About

Welcome to my web site.

StilmanDavis.co.uk

A recent discussion at the Cheltenham WordPress Meetup I was able to give a “table talk” on the 19th of March 2025 based on this presentation.

I am taking the unprecedented step of going very personal on this site, hence the name.

There are a few activities that I want to share with anyone who cares to look at these pages.

One of the joys in my life has been preaching in the diocese of Gloucester in the last twenty years. My most recent sermon is located here

My work has been varied from London Showrooms to Publishing.

publishing work

Publishing project management

The revolution computers brought to printing is well known. No longer is a book or anything set by hand – sometimes there is no longer even any ink involved in publications.

I am able to use the speed of the computer to output your document, so that your publication is available on time and within budget. When everything has been prepared, a book can be sent to the printer within days. This is lightning speed when compared with setting books by hand in hot type only forty years ago.

Once in digital form, an author’s prose and poetry can be manipulated quickly and efficiently. Proofing electronically also is possible so that there is no longer the delay of printing galleys and the time-consuming delivery of reams of printed paper. The author and publisher review files as they will be presented to the printer. At every step, there is a ‘signing off’ of the copy and proof electronically.

I have been able to involve the publisher from the outset by agreeing the style of the finished pages, setting timings for drafts, and incorporating all changes in the manuscript.

I will take advantage of DTP technology and techniques for the sake of your publication in a timely manner, whether a short 8-page leaflet or an 8,000-page reference book.

Consultancy

  • Workflow
    • How you put your publications together
      • How do you create content? The spectrum ranges from creating it page by page by yourself to outsourcing content creation – from time and effort intense to costly contracting. Money spent on content creation is what is saved when content is produced by the company itself, which knows its products and procedures. However, when the company produces its own content, time and effort is diverted from the mission of the enterprise.
      • What do you use to create your content? There are many computer programs to do this, but each has its own foibles and benefits, and each has an intended output. Some are better than others for specific publishing ends.
  • Media
    • Print – the usual destination for most publications. A publication ranges from one page to a multi-volume treatise, a personal letter, a leaflet, a brochure, a book, an encyclopedia.
    • Web – the alternative to print, and an increasingly popular output for any sort of publication. This also includes the growing ezine and ebook output.
    • We can help decide how the document should be produced and where it should be made available to the world.
  • Content Management

      The saying, “Content is king!”, should be a company’s mantra. That content is the product for a manufacturer, and that manufacturer should present itself and its product in its publications. The publication of material should not deflect the company from its vision and mission.

    • Database publishing may be the means by which content might be presented. By using data already stored in databases of all sorts, it is possible to produce documentation quickly and efficiently, sometimes “on demand”. This can be output to print or electronic media.
    • Automatic publishing is possible when documents are stored in a “regularised” manner. This means that no massaging of a new document needs to be done – all the work has been done on creation of the content. This could be through a database in some way, or the collation of existing documents or partial files.

If you would like help with your publishing projects, whether to the printed page, e-book, or your own web site, please contact me.

gardening

For all of my life I have been interested in gardening. It has ranged from mowing the grass for pocket money as a boy, watching the odd programme on the television – really enjoying Geoff Hamilton on the BBC and his successors – spending the whole day in someone’s garden to bring it up to shape and maintaining it. I have even been a full time gardener at a small manor house here in the Gloucester countryside.

Most of the time my gardening has been confined to small contracts to maintain gardens for people too pushed for time or for elderly or disabled people.

If you would like help in your garden, please contact me.

preaching

Prayer for today

Look up a bible passage here.

Lately I have posted in WordPress. Here is the opening from the latest sermon.

For many, this Sunday is one of the most important feast days of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church – it celebrates the creed’s formula of the image of God as Trinity – God the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. As some of you may know, we should be reciting the Athanasian Creed, which you will find in the BCP and Common Worship. – But we won’t, because it is repetitive, and, more probably, because it is so very long, and we don’t do long nowadays anywhere, do we? However, it is profound in a very poetic way.

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Other sermons are available

Since arriving in Slimbridge, I have been saving my sermons and producing them on my website. A number of different ways of presenting them have happened. Here is a listing of the earlier sermons.

Sermons before using WordPress

Some sermons

Here are the openings for some sermons as they are being kept on these pages.

Pentecost

Here we are at WhitSun, Pentecost. Many call today the birthday of the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church.

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Sunday after Ascension

Here we are in the Easter period celebrating the Sunday after the Ascension, and yet the text from John comes the darkest time of Jesus’ life on earth, the text comes from the Passion Narrative. In particular, it is found in the Farewell Discourse which is a part of the Last Supper, when Jesus was preparing his disciples. – Jesus was telling them that he was about to go away to his death, a death he anticipated. This speech is full of difficult theological and philosophical concepts – the most tricky is that indwelling of Jesus and God in one another. Let’s begin with a seemingly simple question, How are people “one”? – …

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Sunday after Ascension

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Palm Sunday

Today is Palm Sunday, I think it has a rather strange character. What we read as our primary lesson is the passion of the Lord, what he experienced in Jerusalem, after he entered the city on that borrowed donkey, after the crowds had rejoiced greatly, after they strew his way with palms and cloaks. They made a way fit for a king, their king, who is blessed because he comes in the name of the Lord. We re-enact this most significant event of Jesus’ life today. We stand by the wayside waving our palms with exultation and joy. We are the people who crowd the wayfares into the centre of the world, Jerusalem.

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