150 Fest was an evangelistic music night which we hosted at the Platform Centre in town on the 5th May. 3 bands came to perform; FireFallDown, Saving Strike and The Origin, it was a really fun evening where young people came to listen to the music, chill out and have a good time. It was also really inspiring because Jon, the singer from FireFallDown spoke about how his life had been turned around by God and what He had done for him. Through his story he shared how God had demonstrated his love to him and he prayed for everyone in the room. Seeing everyone standing there with their eyes closed really listening to him share the gospel was really incredible.

Growing Young LeadersWe currently have a group of 11 fantastic young people who are taking part in this year long leadership programme designed by CPAS. The course is designed to equip them for leadership and help them to reflect on the role of a Christian leader. Chris is leading the course with Lianne Simth from Scripture Union. We’re really excited about the amazing gifts, skills and abilities of the current group and the impact they are making as they serve God in a multitude of different places and ways.

If you would be interested in joining the course the next time we run it, or for more information contact office@syfc.org.uk

Swindon Youth For Christ : There’s an app for that!We now have our very own official mobile device app! The app allows you to see our daily prayer request and read our latest news stories. Its a mobile version of our prayer diary and E:news, so you can ensure that you keep up to date with what Gods doing through our work and be informed in your prayer support, wherever you and your mobile phone go! It is really good and we totally recommend you download it straight away and tell all your family, friends and colleagues to download it too. It’s available on Android, IOS and Windows Mobile.

You can download it by visiting www.syfc.org.uk/app, searching in your native app store for ‘SYFC’ or scaning the fancy QR code with your QR code reader! Please let us know what you think of it as we’d love your feedback.

SwindonRegistered Charity no. 274402

Swindon Youth for Christ, P. O. BOX 2352, SWINDON SN2 1WE (01793) 829795 office@syfc.org.uk www.syfc.org.uk

Summer 2012Taking Good News to young people in Swindon for over 60 years

Directors NotesSome notes from our director Rev. Chris Priddy:

A time to celebrate - it seems that celebrations have been rife recently, we’ve celebrated the promotion of Swindon FC to League 1, we celebrated the upcoming Olympics with the olympics torch relay visiting Swindon and we’ve celebrated the Queen’s jubilee with mass street parties. Swindon YFC too have something to celebrate:

In 2011/12 we had 13,224 individual contacts with young people. This included 162 Lunch clubs, 68 Lessons, 36 Assemblies, and 59 hours spent on detached work. This is a 50% increase in the number of opportunities we had to share Good News with young people in Swindon on the previous year!

But even better than this exciting news, we celebrate that we are known by the Almighty God who knows and loves us and sent his Son to the world that we might receive the gift of eternal life.

As you read this newsletter I pray that you would be encouraged by all that God is doing through the work of SYFC and that you would celebrate with us, rejoicing in how Good our God is. We’ve had an incredible term with so many exciting events happening and wonderful opportunities to share hope, love, life, joy and faith with young people through lunchtime clubs, after schools clubs, youth groups, school assemblies, lessons, mentoring and outreach work.

Please continue to support the team and our ministry in ongoing prayer and if you are technologically equipped I would really encourage you to download the new SYFC app - its a fantastic way to keep up to date with all things SYFC. Thank you and God Bless

youthforchristnews

You . Fish . Shoes : FlameFMFlameFM : Community Radio with a Christian Flavour broadast online and on 87.7fm in Swindon for the whole of May 2012. You.Fish.Shoes (Youth Issues) was a 1hr show presented by Chris and Bishop Lee with different young guests each week. The show interviewed the young people about what life is like as a teenager in 2012 and sought to broadcast positive stories about young people from Swindon. Each week we also taught Bishop Lee a new slang word - Peng, Totes and Cochin’ - do you know their definitions?Chris and the in:School team also had a great time presenting ‘The Children’s Ministry Show’ and playing lots of fantastic children’s action songs!A fantastic project of SCT which we thoroughly enjoyed.

Olympics 2012 Free Resource!The Olympics are speedily approaching and people are getting more and more excited. We all joined with hundreds of others on Wednesday 23rd May in Swindon, to see the Olympic torch and are excited to join in with the countdown to when the Olympics commence in London. One thing that Amy is particularly excited about is the creation of a resource pack for youth workers across Swindon that she has been working on . “I have created six Olympic style cafe sessions; these six sessions cover the topics of respect, friendship and teamwork, equality, inspiration, determination and the final session is a mini Olympic Games session that looks at courage and standing up for what you believe in, based on the life of Olympic Gold medallist Eric Liddell. Each of these sessions has a programme that includes games, discussions and a talk; they can be edited by youth workers to fit the specific needs of the young people they are working with in their particular settings. These resources are available to download from www.syfc.org.uk/olympics. I hope that these will be really useful to you and if you have any feedback or stories after using them then I would love to hear from you.” You can contact Amy at : amy@syfc.org.uk”

Schoolswork Update

Over the last term, we have been busy delivering a variety of different sessions in local schools. Our weekly Lunch Clubs have been exploring the teachings Jesus gave during the Sermon on the Mount. We have been looking at how these guidelines for life can still be relevant to us today and challenging the young people to think about the way they treat other people. At the end of last term we were invited to deliver assemblies in Commonweal School on the theme of Easter. We had a mini egg eating competition using chopsticks and based the assembly around decision making and the decisions that were made in the Easter story. We challenged the young people to think about the decisions that they make in their everyday lives and to make the right choices. We have also delivered assemblies in Crowdy’s Hill school exploring themes such as reaching your goals, and friendship.

We have continued to deliver the LUSH relationships education programme to Year 9’s in Lydiard Park Academy (formally known as Greendown) and had the opportunity to answer some of the student’s questions surrounding issues of dating, confidence, sex and love. We are really excited about developing LUSH and taking it to other schools next academic year.

Luella has been working with an XL class in Swindon Academy for the past two years. As part of the programme the young people are asked to organise a residential where they can learn new skills and confidence. The

young people are in Year 11 and have just finished their exams and left the school. However, they wanted the residential to be their final time together. The residential was an amazing time together where the young people participated in outdoor activities, joined in team games and said goodbye to one another. This was also a chance for Luella to work with the group one last time and say goodbye to them.

Rock Solid in Nova Hreod has an amazing group of young people who are coming each week and bringing friends. As well as the high energy games

and competitions which feature in every session we have been engaging the young people in discussions about success, money, temptation,and justice. A few weeks ago, we delivered a session about communication and prayer. We talked about how prayer was just communicating with God. We told the young people that we believe that God likes to hear from us and we could thank him for things that he has given us, like friends and family. We talked about how we can ask Him for help, and also just like talking to a friend we could tell him about our day and how that has

been. We then handed out a printed copy of a mobile phone keypad and said that we were just going to spend a few minutes ‘texting’ God. It was amazing to look around and see all of the young people engaging with this activity in total silence, even though 10 minutes earlier they had been running around playing games making lots of noise. After 5 minutes we started to bring the young people back together and one boy shouted “No, wait I haven’t finished texting God yet.” It was such an amazing session and has shown us that these young people really are hungry to find out more about God and how they can have a relationship with Him.

Local Volunteer - Simon CouzensI didn’t fully understand what it meant to be a Christian until I was about 14 years old. It was at a camp called the Armed Forces CU Easter Camp that I experienced the Holy Spirit in a big way. He showed me what my life would be without him and it was dark, scary and a very lonely place to be. I have often wondered why Jesus spoke to me in this way, I think He was showing me a life without His love and then showing me a life of accepting Him and following him and from then on I have done my best to try and do this. When I matured in my faith I realized that it’s not what I can do but what Jesus does through me. In school I was bullied horribly for not being ‘cool’. This experience has given me a great empathy for those who experience the same treatment and also for the bullies themselves.

At Swindon Youth for Christ I have changed so much from the boy who didn’t know where to go next in his life. Every day that I have been at SYFC has been a complete blessing I have changed so much from not being able to socialise at school and trying to tell people about my faith in the wrong way. I am now able to sit in a class full of teenagers and talk about The Sermon on the Mount with them. I reckon most of the change has occurred because of the amazing people that I‘ve worked alongside, I have never felt more safe, secure and significant than I do when helping with a lunch club plan or just laminating a picture of a shoe! It has all been awesome and I thank the Lord every day for my amazing and wonderful colleagues that I work with at SYFC. In September I plan to continue following Gods leading by joining the YFCone Gap Year Programme

YFCone - Annabel GuestHi my name is Annabel Guest, and I was placed at SYFC after joining the National YFCOne programme for 3 months. I joined the YFCOne programme because I wanted to gain some experience in working with young people but also to be able to grow and develop through my faith and walk with God. I can honestly say it’s been such as interesting and encouraging time working with SYFC, I have been able to get involved with so much, detached work in schools and in local communities, lunch clubs some of which I have led , after school clubs, 150 fest and two impact events. I have also had the opportunity to talk in churches as well and I really feel that I have learnt a lot about others, my faith and working with young people.

I have had lots of opportunities to talk to young people about God and Faith, I was so amazed when one young person came out and said ‘so, do you believe in God’, of course I said ‘yes’ and it started some great conversations with him.

I know that the experiences I have gained here are really going to benefit me in the future as I begin a course in Youth work, Community and Practical Theology with CYM in September.

‘Peng’ ‘Totes’ ‘Cochin’

Pinehurst Chaplaincy Update“God is in that tent!” a young boy yelled at the Pinehurst Easter Fun Day. We had set up the labyrinth in one of the tents(the labyrinth is an old tradition dating back to medieval times as a contemplative way to journey with God). As you make your way into the centre of the maze, you are on a journey looking into yourself, blocking out the noises you have around you and letting go of those hurts that you have been carrying around with you. When you reach the centre you have the opportunity to sit and reflect, sit and be with God. When you are ready you move out of the maze you go on to think about your interactions with other people and what impression you might leave on someone else’s life. We also ran this in Swindon Academy where 67 young people went round the maze. One young person came out from completing the maze and said, “thank you, I now know who I am.”

The Labyrinth and Easter Fun Day were not the only highlights of the term. We took a group of 11 young people to Bristol to an indoor skate park. We had a little adventure on the train there and back, which was the first time for many of them that they had ever travelled on a train and spent two hours on the ramps. Laura, Amy and Rob even had a go, they definitely all showed more fear than the young people though. They barely went down a 3ft ramp whereas others were launching themselves down a 10ft ramp and back flipping into a foam pit! Following on from this trip we have met up with this group again to talk about the possibility of getting potable ramps in Pinehurst and how we would go about raising money for it.

Laura has been continuing to work in the Academy and has been helping out with the year 11 GCSE RE lessons helping them revise before their exams, now they have completed these she has been asked to have an input into the year 10 group. The afterschool club Quest has continued this term, we have been looking at the character of Jesus and who he was, the Holy Spirit, Prayer and what is the Church.

Please pray for all those who are working in Pinehurst especially for the Academy chaplaincy team consisting of: Simon Halls, Dave Blandford, David Gray, Chris Priddy and Laura Rawson.

Supporting SYFCDid you know you can support SYFC by:

Texting ‘SYFC00 £amount’ to 70070. The text is free & SYFC receive 100% of your donation!

Donating online through our website. By using paypal.com and your debit/credit card.

Giving us your old car using giveacar.com Cars will be collected from you and sold or scrapped and the money sent direct to SYFC.

Selling unwanted items on Ebay and automatically donating the profits to SYFC.

Shopping online using easyfundraising.org.ukOnce registered, when you shop online at a huge range of stores SYFC will receive a donation.

Or simply send a cheque, payable to ‘SYFC’ to SYFCFreepost SCE 15917, Swindon, SN2 1BR

Thank you so much for your ongoing generous support

Rob Burns - 1 year on!When I joined BIOS and Oxford CYM in September 2011 as a trainee youth worker I didn’t know just what effect it would have on my ministry and my personal life. As a first year I expected my growth to be quite slow and so I was just hoping to find my feet and get used to balancing Uni life and my pastoral care ministry. Little did I know that by the end of November I would be co-ordinating the 1-1 and group mentoring work within Swindon Academy. Since working in Swindon Academy I have been mentoring a young man called David - When I started working with him he had real problems with anger and also attendance. We spent time looking at anger strategies and also lifestyle changes to ensure that he was able to get up for school in the mornings. As a result of this David was given the role of prefect 2 weeks ago and has taken his attendance levels up to 97%.

Also in that time I have learned to take on some behind the scenes management and this has seen me involved in the recruitment of a group of youth work volunteers, each from a range of backgrounds and each with different gifts to bring – please pray that God would be at work in them as they develop and grow as youth workers, just as I have – It’s hard to believe that just 2 years ago I was volunteering 2 hours per week, and that through that God opened doors for me to grow a ministry and career. When in a meeting with a school pastoral leader recently, I was told that most students we work with have made good progress and the others have made adequate progress to enable them to navigate years 10 and 11 and leave the school with GCSE grades, this is really encouraging news and makes our investment in their lives so worthwhile.

Finally I would like to say how this time has changed me as a person – from someone who had a comfortable faith to someone who’s faith at times has been stretched by theological studies at CYM and also by the pressure that comes with developing a Christ centred ministry. During these trying times I’ve carried God’s word close to my heart and have learned to pray like Job, who prayed “The Lord giveth, and the Lord taketh away – may the name of the Lord be praised.” With each trial and each theological challenge, God has revealed more of himself to me and I know for sure that his hand is firmly over the work of SYFC and BIOS.

“God is in that tent.”

Goodbye Year 11Luella and Amy have been working with a group of year 11 girls at a lunch club for the past 3 years. Over the last year the girls have faced many friendship issues, and this has shaped the delivery of the weekly lunch clubs. For the final session, Luella and Amy showed the girls lots of pictures of scenery, animals, and various objects and asked them to reflect on where they feel they are in their life at the moment. The girls really took time to think and reflect on their various feelings.

Following on from this, we spoke to them about the various friendship issues they have had and linked it to broken relationships in life. We spoke about how as Christians, we believe that the one constant relationship we can have is with God.

As we wanted the girls to leave with something that they could remember the messages of the past few years with and that would be relevant to them, we printed and laminated the ‘footprints in the sand’ poem and wrote a message to them individually on the back. We read the poem to them and explored what it meant. As we did this, one of the girls started crying. She spoke to us afterwards and said ‘Even though I have heard it before, it now makes so much sense and helps me to know that I am not alone when things are going wrong and with all this pressure on me.’

It is sad to say goodbye to this group of girls, but we trust that something of what we have said will sink in and that God will protect and guide them as they take exams, leave school and move on to colleges and jobs.

Pastoral CareIt was with great sadness that we said goodbye to Tim Freeman the BIOS Project Manager in May as he moved on to new things. The work of BIOS will be continued by Rob Burns and other members of the SYFC team.Year 10 students who recently received support through 1 to 1 or group mentoring sessions from the BIOS project’s work in schools said : ‘Sessions have helped me feel different, I am now more confident in myself.’ ‘I have found it helpful and calming to share my problems.’ ‘I like that I can get support and learn to deal with my behaviour.’ ‘Sessions have helped me think if I am making the right choices.’ ‘I feel better about myself; I want to thank you for the support.’

How fantastic to see what a tangible difference this work is making in the lives of young people.

Trustee Focus : Vicky GrahamMy name is Vicky Graham, and I am the Secretary of the Trustees. I have been involved in the work of SYFC for many years, since the early 1990’s when I was a teenager. Back then I was a youth volunteer, with most of my work involving the ‘This Way Up’ double decker bus. We took it on week-long missions to glamorous locations such as Melksham, Bedworth (near Coventry) and Pont-y-Clun (a village in Wales.) We also did longer-term local missions, in Freshbrook and Lechlade, where we would turn up with the bus every week to talk to and make relationships with the young people that were hanging around the area.

I became a member of theTrustees in about 2000 (can’t remember the exact date!) – by this time I had married and the bus was no longer being used, so it was a great opportunity to keep supporting SYFC but in a different way. I wanted to join the Trustees to ‘give something back’ to the organisation that had offered me guidance and support through my teenage years and had increased my faith through needing to rely on God on many occasions. Being a Trustee is a fantastic way to be involved in the running of SYFC, especially if you can’t help with some of the more practical aspects of their work.

I’ve seen SYFC change a lot over the years; I’ve worked with three different Directors during my time as a Trustee, and have seen SYFC’s focus shift from detached youth work with a few opportunities to work in schools, to almost all of our work being schools based – it’s been fantastic to see God opening doors for us and keeping them open for so many years. SYFC has been blessed with many fantastic workers over the years; both paid workers and volunteers. It has been a privilege to support these people as they take the Good News to the young people of Swindon.

But, sadly, my time as a Trustee is coming to an end. It’s time to move on. In September, my family moves on to a new adventure – my husband starts training to become a Baptist Minister and we will be moving out of Swindon. I shall still continue to support the work of SYFC; after all it’s been a part of my life for a long time, but not in such a practical way. I’m sad to be leaving, but I know that God will continue to provide for SYFC and the young people of Swindon. Our work is so vital – there are so many young people who have yet to hear of God’s love and grace. It’s our job to tell them. Please think whether you could join the Trustees to support our workers as they seek to carry out this important work. It’s been a true honour to be involved with SYFC for so many years.

We want to thank Vicky for all her support, input and guidance over the years and wish her and her family well for the future.

The work of SYFC is only made possible by the amazing generosity of individuals and churches like yourselves. Could you consider investing in the future ministry of SYFC?

Perhaps you could consider becoming a monthly financial partner or send a special one-off gift now, to help us develop the work over the coming months.

All you need to do is ask us for a Standing Order Form and return it to our freepost address and if you are a tax payer we can claim 20% of the sum donated back from HMRC.

COULD YOU SPONSOR SOMETHING? £25 per month enables us to run 1 School Lunchclub or 1 RE or LUSH lesson or 1 set of Assemblies or 1 Rock Solid Club or 1 support session with a young person in crisis. Why not choose a specific event to sponsor and pray for?

Or Do Something Simple for SYFC and commit to sending us just £5 or £10 a month. This may be simple but has significant impact on our work.

Visit www.syfc.org.uk or call 01793 829795 for a standing order form.BECO

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PLEASE SEND YOUR COMPLETED FORM TO: SYFC, FREEPOST SCE 15917, SWINDON SN2 1BR. THANKYOU.

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Goodbye LuellaIt is with great sadness that at the end of July I will be leaving Swindon YFC as Lead Schools and Youth Worker. I began working here just over three years ago taking on a role which had been vacant for a number of years. My job has included a wide variety of opportunities to work with young people, youth workers, churches and school staff. Whilst there have been many challenges to this role, I have thoroughly enjoyed my time here.

There are a number of highlights which have encouraged and excited me during this time. It has been an amazing journey to work with young people at Swindon Academy in the alternative education department. Over the past three years, I have worked with a few different XL and ASDAN classes in both teaching and supporting roles. Whilst these have been challenging sessions, it has been a privilege to watch the young people grow, develop and change. Not only have I seen these young people change their attitudes and behaviour but I have seen them develop and learn new skills and gain confidence. I have also enjoyed rewriting the LUSH programme and delivering it across schools in Swindon. I am really excited about the

future of LUSH and even though I won’t be part of it, I know that the rest of the team are passionate about taking it forward and delivering high quality relationships education in schools.

So, what is next for me? Well, I am moving back to the Southampton area which is where my family are based as well as my beloved football club! I will be starting a new role in September as ‘Participation Worker’ for The Children’s Society. My role will be working nationally (but based in Southampton) with young carers, giving them a voice to speak out on their feelings, views and struggles. I will also be working with them to train, develop and empower the young carers to have more confidence, self- esteem and skills as they seek to establish a future for themselves. I am really excited about my new role and the challenges it may bring, but very sad to be leaving the young people I have worked with and the wonderful team who have supported, encouraged and taught me so much over my time here.