Spring Into Action 2012 21st April

On Saturday 21st April, we will again be offering you the chance to experience all kinds of different workshops, meet other children's and youth leaders, look at some fabulous resources and get recharged for all that you do with children and young people in our diocese (oh and eat some cake - these seemed to be very popular on our feedback forms!)

It will be 9.30-4.30pm at St Peter's Baptist church again.

Workshops and marketplace include: Boys to men Dealing with bereavement Spirituality of generation Y Storytelling God Venture, Arise, Urban Saints and many more…. 

Entry only £5

*1st 2 tickets per parish  2 for the price of one!

Please bring your own lunch

SpiritED Fund

As you will have read in the last mailing, St Mary’s Oldswinford, St John’s Greenland, St Matthew’s Worcester and St Mary’s Longdon Youth Choir (picture) bid successfully for some of our SpiritED fund. Did you miss out last time? Well it’s now our second round of SpiritED funding. SpiritED is a fund from the Department for Children Youth and Education in the Diocese of Worcester to encourage churches in the Diocese of Worcester to help those under 18 explore spirituality and prayer. If you are running a group with children and young people and want to add or improve the spiritual element of your work but need some help to resource that then this fund is for you! You can apply for up to £50 simple funding or £100 matched funding (if the children/young people raise their own money). See here for full details.

Chaplaincy

On Wednesday 20th July chaplains from secondary schools, FE colleges and local universities got together to establish a network for support and resources. Eighteen chaplains were able to attend and it was a great day. One of the resources we explored were the fabulous playing cards from schoolswork.co.uk mentioned in the resources section. The group decided that we would meet in the future within our chaplaincy settings to get a real feel of what others are doing in the field. If you are a chaplain to young people in a school, college or elsewhere let me know and we can welcome you to the group.

Rock the Cathedral ON TOUR!

Another thing you and your young people could do is get ready for Rock the Cathedral in 2012 by getting involved in a sleep out. People from other dioceses loved our idea of Rock the Cathedral so much that they’ve decided to do one too. I’ve been talking with other Youth Officers from Gloucester and Hereford (Steve and Esther) and Gloucester are putting on Rock the Cathedral in early 2012 (Date TBC) in Gloucester Cathedral. The idea will be to have a Rock the Cathedral in Hereford after that and then back in Worcester! Gloucester are tying this in with a challenge to spend the night sleeping out during the Autumn term to raise money and awareness for a local homeless charity. So how about getting out some cardboard boxes and raising some money for St Paul’s Hostel or St Basil’s  or another local homeless charity. I’ll be putting some further guidelines about this up on the website. If you make a video or take some photos of your sponsored event they might make it onto the big screen on the night. Some of our schools will be running coaches down to Gloucester and there’ll be a van outside the cathedral selling food. Inside the cathedral there’ll be bands, circus skills, an acoustic café, a gallery area of all kinds of activities, a homeless street display and much more! Watch out for fliers about Rock the Cathedral Gloucester  2012.

Kingdom People

Along with the rest of the diocese, we’re hoping your youth groups will be thinking about LOVE, COMPASSION, JUSTICE and FREEDOM as part of the Kingdom People initiative launched by the 2020 Vision group with the postcards at the start of the summer. At the clergy conference, each church will be getting a resources pack including 4 sessions for youth groups which I have put together. I’ve written a session based on each value with some film clips, discussion points and prayers to help your young people get to grips with what the kingdom might look like in your church and community. If you have no idea what this is all about, check out the teaser trailer and info here.

Resources

I was lucky enough to join lots of other Youth For Christ Trustees at one of the YFC Focus days in the summer and got some great deals on some of their new and older resources. The resource library is now a proud owner of all of the after school club kit Crux, RE resource exploRE, a few copies of Uncut, which is a discipleship course with an edge (especially good for those with no experience of church) and an upgraded The Art of Connecting which is a fantastic resource for helping young people share their faith with others. If you’re looking at the new term and wondering where to get some inspiration, how about the fabulous playing cards from schoolswork.co.uk? These are useable as normal playing cards but also contain icebreaking questions about you, others, the world and beliefs. I have a couple of sets to borrow and Emma also has some for the Primary school age. I also have a set of their artcards which use images created by young people to help you reflect on the meaning of life. Some of the images are fun and others are more challenging. There’s also a lesson pack to go with the art cards and ten ideas for using the playing cards which you can download from their website.

The Key: training

Early warning of a great course for those about to start, or new to, youthwork or children’s work in churches. Emma and I will be running The Key for 6 weeks on Wednesday evenings from 25th April - 30th May, or alternatively on two full day Saturdays 12th and 26th May. The Key is an interactive learning experience full of games, quizzes, reflections, ideas, practical advice, helpful tips, and the hope is that The Key will act as a pathway to further training and development.

CandY dates for 2011-2012

Dates for the coming year: 

Children only: 

Saturday 12th November 2011 3.00pm - 4.30pm 

Venue tbc 

Church of England Youth Council 

Friday 18th-Sunday 20th November (2 Worcester reps) 

High Leigh conference centre, Herts 

Young people & young adults only: 

Monday 5th December 7.30pm 

The Great Hall, The Old Palace, 

Deansway, Worcester, WR1 2JE

Children only social: 

Saturday 17th December 2011 3.00pm - 4.30pm Venue tbc

Young people & young adults only social: 

Saturday 14th January 2012 Activity & Venue tbc

Children only: 

Saturday 14th January 2012 3.00pm - 4.30pm Venue tbc 

Children only: 

Saturday 4th February 2012 3.00pm - 4.30pm Venue tbc 

Young people & young adults only: 

Monday 6th February 7.30pm 

The Great Hall, The Old Palace, 

Deansway, Worcester, WR1 2JE 

Children and Youth: 

Saturday 10th March 2012 FULL SYNOD: VISITORS WELCOME

9.30am - 4.30pm Venue tbc

Children only: 

Saturday 28th April 2012 3.00pm - 4.30pm Venue tbc 

Young people & young adults only: 

Monday 21st May 7.30pm 

The Great Hall, The Old Palace, 

Deansway, Worcester, WR1 2JE 

Young people & young adults only: 

Monday 18th June 7.30pm 

The Great Hall, The Old Palace, 

Deansway, Worcester, WR1 2JE

Children’s Weekend away: 

Saturday 23rd June 2012 - Sunday 24th June timings and venue tbc 

SAVE THE DATE! 

"INCREASING FAITH LITERACY IN YOUR COLLEGE" 

Wednesday 16 November 2011 

10.00-14.00 inc. lunch Venue tbc (Birmingham area) 

Topics to include: The need for faith literacy 

What is faith literacy? 

The Student Union/Learner Voice contribution to interfaith relationships at college 

Q and A session 

Resources/tools to explore and experience 

Further Details to follow. 

Meanwhile, please save the date and pass on to any colleague whose work demands 'faith literacy' (e.g., student services managers, youth workers, equality and diversity officers, etc). 

Workshop organised by the West Midlands Churches' Further Education Council 

Contact: Andy Haynes, Development Officer on andy(at)breatheresource.org.uk 

or Ian Jones, Director of the St. Peter's Saltley Trust on Director(at)SaltleyTrust.entadsl.com