youth work

The new Youth Club in Bere Alston opened its doors on 16th September. At the moment we are only catering for kids in year 7 but will open up to the year 8 kids at some point in the New Year. We already have nearly 20 children on the books and membership is growing week by week. We meet on Tuesday evenings 7pm to 8.30 pm at the United Church. The children have had a busy time planning what activities they want to do and not least what they want to call the youth club. Everyone made suggestions and then all the kids voted on which name they thought was best. The name chosen was Kids United. One of the activities the kids were very keen on was undertaking some charity work, so with that in mind they were sent off home with the instructions to bring back the following week something to be sent in a shoebox to a child in another country. They managed to put together FIVE shoeboxes full of toys, clothes, toiletries, stationary, crayons and, most important of all, their care for another kid who otherwise would not receive anything this Christmas. This month we will be having a “Wacky Hair, Odd Socks and Hot Dog” night on the 4th November and a make-over night at the end of the month. During our “normal” evenings we do a combination of team building activities, craft work and the usual table tennis, snooker, table football and the Wii. Fun, Friendship, Learning. Robin Holliday

We have received a letter from Izere Fabrice in Rwanda whom we (the Sunday School) have been supporting for some years. He is now 18 years old and in Vocational training, which includes 'Electrics, Mechanics, Construction and Welding.' He recently passed his exams with 64.5% and came 10th out of 25 in his class. He thanked us for the Christmas gift we sent him (£5) with which he was able to buy 'a pair of shoes and other needs.' He wished us a prosperous New Year.

YOUTH HOUSE GROUP

We have a young people's group that meets on Friday evenings at 7.30pm in the church.

We have taken part in various activities and at the present time are in the middle of a very exciting project. We decided some time ago that it would be fun to make an animated DVD along the lines of the Veggie Tales, so we have spent quite a few weeks creating characters, writing scripts and starting to draw story boards in preparation for filming. It has been quite a laugh creating the characters! They are all fruits and the video will be called Fruity Tales.

Hopefully there will be a clear message in the story as well as being entertaining and very short! We are aiming to have the project finished in time for harvest so we can show it as part of our harvest outreach this year.

Contact Dorinda for more details (see contacts page).

We run regular children's workshops, sometimes in conjunction with the local Church of England churches, and on a Saturday in December 2005 ran one of the most successful in recent years, based on Narnia. The church was completely decorated with hanging lights, snowflakes and icicles, snow, lamp-posts, etc and everyone had to enter via a wardrobe! The various activities included making a collage of Aslan (seen below). The church was also packed with children and parents for the follow-up service the next day.