Summer Holiday Club—11th—15th August

This year’s summer holiday club is called Champion’s Challenge and is for children in the Primary1 to Primary 7 age group. The club will run from 10 am –12 noon Monday—Friday and is free of charge. With lots of fun games and activities planned places are limited so please register early. A list and registration/consent forms are available from the Church Office.

Summer Holiday Club—Donations

To help us have a successful week. The Holiday Club require the following items:

• String
• Wool
• Card
• Blue Tack
• Paint – Gold, Red Blue
• Felt Pens
• Pencils
• Crepe Paper
• Garden Canes
• Paint Brushes
• Glue Spreaders
• Paper Plates
• Sequins
• Sparkly Jewels
• Gold Stars

If you can donate any of the items listed please contact Dianne Collins or hand them into Rae at the Church Office. All donations are very much appreciated.

Duke of Edinburgh.

Congratulations to Kevin Reid and Mark Neill who have both gained their Bronze Duke of Edinburgh Award. Well Done.

Bible Study

Home Bible Study is open to anyone who would like to explore their faith. It’s open to any young people. We meet in James Hogg’s house and he usually supplies us with a huge lovely dinner. We are working through the book of Romans at the moment. If you would like to come along and join us please feel free to call James or Lilias at the church office 01506 825803

Deep Impact

During January Lilias Snedden, David Snedden, Jackie Bundy, Mike Munro and Hollie-Beth Horn all attended the Deep Impact Conference, Aviemore. This was attended by over 300 Youth Workers from all over Scotland.

Youth Team

St Andrews now have a youth team made up of young people who are responsible for organising some youth activities within St Andrews Church. Kirsty Farmer, Stacey Martin, Owen Griffiths, Iain Spowart, Martin (Minty) McGowan, Laura Taylor, Heather Fulton, Erin Fulton and James Hogg

India 2008

In July 2008 we intend to send a group of young people to India. Kirsty Farmer, Owen Griffiths, Iain Spowart, Stacey Martin, Martin (Minty) McGowan, Laura Taylor with the not so young James Hogg, Lilias Snedden and David Snedden. While there they will work among the poor in Chennai, Southern India. In the slum area, a leprosy colony and orphanage. We have already held a car treasure hunt, discos and we have an ongoing baby/child minding service to raise funds to take to India.

Valley FM 2008

We now have our new committee in place, Carlie-Anne Chuchla, Will Gibbs, Matthew Hannah, Chris Wheble, Mark Neil, Jame McGuckin and Ian Robb. They are now busy working to raise the £4000 required to get the station up and running.

This year we intend to broadcast between 18 – 28th June 2008 7am – 12midnight. At the moment we are looking for businesses within the town to help with sponsorship. This is the 3rd year of broadcast. We involve approx 45 young people who present a variety of shows which range from Classical to Rock, Sports to reporting live on the Fair Day. All 5 primary schools are also encouraged to have their own show.

Coalfield Regeneration Grant

The young people who attend the Youth Café on a Friday evening would like to say a huge thank you to the Coalfield Regeneration Board who Awarded us with a Grant of over £3000.
We were able to buy a variety of console games and computers. The Youth Café can have anywhere up to 40 young people attending every Friday night between 7.30pm – 9.30pm.

Wastewatchers Holiday Club

If you were anywhere near the church over the summer period you would have heard fantastic singing coming from the open hall door. The songs were really enjoyed by the children and especially the Leaders, some of the leaders were even compared to singing group Girls Aloud!!! Ahem!!

The day consisted of singing together, group time, a variety of games, craft, and of course snack time.

We learned about how God can transform lives, and to hear God through his word. Nothing to Something, Water to Wine, Darkness to Light, Death to life and sadness to joy.

We had a group of teenagers performing the drama for the children to enjoy. This is always something the children look forward too.

Each team made a mascot made from junk. They were fantastic ranging from SpongeBob Square pants, a Big Brown Bear, a Sheep, a robot, a rubbish recycler and even an Albert lookalike!!

Thank you to everyone who helped to make the holiday club a success.

Loyds TSB Report

Our Purpose

Here in St Andrews Parish Church, Bo’ness we continually aim to develop the potential of young people by identifying and developing their gifts. We provide volunteering opportunities for them to engage within the life of our community. We also strive to provide good quality youth work.

Youth Strategy Survey

Towards the end of 2006 we carried out a survey within Bo’ness Academy and identified some issues facing young people today. Binge drinking, violence on the street, a climate of fear, teenage pregnancy, exclusion from school and low self-esteem, all featured as key issues. In the light of this survey our Youth Team produced a Strategy for the next three years to engage with these social problems. The strategy seeks to support young people struggling with the pressures of being a family in today’s post-modern society. It involve reflecting on the work being carried out within the various groups at St Andrews Parish Church and within community to determine their effectiveness, their strengths and their weaknesses. In order to inform this Strategy and identify the needs of young people we made contact with local Doctors, Police, Social Work and Community Education. This was carried out in-conjunction with the survey amongst 100 pupils of Bo’ness Academy.

 

Youth involvement

We are trying to increase the opportunities for involvement in the youth programme, by those who are actively known to us, while at the same time building on our present level of engagement with the life and needs of young people in the wider community.

Sensitive Caring

We offer a variety of activities and groups for young people. Some groups started a few years ago i.e., the Friday Lunch Club. This began after chatting to some young people we were made aware that some were being bullied. We decided to offer a lunch group where they could attend and have some time away from the school. This also gives them space and an opportunity to talk over any issues in their own time.

Open Door Policy

We have the Friday Youth Club. This is a café style group where young people of secondary age can come along and join in activities such as snooker, pool, darts and computer games. We also offer smaller board games. Some young people never have the opportunity these days to just sit and play draughts, tiddlywinks or snakes and ladders. Also on offer are baking sessions, where we make truffles, or iced biscuits again offering young people a chance to experiment in the kitchen. I remember one session we were making friendship bracelets; One wee guy was watching but pretending he wasn’t. It took him quite a while to pluck up the courage to ask how to make one. He kept giving up but after some encouragement he finally produced a bracelet and wore it with pride.

During lunchtimes in Bo’ness Academy we have Radio Academy where young DJ’s practice their radio presenting skills. The radio is played in the dining hall during lunch. We have seen young people growing in confidence as they start announcing their favourite songs. To develop this further we decided to broadcast to the Bo’ness community. 7 young people from Bo’ness Academy, with some guidance from our team, planned valley FM 87.7. We worked with them developing skills working as a team but also being responsible for their own jobs. Interestingly some young people decided that they didn’t just want to approach funders to raise the £3000 we required to go on air. They set to work and organised a huge fund raising campaign with various events, events included Bike Rides, Leg Waxing, sponsored walks etc.

Valley FM 2007

This year with a new committee, we took up the challenge again. Broadcasting for two weeks instead of one. This increased our costs to £5000. We went live on 16th June 2007. Altogether 45 young people received training in presenting, administration and technical support for the broadcast. We had all our local 5 primary schools participating, scripting their own shows.

Hi - touch not hi-tech

But its not just about producing a radio station. Its building relationships with young people, it’s about supporting them, enabling them, seeing them grow in confidence. Giving them a voice. Getting them communicating with local businesses within Bo’ness to assist with sponsorship. Communicating with local head teachers to arrange programming sessions with the Primary School pupils.

Awards

Duke of Edinburgh is another group where young people are learning a variety of skills. Some struggle with certain elements of their programme but because St Andrews Parish Church has a huge array of people with different skill bases we can slot young people into various Projects. Helping them develop a variety of skills.

We offer young people the chance to become a Gapper within the project. The Rank Foundation hosts this scheme. This year our Gapper halved her time between the Multi media side of the project and Youth work. This year the SAMYP project came runner up in the Falkirk and District Volunteer Awards. One of our young people, Mark Boardman, received the Volunteer of the Year Award, which resulted in Mark visiting Prime Minister Tony Blair at Downing Street. SAMYP received runner up for the Most Engaging Youth Project of the year Award.

As well as The Gapper Scheme we work with Project Scotland where we give young people the opportunity to volunteer within SAMYP, gaining skills whist receiving a small payment for the work carried out. We have successfully seen 4 Project Scotland Volunteers through our programme this year, two working within the Youth work side while another two worked within our multi media production unit

Also recognised for the work they did was the Valley FM 87.7 committee. This was the team of 7 young people who successfully set up the radio station which broadcast to the community of Bo’ness. It was fantastic to see our community recognise the efforts of these young people and to thank them for the work they did by presenting each of them with a Community Achievement award.

Training and Awareness

In one of Bo’ness local primary schools we held a “How to Drug Proof your Kids Course”. There are three trained in facilitating this 6 week course. We received very positive remarks and are now organising other courses for parents within the community.

Holiday Programme

During the school holidays we offer a youth programme for young people to become involved. This year is especially exciting as some of the young people were actually involved in the organising and running the programme. This is proving to be a positive experience for these young people. Learning the processes for organising youth programmes the downs as well as the ups. We are working with young people from Aberdeen, who are also helping us with the programme. They will be staying in Bo’ness for a week, engaging with young people in our community.

Future Plans

We find that many young people who come around St Andrews Parish Church have been excluded or have behaviour problems, but behave well when in our surroundings

One of our future development ideas is within Bo’ness Academy working in the Behaviour Support Department.

Focus Groups

Working in small focus groups allowing young people to express themselves. To address and think about many of the issues, which were evident from the survey, we carried out.

At St Andrew’s we are not just about offering opportunities for our young people to develop their skills, through sound, lighting, film editing and Youth Work, but drawing alongside them who hope to develop their own person, offering mentoring, and encouragement with acceptance and forgiveness.

Thanks to the continued support of Lloyds TSB we are able to give our young people in Bo’ness a safe environment to come along to where they can meet with dedicated youth workers who care for them and their needs.

Aberdeen Mission

9th - 15th July

	Morning 10 - 12	Afternoon 2 - . 4	Evening 7 – 9
Monday 9	Welcome Team from Aberdeen	Games in the Douglas Park	Disco – One Band
Tuesday 10	Football	Graffiti Art Workshop – Church Garden	Youth Café - work on Eco fashion show.
Wednesday 11	Baking Workshop – Church hall	Cheerleading/Football – Douglas Park	Karaoke – in church - Open to parents
Thursday 12	Music Workshop/ Drama / Forum Theatre	Music Workshop/ Drama / Forum Theatre	It’s a knock out in the Douglas Park
Friday 13	Craft Workshop	Eco Fashion Show Prep	Rock Concert – in church hall
Saturday 14	Football tournament with cheerleaders	Football Tournament with cheerleaders	Eco Fashion Show – in church – open to parents
Sunday 15	Morning worship – Including music, drama, cheerleading, Graffiti Art, Forum Theatre?	BBQ – In church garden - Open to all families	Evening worship – Including music, drama, cheerleading, Graffiti Art, Forum Theatre?

Young People and Children at St. Andrew's

Kings's Club and Bible Class

We offer Christian Education for young people through these two groups, both running during our Sunday morning worship service.

See the Groups section for other organisations working with young people.

Youth Easter Report

We started off our Easter holidays this year with a disco. A great time was had by all. The dance floor was never empty.

We had a trip to Extreme Karting in Larbert, it was fun to see everyone kitted out with their safety gear then onto the Karts. There was great rivalry and competition during the rounds. First overall came Danielle Horn, second place was James Horn then taking 3rd place was Scott Barrie, well done to them and well done to everyone for taking part.

We had some fun games in the hall. We played a variety of team, individual and brain testing games. It was extremely interesting and hilarious to watch our young people try to get out of some of the “string challenges”.

The weather held out for us to have some games in the Douglas Park as well as have a fun time on some of the new play equipment there. I think “beat the goalie” was one of the most popular events.

Then we headed off up the Mega Zone in Falkirk, where the girls played against the boys, ok, ok as a team we did come in third place twice, but there were two teams of boys!!!! Ok enough excuses. Well done boys.

Some of our young people came down to the labyrinth in the Market Square. It was quite an experience for some of them, learning about what actually happened to Jesus and then thinking about our own lives. They were keen to put on the MP3 headphones and listen to the story and music.

Then came the West Highland Way in a Day. Even although it rained for the WHOLE day and everyone was soaking, it turned out to be a great experience. We had 15 young people sponsored to walk sections of the West Highland Way. Afterwards we all met together for a well earned meal at the end of the day. Well done to everyone who took part it was a great feat.

We held an over night sponsor Walk in the church hall. No-one was allowed to sleep!! Although I think some managed a few 40 winks. We split the evening into 15-minute intervals then everyone took a turn walking for 15 minutes. There was a variety of ways of covering the hall, some ran, some power walked, some just dragged their feet because they were tired and some danced. It was a great night. We managed to walk 43miles in 12 hours. Well done to everyone who took part.

Craig held two music workshops over the holidays. Its great to hear the boys improving their musical talents. Matthew Hannah and Douglas Birse even had a wee chance to talk about why they come to church and their faith, they were interviewed by Laura Maxwell a Broadcast Journalist on Radio Scotland.

The two weeks were finished off by our young people from the Duke of Edinburgh Group heading of to Guay Campsite in Dunkeld, there they were learning various cooking, map reading and camping skills to enable them to go on their various expeditions for Bronze, Silver and Gold Awards.