Holiday Club 2011 Report

See photographs:

Monday

Tuesday

Thursday

Friday

Sports

Monday morning the sun was shining… Over 100 children and their parents/carers were due to attend the Messy Church part of Holiday Club and nearly 80 juniors were ready to go into their themed activity. There was an air of calm excitement. Holiday Club 2011 had a very different feel to it already.

The plan of the day was worship for the junior children who then split up into their activities and went off to four different corners of TPS to tackle dance, drama, arts and crafts and sports. Messy Church children – all the under 8’s – then had their own worship slot with songs and a talk geared at a more appropriate level. The younger children then had the opportunity to try Playball sessions, do Messy Church style crafts, play indoors with toys loaned from Petersfield Toy Library or make use of the paths around the sports hall to ride circuits on bikes, trikes, scooters and little cars.

Worship on Monday was led by Father Hollins of St Laurence who engaged the juniors well in the first slot and told the Messy Church parents that they were doing a wonderful job raising their children in the second slot. Everyone rather liked Father Hollins I think! Father Hollins had the job of exploring the meaning of Church with the children.

Tuesday saw more sunshine – so much sunshine that the junior sports leaders took a while to get motivated! Will Hughes of St Peter’s was given the task of answering the question ‘Who is God?’ during the worship slots and sent the junior children away with lots of ‘why’ questions. Junior dancers used ribbons to dance with, arts and crafts continued with their T-shirt designs and wall hanging and the drama juniors continued to work towards a showpiece for Friday. Messy Church had primordial slime to experience as well as looking at God the creator of the world through world cakes, magnets, clay Adam’s and star glitter globes to name a few of the crafts on offer. Playball sessions were very popular and chalk creations covered the path outside.

Wednesday – another scorcher of a day. Who is Jesus? Today it was the turn of Judith Bee of St Mary’s who led the worship slots. Judith was impressed that the younger Messy Church children far outstripped the knowledge of the junior children in her interactive talks. Craft ranged from nail crosses, fluffy sheep, edible babies, roll the stone away pictures to water play with fish and hand made boats.

Thursday was wet; raining buckets but that did not dampen the spirit of the children. Today’s theme was ‘Who is the Holy Spirit?’ John Callaghan, the current PACT chairman and Life Church leader, led the worship recapping the previous stories and moving on to the children swaying in the wind and having little flames of Holy Spirit above their heads. Junior sports were undeterred by the rain and played games outside on the playground area before moving into drier conditions for the second half of the morning. Dance juniors used paint to dance through and make patterns, and the drama juniors held dress rehearsals. The art and craft juniors finished 3 wonderful wall hangings which were hung in the worship space for all to see on the final day. Despite all 100 younger children being in the sports hall for most of the morning there was still a peaceful atmosphere and you could hear when someone was talking to you!

Friday – celebration day - and the sun was shining. Everyone, parents included watched 2 drama performances, a dance show, a walking art and craft exhibition with children wearing T shirts they had designed and sports slide show. There were many sighs of sympathy at the photos of the sports juniors playing in the rain. The worship slot took the form of a celebration of the week with various people offering their thoughts about the week and then John Lucas and his guitar led some rousing singing. Bouncy castles, soft play and a bouncy assault course were very popular with the children and the family picnic on the field ended a truly wonderful week.

Huge thanks must go to the leaders of the junior activities – Lauren and her team from Kings Arms did a great week of sports, Vicki and Louise were inspirational in the arts and crafts, Sarah leading the drama was fantastic and Eleanor achieved amazing results from the young dancers. Thanks must also go to Kerrie and the Playball team who delivered six sessions each day to the younger children. Safety of the children was monitored with the help of orange builders fencing loaned by Travis Perkins ad TJ Inflatable Fun to whom again we are immensely grateful.