Holiday Club

Holiday Club 2008

Holiday Club this year was a roaring success and a wonderful week was had by the children, teens and adults alike.

The week ran from Monday 11th to Friday 15th August, culminating in a celebration on the Friday evening in church.

This year’s theme was Jungle Jamboree, and was based on the adventures of Jungle Jim, Professor Living-Room and Fez the Parrot in the jungle. We were told of the lessons they learnt as they went along, from the messages in the parables told by Jesus as found in the Gospel of Luke.

The parables and themes we looked at were:

• The Parable of the Sower – Listen and you will learn The Parable of the Good Samaritan – Stay on the right track and don’t follow the crowd
• The Parable of the Great Feast – Do what is right and don’t make excuses
• The Parable of the Prodigal Son – God always loves us and forgives us
• The Parable of the Talents – We all have talents and we should use them wisely.

We had the usual mix of songs, teaching, drama, prayers, jokes, crafts and lots of fun and laughter. The club song Who’s the King of the Jungle? was a great hit, and very quickly the children knew it off by heart.

Drama each day, led by Neal Preston and Jimmy Downs and assisted by Fez (Becca Palmer), was based on the theme of the day, followed by teaching from Cath on each parable.

Prayers in the groups were creative and interactive; we had noisy responsive ones, bubbles sending prayers up to heaven, confetti bringing God’s blessings down to us, highlighting lots of differing ways to pray and say thank you to God. There were many prayers written by the children for the prayer box, and these were read out to everyone each day.

The usual jokes, which never improve, were provided each day by the children and told by Tone the Groan (Tony Cheslett) - the worse the joke the more the children enjoy it.

There was a great variety of crafts, from painting on canvases to decorating biscuits (a great favourite), and from hama beads to collages - the children never stopped.

Being able to go outside again this year was wonderful, giving the children chance to work together in different ways and develop and use other talents and skills.

The children were split into age groups, with both adults and teenagers working with each group. The groups were the Perfect Pandas, Zany Zebras, Mighty Tigers, Elegant Elephants, Mad Monkeys, Bouncing Buffalos and the Kitchen Cuckoos who supplied us with drinks all week.

A special well done to our Jambo Band who led us wonderfully in all our songs. The eldest member of the band was 15 - they were very impressive.

As you all know holiday club doesn’t just happen, it takes months of preparation and hard work, and then an immense amount of work during the week. There were lots of people involved behind the scenes beforehand, the ladies who took crafts home to cut out for us, and those people who helped with the scenery and setting up, and lots more. 91 children attended, with 40 adults and 23 teenagers helpers being involved throughout the week.

Hopefully the message of God’s love has touched everyone involved, all I ask now is that you pray for all those children who attended and hope that they will want to continue to find out more about this love.

Thanks to everyone for all you did for this years club. I can’t tell you how much I appreciate all you did.

Cath Palmer (Children’s worker)