Swindon Youth for Christ

One of the most frequent questions I have on the first week back to school after the holidays is, “did you have a nice time off?” This time again I had the privilege to say no!

Some of my favourite sessions of the year happen during the holiday, such as the cooking course last summer. This half term was no different. We had the opportunity to work with young people from around Pinehurst and Penhill with activities happening every day of the week (apart from the bank holiday).

Tuesday was a little of a wash out but the weather improved throughout the week enabling us to play football, basketball and cricket with a group of young people who we see in school, but don’t necessarily engage with all that we do there. Spend an afternoon doing some graffiti and have the opportunity just to have a conversation with young people about whatever they want to talk about.

Friday was a great day with us taking around 30 young people to play lazer quest, this was great again just to have fun with the young people. All these activities were put on in partnership with other youth work organisations around town. Please pray for all this ongoing work which is happening, especially all this partnership work, and that God would bless it abundantly.

We have now been working with a group of year 10 students in St Lukes school for the past 5 weeks delivering a LIFE ACADEMY programme. Through these sessions we have explored themse like ‘Respect’, ‘Relationships’, ‘Self Awareness’ and ‘Conflict’.

We’ve had a lot of fun working with this group and everyone has learnt a lot along the way. The low point was when we set off the buildings fire alarm by burning toast and had to get everyone to evacuate! Feedback from the school has been positive and the young people are opening up within the sessions and enjoying engaging with us.

On one feedback form this week a young person wrote “I love BIOS” and when another was asked what his favorutie lesson of the week was was he replied “this session”.

Coming up we will be taking them on a trip to the local 5 a side football arena and helping them to address some of the challenges they face in their lives. Please do pray for this great group and the work we are doing with them

6 months ago Amy Cox had a red paperclip, she swapped it for a dictionary and by inviting people to continue swapping things with her we now have 4 items to auction to raise funds for our work with young people in Swindon.

We have:
A Nintendo Wii and lots of games and accessories
A Dimond Engagement Ring
A HiFi Stereo System
A Professional Quality Video Mixer

They are all really fantastic items and we would like to give you the opportunity to bid to buy them in our silent auction. A silent auction is where you make a bid for an item without knowing what anyone else has bid, you simply offer the highest amount you are willing to pay for the item and if your offer is the highest you win. All bids must be received by 4pm on the 22nd May 2013.

Please click here to view the items and make your bids! Happy Bidding

We have just begun working weekly in Uplands Special School. Between now and the summer Joanne will be working alongside Mark Tidey from North Swindon meeting students in the school playground and spekaing with them about who we are and what we do. From September the school have asked us to also take regular assemblies for the students, run special Christmas and Easter workshop events and provide them with some materials for us in their tutor times with students to help them reflect on the Chrisitan Faith and the world around us. This is a really exciting opportunity to serve the school which we have always had good links with.

EVERY WEEK we are now working in 10 secondary schools involved in delivering 34 weekly sessions of youth work and that doesnt include any of the primary schools work, assemblies, RE lessons or one off events that we also get involved in! Praise God for His goodness

What’s happened recently? In March 2013 a total of twelve Easter Cracked Open sessions took place in Parks and Walcot, Dorcan and the villages. This resulted in roughly 300 children hearing the Easter story, some for the very first time. The teams did a brilliant job at leading the workshops and the feedback from the teachers and children was fantastic.

What’s happening now? Regular assemblies are starting to get booked up and we have already been in to Covingham and Nythe Schools this term talking about Love and focusing on (1 Corinthians 13 v 4-7). These assemblies have been received really well. We have been taking RE lessons with the year 6 children at Liden Primary school looking at Pilgrimage. 5 Schools have also booked for the Living Church Experience which helps children to see their local church come alive by helping them to learn about the bible, prayer, serving the community, the Christian calendar and the church building.

Please Pray for the 300 Its Your Move books which we will be giving out to year 6 students to help them as they make the move to Secondary Schools. In side each book will be a flyer advertising our lunchtime clubs and after school clubs in the secondary school they are going to.

Last month 10 young people graduated from our Growing Young Leaders course and shared some inspiring stories about how the course had helped them to grow in confidence as leaders within the church and beyond.
They spoke about how they recognised the giftings God had given them and the calling He had placed on their lives and how he was using them to lead Sundays Schools, music groups, lead church services and run CU’s. It has been a real privilege to work with these young people over the past 12 months and to see them grow and develop.

On the back of the success of the course we are now looking for young people who would like to be a part of the next course. The course runs for 10 months and starts in September 2013. If you know anyone who would you think would benefit from the course please pass them the INVITATION FLYER.

On the 19th March we
partnered with Swindon Pregnancy Crisis Centre to host a Romance Academy
Roadshow called ‘Lets Talk About Sex’. Over 45 parents and youth workers
attended the evening and were greatly encouraged by what was shared. The
Romance Academy team encouraged us all to Listen not Lecture as we talk with
young people about sex. Through this approach we can start a positive
conversation with young people encouraging them to make good choices and have a
healthy self-image

On March 20th we spent a fantastic 2 hours with year 10 at Nova Herod running the LUSH Relationships Education Programme. This was part of a joint RE / PSHE conference day and enabled us to talk to the students about making positive choices when it comes to sex and relationships, but also share about the Christian views of marriage and how important it is within committed relationships and society in general. It was great to have Rev. Paul Rhodes joining us as part of the Q&A on marriage and the session was really appreciated by both staff and students.

We are delighted to announce that our new Centre Administrator is Helen Chappell. Helen joined the team this week and introdu                         ces herself here:

Hello, my name is Helen and I’m the new Centre Administrator at SYFC.
My church is The Salvation Army where I’ve been involved in children’s ministry for a number of years, particularly children’s music ministry. I have also worked with various youth groups there and currently lead the youth Bible study, where we have some amazing times!
I have two teenage children of my own and enjoy spending time with them. They endeavour to keep me up to date with current stuff and frequently remind me that I’m not as young as I think I am!
I also provide singing tuition for a local children’s theatre school, so, what with me and the children singing and practising various instruments our house is generally full of ‘the sound of music’ in some form!
I’m really looking forward to working with the team and seeing how it all develops.

6 months ago Amy Cox had a red paperclip, she swapped it for a dictionary and by inviting people to continue swapping things with her we now have 4 items to auction to raise funds for our work with young people in Swindon.

We have:
A Nintendo Wii and lots of games and accessories
A Dimond Engagement Ring
A HiFi Stereo System
A Professional Quality Video Mixer

They are all really fantastic items and we would like to give you the opportunity to bid to buy them in our silent auction. A silent auction is where you make a bid for an item without knowing what anyone else has bid, you simply offer the highest amount you are willing to pay for the item and if your offer is the highest you win. All bids must be received by 4pm on the 22nd May 2013.

Please click here to view the items and make your bids! Happy Bidding