Hosted by The parish of Bursledon and led by Sharon Prior from Moorlands College. To find out more click here Mentoring Young People Event
Monthly Archives: March 2017
Romance Academy: Young People, Sexting and Social Media Resourcing Day
Romance Academy is hosting an Equipping Day ‘Young People, Sexting and Social Media’ on Saturday 25th of March.
Digital platforms and social media offer young people new ways of creating identity and connections, but how much does this positively contribute to the life experiences of young people, and how much of it causes irreversible damage?
Discover the effect social media has on our young people, and exploring the influence & impact that regular exposure to sexually explicit materials has on young people’s values, identity and relationships. The day will also see the launch of a brand new ‘IsItOk?’ sexting resource,developed by Youthscape and acet UK.
Book a place on this day, to be one of the first to get your hands on this cutting edge resource.
Speakers: Rachel Gardner – Youthscape (Romance Academy Founder), Gareth Cheesman – acet UK, Jemimah Woodbridge – Romance Academy
Saturday 25th of March
Time: 10am-3.30pm
Venue: Youthscape
Cost: £35
Who let the Dad’s out?
Who let the Dad’s out? have just released a resource on how to run a group for dads and their children. You can access it here
Join the global wave of prayer
ROOTS have provided prayer journeys for all ages as part of the global wave of prayer that is Thy Kingdom Come, allowing us to create a prayer journey each day to pray for ourselves and for others.
If you are looking for more resources on the Pentecost Novena click here
Level 2 and 3 Youth Work Training Course, Bournemouth
Over the next year AIMCommunity in partnership with Bournemouth Borough Council, will be delivering Level 2 and Level 3 Youth Work Practice courses for youth workers, students, volunteers and anyone else interested in getting involved in youth work.
The course will run from May across a year in 15 sessions and cover many important aspects of youth work including Theories of Youth Work, Working with Groups, Safeguarding, Reflective Practice and much more.
If you are interested, or know someone who might be, then drop in to theOpen Evening on Friday 31st March between 6-8pm to find out more. Its a drop in session, so you don’t need to stay for the whole time. If you can’t make that session, then drop an email to aim.community@fyt.org.uk and they’ll arrange to get you all the information you might need.
Mayor of Bournemouth Volunteer of the Year Awards
Do you know a brilliant young leader? Or a brilliant youth leader? Are you in the Bournemouth Area? You could nominate them for the Mayor of Bournemouth Volunteers Awards
To find out all the details download the Criteria and the Application Form (PDF)
Beacon Cathedral 2018, 4th June
The Beacon Cathedral Event last year was a huge success with lots of youth groups coming along to join in.
This year, on Pentecost Sunday Evening, 4th June, at the Cathedral, the event will be happening again.
New Wine worship leader, Neil Bennetts, is coming to lead worship and there will be a packed programme of prayer and engagement.
Cathedrals across the UK are gathering together at the same time to worship God and pray for his Spirit. Tickets will be available soon – we’ll let you know once they are. But get it marked in your diary now
Mission Action Pentecost to Advent 2017
On the first Pentecost we read that the followers of Jesus were filled with the Holy Spirit and joyfully spilled out of the upper room to share their faith, seeing many thousands become Christians. The church was born!
We want Pentecost 2017 to be another time that the people of God are filled up and sent out in mission to our local communities. With this in mind, we’ll be pouring out of the Beacon Cathedral event on Pentecost evening commissioned once again to go out in mission across the Diocese.
Phil Dykes, the Diocesan Church Growth, Fresh Expressions and Evangelism Adviser, is coordinating and resourcing this period of mission so we grilled him to tell us more about what it was and how YCF leaders could get involved.
What is it?
A 6 month period, from June-November, from Pentecost to Advent, where we as a Diocesan community are going to recommit to living out the mission of Jesus. It’s a time to experiment, try some things and share some stories with one another.
What will be going on and how can YCF leaders join in?
There’s three levels of activity, to sit alongside the Mission Action Plans that parishes and deaneries have already formulated.
- Local Initiatives
In various parts of the Diocese there are going to be focussed mission initiatives happening. In Basingstoke the Churches together are engaging with the ‘Who Cares?’ Initiative. In Eastleigh, the churches are teaming up for Hope Eastleigh. And in Bournemouth, there’s Hope in the Community happening. So the first thing YCF leaders can do is find out if there’s something happening locally and get involved.
- Mission Tool Box
We’ve been building a Mission Toolbox for the Diocese – going round the Diocese, meeting people involved in mission initiatives and pulling together 3 minute videos of what they’re doing, teaming that up with a ‘How to Guide’ and a resource list, so we can equip other people in the Diocese to try out these mission initiatives for themselves. We’re hoping this is the start of the story sharing – we’ll be inviting others to pull together their own videos of their mission activities, to share the learning and creativity.
These videos will be available on the Diocesan Website really soon. We’d love YCF leaders to use some of the ideas in their contexts and let us know how they get on. But we’d also love to see YCF leaders making videos with the children and young people they work with to share the mission activities they’re doing and encouraging other parishes to do the same things.
- Individuals telling their stories
We want to see individuals who are passionate and confident in sharing their faith – and we want to hear what they’re up to! We’ll be creating an email address for people round the Diocese to get in contact to share their stories of how they’re sharing their faith and what difference it’s making.
We’d love to hear from children, families, young people, youth groups, leaders are all sorts in that time. So please, keep on sharing the vision of mission with the groups you’re working with, and then help them share their stories of mission with us!
Want to explore the idea of mission with your children’s/youth groups? Here’s some places to go for resources:
iWitness – Last year’s lent course – with its resources for a variety of ages, looking at the 5 marks of mission
Tent on the Green
Last year for the first time, in a partnership between Winchester Cathedral and Burn, the Cathedral hosted a huge marquee, with faith based activities on the Cathedral Green for the whole Pentecost weekend – 2nd-4th June.
This year – it’s happening again in an all new and exciting way. We asked Sally Dakin, the Diocesan Spirituality Adviser, to tell us a bit more about it…
“The Tents on the Green vision is for a joyful festival for ‘Sharing God’s Life’ and blessing the city, its residents & visitors – which could be adopted by Christians/churches all over the Diocese.
This year we are going for a number of smaller tents instead of one enormous one. Under the auspices of Winchester Cathedral, and with Churches Together Winchester, we want to create a festival feel in the Outer Close, with the simple aim of ‘Sharing God’s Life’ – something very open, generous & celebratory.
As last year, Steve Abley of BURN 24-7 is organising a music tent, a youth tent and a children’s/families tent for the whole weekend. Other churches/groups will be organising other smaller tents/gazebos etc, on the Saturday (June 3rd), and there’ll be people whose role it is just to be out & about in the Close and beyond, chatting to people and inviting them to join in. And we’ll have the Bouncy Cathedral.
The whole thing is designed to appeal to families and under-40s. So if you’re fall into that age range, or minister to those who do, why not come down and visit on the day!
Youth workers also might like to know that live music will be playing INSIDE the Cathedral overnight on the Friday & Saturday, 10pm-7am. (And outside during the day, from Fri. 4pm – Sun. 4pm.) As details are arranged, we’ll be letting you know how you can get involved with this.
Anyone who’d like to get involved on the youth or children’s/families side should contact Ellie Payne, youth worker at St Barnabas, Weeke, who’s one of the Wildfire team leading youth work across the churches in Winchester – and at Tents on the Green. Her email is: youthstb@gmail.com”
Pentecost Novena 2017
We’re committing to pray for the 9 days leading up to Pentecost this year (That’s 25th May-4th June). Along with Anglican churches, and Christians of many other denominations both in the UK and round the world, we’ll be spending time praying in a whole lot of creative ways.
You can sign up to Pledge to pray, along with hundreds of people from around the world here
And hear what the Archbishop of Canterbury has to say about the initiative here
And here in the Diocese of Winchester we want to help you as Children’s, Families’ and Youth Leaders to be equipped to help those you minister to engage with praying as well. So here are some resources to help you get stuck in:
Helping Children Pray:
The Thy Kingdom Come team have released a hoard of resources to help you do just this
You could also consider working with your local school to set up a Prayer Space. Sheila Hopkins, Children and families Worker in Milford On Sea, came up with these guidelines for how to go about getting up a Prayer Space in your local school:
• Build good relationships with the school
• Identify a key member of staff to support you
• Find an appropriate location to set up the Prayer Space and check availability
• Ask the head teacher to send out a letter to parents telling them about the Prayer Space (see http://www.prayerspacesinschools.com/ for sample letter).
• Arrange for a team with DBS certificates to help you
• Plan the prayer stations, using ideas from http://www.prayerspacesinschools.com/
• Think about what the children/young people will do at each prayer station and prepare resources
• Prepare explanatory words for each station
• Ensure that your stations cover the four areas of spiritual development: self, others, world, beyond
• Plan timetable and introduction for the sessions
• Set up and run the Prayer Space
• Present feedback to the school
Helping Families Pray:
Once again the Thy Kingdom Come team have been preparing resources to help you enable families to pray through the Novena. Here’s one of our favourite resources:
This family resource is designed to help and guide you in prayer through Thy Kingdom Come. The kit gives you and your family different ways to create space to pray for 5 friends and family members, you could also take the pack and adapt it for family to use at any time of the year. For the Novena time you can pray and grow closer to God together, as you lift your friends and family up to God with a fun and engaging prayer activity everyday, from Ascension (Day 1) through to Pentecost (Day 11), based on a daily prayer prompt and given theme.
Helping Young People Pray:
There will be resources coming soon from the Thy Kingdom Come Team – so watch this space.
Coming Soon – An 11 Day Prayer Journey for Young people and A session plan on Prayer for Youth Leaders to run with their groups
In the meantime, Sarah has devised some resources to help you engage young people in the Novena of Prayer through: Creating a prayer space with them
Running a Creative Prayer Event/Night of Prayer
Using other resources that are out there.
Download the Ideas here
Families, Children and Youth Blog 
We’re at it again!