'The Golden Reception Bell' Awards

Readers of a certain age will no doubt remember Esther Rantzen’s consumer programme “That’s Life”. For many it was essential Sunday Night viewing. One of their regular features was the ‘Jobs Worth’ peaked cap award. Each week they would highlight someone’s run-in with officialdom or a public servant who would not deviate from regulations regardless of how needless or ridiculous the regulations because to do so would be... “More than my jobs worth...” It was a popular feature because all of us have come up against someone that we find too officious and intransigent.


Today I would like to create a new award. An award that I believe is long overdue. An award that I am confident will catch the imagination of many. Winners of this new award will receive, figuratively if not literally, the Golden Reception Bell and it will be awarded to all those people who manage to get the greatest credit for the least amount of effort. The first winner of this award and the inspiration for the ‘Golden Reception Bell’ is the Innkeeper found in the Nativity Story, and before anyone writes in, I know that there is no mention of an innkeeper in the actual nativity story but bear with me.

Think about it. Each year in schools and churches throughout the land we make a hero of a man who found room in his stable for a young expectant couple because there was no room in his Inn. My question is, “Where did the innkeeper plan to sleep that night?” There may well have been no rooms left to rent out but he possibly could have given up his own room for a young couple in need. A truly worthy winner of the inaugural “Golden Reception Bell”

We are now in the season when this year’s nominations need to be chosen and announced. My first nominee for this year’s award is...”Graeme Allan” When I take time to consider all that God has done for me and in comparison the little he asks of me it does shame me to remember how reluctantly and how grudgingly I do it ...

“ What can I give him poor as I am? If I were a shepherd, I would bring a lamb. If I were a wise man, I would do my part, yet what I can I give Him – Give my heart.”