Nick's Page

Nick - Family - Traidcraft - Bristol Credit Union - Bristol - Horfield Baptist - Work

I am a self employed journalist and technology writer, based in Bristol in the South West of the UK. A map and directions are here.

I am also an artist, exhibiting in Bristol and at www.artyflaherty.co.uk, and on FaceBook.

I am a Director and Secretary of Bristol Credit Union, a financial services enterprise acroos the city bringing financial services to local people at affordable rates and tackling the problems of loan sharks and financial exclusion. This follows the merger of Purdown Credit Union (where I was Chair) in February 2007. I believe debt will be an increasingly important factor in the UK over the next few year as the mountain of debt comes back to bite us (and I am happy to comment on this at length!)

I assisted with the marketing and public relations of Cafe Unlimited, a fair trade, family friendly cafe in Bristol set up in January 2004 by Jenny Foster, and closed in December 2006 after the sale of the building. This did allow her to take up the role as coordinator for the Bristol Fairtrade Network, so check out her website for all the great events happening in the city.

I help out on the board of trustees for the Bristol Citizens Advice Bureau, and with the executive committee for the Bristol branch of the National Union of Journalists.

As a freelancer researching and writing for magazines and companies around the world, time zones are a fact of life. Working from home gives tremendous flexibility in trading off family time and work time.

Life is pleasantly busy, and over time I have learned the difficult skill of saying NO to commissons, even when a major source of income dries up as a magazine closes. If you don't write, you don't eat and you don't pay the mortgage, and this can lead you to take on too many pieces of work. The money is nice, but less stress and more family time are more important. That was very much the case during the Internet bubble, but that has to be balanced against the ups and downs of the marketplace, and the last recession in the electronics industry has been the longest and deepest in 30 years. I take pride in having survived that recession as a freelance, and at the moment am making the most of the opportunities that are available. You can see more of my work in most electronics magazines and at my blog and on my CV.

I am a Physics honours graduate from the University of York in 1989, which is where I met Jenny Foster, whom I married in September 1995 and we are now separated, pendng a divorce. We have two children, Megan, who was born in 1996, and Alina, born in November 2000. We now live separately in Bristol in the South West of the UK, having re-located from Wimbledon in London in November 1998!

  

 

Bristol Credit Union

Secretary

 

The successful merger of four credit unions in the city, including the one I was involved with, has created an organistation with assets of £500,000 and 1500 members (Feb 2007). We now have to expand our service provision through grant income whilst moving to being fully self-sustaining, and this is the challenge we are currently addressing by working with housing associations, Bristol council and funders such as the Tudor Trust and Esme Fairburn Foundation.

Working with a local social housing provider, Purdown Credit Union won the overall award in The Guardian Public Service Awards in December 2006, which was fantastic, and Bristol Credit Union is working to build on that success.

Artyflaherty

This is my blog and website for selling my artwork. I work in acrylics on a variety of surfaces, with bright colours and strong textures. Work has been displayed in Cafe Unlimited and at Horfield Baptist Church

The Third Revolution: Agrarian, Industrial, Information

There is is an interesting, perhaps underlooked trend on the social implications of the information technology revolution - computers and the Internet promise a revolution as dramatic and wide ranging as the industrial revolution, and there has to be a framework to encourage the positive uses of the technology and discourage the negative one.
This is even more true following the collapse of the dotcom bubble - computing and Internet technology is becoming embedded in our everyday lives - our homes, our cars as well as our phones.
For the developed world, there are also dramatic implications for the future of work, the future of parenting and wider social structures, mainly based around more flexible childcare.

An interesting place to start is NTK - THEY STOLE OUR REVOLUTION. NOW WE'RE STEALING IT BACK

TRAIDCRAFT

This is all about fair trade - giving producers in the Two Thirds world a fair price for their goods, even if it means a few pennies extra on the price, and that's all it is! A good example of the importance of Traidcraft is here. Jenny and I run a Traidcraft stall at a local church

 

 

 
Bristol and the area
Read all about the development of 'Silicon Gorge', a spate of startup companies developing silicon chips in the Bristol area. This has led to the SiliconSouthWest initiative where I am heavily involved. There is more information at Bristol's Digital City pages and directory

I wa part of Bristol's bid for City of Culture 2008 - which means that Bristol, having made the short-list, will be A City of Culture in that year! My role was adding some technological expertise - the sense of creativity inherent in the electronics business through contacts at places such as Hewlett Packard Labs and ST Microelectronics

Horfield
Baptist
Church

Brilliant place - what more can I say? A church that actually seems to look outside itself at society and its needs, and is still a friendly and welcoming place without being 'happy clappy' (and that's with me coming from a Church of England background)
I put the Web site together
Other interests
Computers, electronics & technology in general, which is lucky! After years of resisting, I am slowly becoming 'gadget man' but only when the gadgets can actually help me! So I have the MP3 player. I have been through two digital cameras from Nikon (2MP and 4MP), and both suffered failures of the zoom system. I have now moved onto a 5Mpixel Pentax S50, which I am pleased with (October 2004) and as of 2007 still perfectly fine!
Wine - New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc was particularly fantastic in 2000, not so hot in 2001, and up to 2007 haven't found a vintage to compare to it - but it's fun looking (!). Oyster Bay has been good in recent years. I also enjoy Chardonnays and Sauvingnon Cabernet from NZ, Australia and California, and looking for interesting examples of other varietals such as Voignier. I'm along the same lines as the film Sideways on Merlot (as in "I'm not drinking any f***ing Merlot")
Cooking Been through the list of the TV chefs - from St Delia (although she is got a bit patronising before her semi-retirement), though Nigel Slater, Gary Rhodes (the man that uses every pan in the kitchen), Gordon Ramsey (for his cooking, not his appalling TV character) and I do have to admit to a soft (?) spot for Nigella! I did a one-day course at Rick Stein's Seafood restaurant in Padstow (thanks Jen!) which was absolutely fantastic.

Reading - mainly science fiction but anything with a good plot.

 

 

 

 

 

 

These are just a few of my favourite authors:

  • Iain M Banks
  • Terry Pratchett
  • Alastair Reynolds
  • William Gibson
  • Julian May
  • David & Leigh Eddings
  • Douglas Copeland
  • Iain Banks
  • Val McDermid
  • Sara Paretsky
  • Colin Dexter
  • Sebastian Faulks