Youth February 2012 News!
We’ve had a busy last few months which started off with our weekend away. The weekend before Christmas, 7 young lads piled into a minibus and were whisked away to deepest, darkest Sussex for an activity weekend with a splash of Christian influence. Though it was cold, they braced themselves for abseiling, night walks, archery, tunnel mazes and – inevitably – mud! It was such an amazing time and we all (including the leaders) are looking forward to another in the not so distant future. (Keep your ears open for dates if you’re interested!)
After our short Christmas break, we were back with a vengeance with our youth groups, getting some of the largest numbers for a long time. The Drop (Tues. 5-8pm) has seen a few more of the younger ones appear out of the ether and they’re slowly finding their feet with the help of our older Drop veterans! As always, indoor hockey seems to be a favourite with all ages!
Our Friday night groups (Energize – Year 7+ and Outlook – Year 10+) are still going strong and quite amazingly we’ve completed our sessions on the Old Testament, bringing the big story into focus. Just the New Testament to go before we know it all! More importantly, it’s been awesome getting to know the youth and their opinions on various subjects.
For Nat and me, we’re coming to a busy season of our lives, so we’re trying to cram in as much time with the youth as we can before Baby Bee arrives. Join us on Facebook (Hooky Youth Groups) for up to date news of events and groups or e-mail me at sliggles@yahoo.com if you would like to know more about what’s going on.
Esther Bee
Family Fun Day Planning – 12th March 2010
Tonight we launched our trip to ALton Towers and continued our planning for a way of turning the £10 we were given to £100 for the charity HopeHIV. We agreed to go ahead with our idea of a family fun day on April 17th. We are going to raise money with a cake sale, treasure hunt and various competitions! See you there!
Beatitudes – 15th January 2010
In our first Energize of the year we looked at the Beatitudes. We started with some activities, looking at our top ten things that make us happy, the people, places and things and then looking at what happinesss is. next we heard a reading about the Beatitudes read by torchlight. then we tried to figure out what it means to be blessed.
We then played a bunch of games
Just People, Session one – 27th November 2009
For the last Energize of the year we started a new programme called ‘Just People’ from TearFund. We started by talking about our future interview for funding happening on 8th December (Keep praying) in order to improve the hall. We then began with a quiz looking at the extent of poverty in the world and trying to brainstorm the causes. We looked at personal, local, national and global poverty and watched a DVD that related.
We then bought up the challenge that we were set for our youth group at the Youthwork conference ; we were given ten pounds by HopeHIV as part of their 1010 challenge. We have been asked to turn the 10pounds into 100pounds to give back to the charity! See www.hopehiv.org
Bullying – 23rd October 2009
Tonight we looked at the issue of bullying, something we all face. We talked about how we are all individuals, and sometimes that can be used against us. We spent time figuring why people bully and how we can stop it.
We looked at instances in the bible when Jesus spent time and stood up for people who were bullied by society. We then made up plays related to bullying stories
We also completed and sent off our application form for funding to do up the hall!
Tube Map – 9th October 2009
Tonight, after discussion about the Norman Matthews Hall, we answered twelve questions about our life journey so far. This included the most important moments and people in our lives. We had a look at each others and looked for any simularities.
Next we put our live journeys onto a piece of paper in the form of a tube line, each person with a different colour. We added each persons, overlapping (or sharing stations) when the answers to the earlier questions were the same. By the end of the evening we had created our own Energize tube map, seeing where our lives are heading and where they have similarites with others.
We finished by snacking on jafa cakes and playing a few games
New school year – 5th September 2009
We started by using the ice breaker ball, and heard about rory’s incident with the Lions!
To get to know each other a bit more we all wrote down the answers to 3 questions; 1 thing you have never done but would like to try; 1 thing you have tired but would not do again; 1 new activity you have done in the past year and enjoyed. After collecting the answers in we read some out, trying to figure out who wrote what.
We had a look at Luke 10, When Jesus sent out the 72. We talked about what advice we would give for a road trip and tried to understand why Jesus gave the advice he did.
Finally we split into groups of four or five and pitched ‘Dragons Den’ ideas to our Energize dragons (Chris and Laura). Winners included a pen that can solve world hunger and a new type of toothpaste.
Energize – 17th July 09
For the last Energize of the school year, we again attempted to have a BBQ, again we were rained off!
Instead we cooked our burgers and sausage on a ‘George Forman Grill’, ate party food and played games.
M@C Tyre Stall – 4th July 2009
This is our first year with a stall at Music At the Crossroads, hookys music festival.
We had a game with an aim to kick the football through a tyre in order to get points, the highest score of the day being 150 points by James who won a football. All money we made went directly towards the youth groups.
A big thank you to everyone that took part and ran the stall!
Youth Service – 28th June 2009
Another successful event! This time it happened at St Peters Church on St Peters day. We began with tea and cakes from 4pm then at 5pm we started the youth service.
It began with a welcome video on the screen before launching into our welcome and songs. The service included a collection of worship songs, a sermon and a time of prayer when we all hung hearts on a tree to symbolise Gods promises to us. The young people of the groups organised every aspect of the service and it was a very spiritfilled time.
