of a lending library of books I'd sort of like to keep track of - but would not be heartbroken if I lose them. It could grow into a useful list - or I might move the information to a more private blog.