Thursday 19 May 2011

Young People going to Greenbelt Survey

The Children's Society would like children and young people between 8-18 who are going to Greenbelt to fill in a short on-line survey about their lives; what makes them happy, what they struggle with. The results of the survey will be discussed at a Good Childhood Conversation at Greenbelt itself.

If you are taking a group of young people, or know young people who are going please ask them to fill in the survey, it will only take 15 minutes or so and would help The Children's Society enormously.

More details can be found on the Greenbelt blog
Or on The Children's Society website

Wychavon Community Grants Scheme 2011-2012

Wychavon Community Grants 2011-2012 are now available to local voluntary groups and charitable organisations that aim to:

· Support initiatives that improve services and facilities for the local community

· Encourage local action to improve quality of life

· Support activities in the local community that the council would like to do, but does not have the resources for

· Contribute towards the council’s priories.

To find out more about how to apply for the grant and general help and advice please follow this link .


To ensure that as many community projects in the Droitwich area as possible who meet the criteria apply for the grants, therefore there is a briefing session which will take place on Wednesday 25th May – 6pm at The Old Library Centre, 65 Ombersley Street East, Droitwich Spa, WR9 8QS with Jem Teal, Community Development Manager as the speaker.

If you are interested in attending this briefing then please ensure that you book a place, as the briefing will not go ahead if there is not enough interest.

Please note that if your group is intending to apply for a grant more than £1,000, you are required to attend a briefing session.

To book a place on the briefing session or for general help and advice in applying for a grant, please get in touch with Droitwich CVS on 01905 779115, or alternatively email outreachsouth (at) droitwichcvs.org.uk

Wednesday 4 May 2011

SpiritED fund

Congratulations to St Mary’s Oldswinford, St John’s Greenland, St Matthew’s Worcester and St Mary’s Longdon Youth Choir who have all bid successfully for some of our SpiritED fund.

Between them they have secured funding for sheet music and Worship music CDS, books about faith for children at an afterschool club and printing costs for a new local church pilgrimage for schools visiting the parish.

Did you miss out this time?

Well look out for our second round of SpiritED funding later this year.

Sprung into Action

Thank you to all of you who joined us for such a fantastic Saturday of reflection on Christian youth and children’s work. We were inspired by the words of Nick Harding to start us off and then you all enjoyed sessions on topics like Creative prayer, working with tweenagers, developing young leaders, kids culture and storytelling. From your feedback forms we’re pleased to see that over 95% of you who responded would come again and you’ve given us some ideas about what you’d like us to cover as well. So next time we will be covering some of the same sessions again with the addition of some of the following: holiday clubs/residential, special needs, running mixed age groups, transitioning from children’s groups to youth groups, supporting children and young people through difficult times and practical sessions on craft, drama and storytelling with music/puppets.

Revive


On Saturday 4th June, Emma and I will be running a day retreat at the wonderful Holland House for all those working with children and young people across the diocese.

This day retreat at the wonderful Holland House is an opportunity for all those working with children or young people across the diocese to spend some time for yourselves, reflecting on your faith and your role in working with children/young people.

This is a chance for you to recharge those spiritual batteries, remind yourselves why it is you do what you do for the children and young people in your church and take a fresh look at your vision for our disciples in training.

The day will run from 10am until 4pm with guided reflective activities and time to yourself.
There will be opportunities to explore some creative prayers and reflective crafts as well as enjoy the beautiful peaceful gardens of Holland House
Lunch is included. The Holland House team always serve us beautiful food, much of it grown on site. Please do advise us of any special dietary requirements you may have.

We have subsidised this day to value the volunteers in our diocese but would encourage parishes to share some of the cost (£15) with those wishing to attend. If the cost is an issue, please do get in touch with us to discuss possibilities of further subsidy.

Young Leader training opportunity 8th-10th July

There’s a fantastic opportunity for two young leaders in our diocese to get a whole weekend of leadership training and experience at Oxford Diocese’s Yellow Braces residential (originally named as an event for those too young to attend Greenbelt!).

Young Leaders are given training in leadership and youthwork separate from the residents and then, as part of the leadership, work alongside an incredibly experienced group of youth leaders in creating a Christian community of over 50 teenagers from across the diocese over one weekend.

Do you have any young leaders aged 16-18 who would benefit from some training and mentoring in their youth leadership?

I worked with the young leaders’ training programme at Yellow Braces last year and saw how much the young leaders grew through the experience so asked if I could bring some young leaders with me this year to benefit from the fabulous scheme. If you have someone in your group who could really do with some wider experience, get in touch with me as soon as possible.

CandY at the Diocesan Synod

It was a fantastic day on 12th March when the Diocesan Synod was joined by children and young people from across the diocese for their own exciting sessions based on the same issues being discussed by the adults. Members of the youth council welcomed other teenagers and Emma Pettifer guided a group of children in looking at Future Ministry in the church. As well as creative prayers which helped the children and young people together look at their own gifts and talents they decided what building blocks you need for a church (in addition to those we had suggested such as people, a building, worship, etc they added love and reflection). There was a silent debate for the teenagers which led into discussions about being a Christian at school, taking an active part in serving the church as a young person and sharing your faith with other teenagers. The children drew pictures of their dream church and ran around to different coloured dots to show whether they agreed or disagreed with various statements like “Children and young people should worship with the adults” and “Children should be able to take communion”. As well as all that the children and young people wrote some prayers and prepared some worship for the WHOLE synod who came and joined them in their space. The teenagers went on to discuss topics from a national youth event called the Regeneration Summit when Bishop John signed a pledge including these words:


“We are excited by all the positive work with young people across our nation. We rejoice that so many young people are involved in the life of our Church, yet we yearn for more. As Bishops and Church leaders we pledge ourselves to find new ways to listen to the voices of young people, and encourage them in their Christian walk. We will work to enable young people’s voices to be heard better both within our Diocese and the national Church. We will seek to find new ways to empower young people both in leadership and ministry. We will endeavour to work with colleagues to enable new mission initiatives with young people, and consider if new financial resources can be made available to support these.”

Reflecting on these words and the fantastic day which we had with children and young people from across the diocese, we’re looking at a new start for our diocesan youth council to encompass three distinct but collaborating councils of children, young people and young adults. We would like you and your children and young people to be a part of forming how it will all work and so want to invite you to bring up to four children/young people from your parish to our tea party called CanYou? on Sunday 19th June at St Stephen’s Barbourne in Worcester from 3pm-5pm.

Get out and about this summer

If you're wandering about what activities to do with young people over the summer months, why not check out my list of adventure activities available locally and some quick guidelines for planning such activities. It's all over on our diocesan youth pages.