St. Leonard's Youth Work Update

Well, June zoomed by! Here we are with less than two weeks left of the school term, which means two weeks left of being a minion :( The last month has been great, with lots going on in the youth work. Some highlights have been: All of the Soul Survivor fundraising including a day helping out at a tag-rugby tournament, BBQ-ing at the folk festival, and Team Man (HUUUUUH!) at the carnival. A huge massive thank you to all of the young people who came along and helped out! We are close to our fundraising target and it's been fun to spend some time together before we go to Soul Survivor in August.  On Thursday 3rd July, most of the current and new cell group leaders had a training meeting led by the fabulous Nick Page, focusing on leading Bible studies with cell groups. It was really interesting and gave us all lots of ideas. Olly had a fun week in Sweden! Obviously we missed him in the office, but it was a great opportunity and glad he did it.  David Cameron came to visit...

Hello again - I have just said to Olly it feels like only yesterday that I was writing the last blog, yet it was almost a month ago!  June and July are very busy months for us, which is exciting/tiring/interesting, but ultimately should be a lot of fun and the best way to end (except for Soul Survivor of course) what has been an amazing year for St Leonards youth. I am going to bullet point now, as there is quite a lot to remember: Friday Pathfinders is going to be epic this week! We've hired an inflatable bungee run and some sumo suits, and we're also very excited to be inviting the year sixes along too. Next week is also going to be interesting as we have a special guest coming to visit... On Sunday, Olly jets off to sunny (?) Sweden (I literally have no idea what the weather is like there) to help out on a confirmation camp. It should be a great opportunity to do some youth work in a different culture and setting. Best of luck Sweden ;) never fear, he'll be back ...

Hello, we hope this blog finds you well! We've had a great start to the term and lots more coming up... We have been focussing on fundraising for Soul Survivor quite a bit. On Saturday we painted faces, washed cars, fixed computers and waited tables all in our effort to raise money! (It was the Community Day in Eynsham and some of our young people were hired out as waiters/waitresses at a party.) We have also been swimming as much as we can to try and make the distance from Eynsham to Soul Survivor (approximately 4184 lengths of a 25 metre pool) and been getting in as many sponsors as possible.  If you would like to sponsor us, we would be really grateful! Please get in touch with one of us or add it to the sponsor form at the back of church. Also, if you bought one of the promises from the promise auction, do make sure you get in touch with the young person and claim your promise.  A couple of weeks ago, we had Katie and Elise come and join us for a week of work experien...

Hello again. First of all I need to apologise for not blogging in so long! I had written one for February but for some reason, didn't publish it. You can be transported back in time and read about what we got up to in February in the previous post before this one.  The beginning of March saw the epic trip to Viney Hill for the Youth Weekend Away. We had 39 young people, 9 leaders, 4 cooking staff, 3 mini-buses and a partridge in a pear tree (I lied about that bit - there were no birds. Or trees.) It was SO MUCH fun! We arrived on the Friday night, set up our stuff, unpacked, had hot chocolate, played games, and eventually went to bed. Saturday saw some team challenges, an afternoon of activities (caving, raft building, or crate stacking and a low ropes course), a night hike and of course a camp fire. Then on Sunday we had a church service (after a delicious cooked breakfast), packing, loading up mini buses, a couple more rounds of tray bash, some creme egg eating and then the jo...

Hellooooo. I can't believe how much time has passed since the last blog.  Olly, Jo, Beth and I went on retreat a couple of weekends ago to Center Parcs in Sherwood Forest where Soul Survivor were holding their annual SoulNet retreat for youth workers. It was a fantastic weekend with lots of interesting talks and plenty of time to just worship and be with God. We all felt refreshed coming back, although not much sleeping happened with all the "enforced fun" that Olly insisted on!! It was a lot of fun though, especially playing Pigeon Ball in the pool, going round and round the rapids and spending Monday afternoon in the spa relaxing. Again, we felt that God had things to say to us and were all struck again by his power and what he can do if we have faith!  This term we have lots coming up within the youth work, as always. There is the youth celebration service this Sunday, the 16th February, at 6pm. Following the success of the last one, we're all looking for...

Guess who's back?! Happy new year to you all! Here at St Leonards Youth HQ (not actually called that, but sounds way cooler than “the office”) , we are very excited for what 2014 holds. There are a few dates which you can put in your new diaries: On the 26 th January we are holding a promise auction after the 10.45am church service at St Leonard's church. Just to sweeten the deal, we will also be having a cake sale! All proceeds will go towards our trip to Soul Survivor in the summer. We will also be having cake sales on the last Sunday of each month from February – April, with all the money going into the Soul Survivor pot. The next cell celebration service will be on the 9 th February. After the success of the previous one, we are looking forward to seeing what the cell groups can come up with this time and worshipping God all together again. The youth weekend away is the 28 th  February (leaving after school) until 2 nd March. This i...

Christmas is coming, the geese are getting fat. We're simply having a wonderful Christmas time here in St Leonards church office. So this is Christmas, and what have you done? Ok, I'm going to stop with the Christmas songs now. But seriously, we are interested in what you're getting up to and want to tell you all about what we've got planned. So here's a little run down of everything that's going on in the next few weeks in the run up to Christmas and beyond... Cell groups will be finishing this week with sessions looking at the Christmas story. Never fear though – there is the cell Christmas social next Thursday, the 19 th December. If you haven't already been told about it, it's from 7 – 9.30pm in the church. We are selling tickets for £5 each, which includes pizza and drinks plus games and loads of fun. The Pathfinders Christmas specials are on this Friday, the 13 th . Younger Pathfinders runs from 6.30 – 7.45pm ...