Young People`s Newsletter September

Issue 5/2015
Rainbows
The last meeting of the summer term was a very
interesting evening around Tesco's baking, cheese and
fish sections. The Rainbows and Leaders made their own
bread rolls (all with different fillings) and some of them
looked exceptionally good too.
We also learned all about the different fish, where they
came from and what they were called - and finally after a
great deal of cheese tasting (plenty of yucks here) - all
the girls were given a goody bag to go home with.
The Rainbows started this half term off with a Nature
Hunt in the Pool Park – it was a wonderful sunny evening
and everyone had an exciting time. Not too sure if many
of the items were found on the "hunt" list - but plenty of
handstands and cartwheels were performed!
Staying with the keeping fit theme - the girls had a
sports evening one week, and then the following week
we were rained off when we went to the beach to build
sandcastles! So, it was back to the big hall for both
groups of Rainbows to play an assortment of new games
together. There was plenty of running round, shouting and
laughing - and that was just the leaders! Much more fun
when there are twice as many of you!
Our penultimate meeting was a Teddy Bears picnic and
‘Over the Rainbow’ party with biscuits that the Rainbows
had made. Faye and Ruby jumped over the Rainbow and we
wish them both well at Brownies.
We hope that everyone has a wonderful summer holiday
and will return completely refreshed in September for
lots more adventures.
Guides
We had a very enjoyable camp at Scarisbrick at the end
of June. The theme was Jungle Adventure, so the girls
made and did various activities to do with the jungle, they
made blow pipes, totem poles, a journal and a pencil,
animal face masks, and they built a rope bridge and
ladder. They also enjoyed driving the pedal karts, jumping
on the trampoline and riding the Aerial Runway. Along
with other Guide groups in camp we joined with a Scout
group for campfire singing.
Thursday evenings in June and July saw us out and about
enjoying the fine evenings, the Guides made medieval
ballista's, there was a BBQ, outdoor cooking, and a trail
through the village. The Guides doing their Baden-Powell
Award, led a couple of meetings with parachute games
and mini Olympics for the rest of the girls. One evening
saw us meeting with other Guide units from Formby for
our annual Sandcastle competition.
We said good bye to Cassie, she is continuing in Guiding as
a Ranger, and a Young Leader with the Rainbows. We also
said good bye to Helena our Unit helper for the last few
years. She has been an excellent leader with the unit and
we are sorry to lose her, but thank her very much for all
the help and support she has given to the Guide Unit.
Needless to say we will miss her. This means that we are
now also looking for an additional adult to help run the
unit. So if anyone knows of someone who would be willing
to help, please let us know.
Brownies
The Brownies show, "50 years of Magic", was very
successful. The girls really enjoyed the singing and
dancing - some of the songs were taken from "Annie".
The day after the show the girls came to Church parade
and sang to the Church. The congregation also saw, on the
screens, the pictures of the girls’ trip to Colomendy,
together with all their funding raising activities over the
past year. Everyone thought the girls singing was great.
To bring their celebrations for there being a Brownie
pack at Formby Methodist for 50 years and to end the
term on a high note they went roller skating in Southport.
Toddlers
Our summer term ended on 16th July with a special party
when we were delighted that 53 of our toddlers came
along. After doing our craft we all processed from the
Circle Room into the Maple Leaf Room where we enjoyed
wonderful party food.
We were thrilled to welcome 7 day old baby Annabella.
We gave her a book of ‘Baby’s First Prayers’
The morning ended with the presentation of children’s
Bibles to the 13 children who were leaving to go to ‘big
school’ in September: Natalia, Amy, Isla, Louis, Ella, Jack,
Ivuska, Alexander, Adam, Nicholas, Joey, James and
Samuel. We will miss each one but do hope to keep in
touch with them and their families through our different
children’s activities, whether it’s through the Uniformed
Organisations, our Sunday morning ‘Adventurers’, TLC, or
Footsteps held on certain Saturday afternoons.
Harvest party!
Who likes going to parties? I
think nearly all of us do! Well
Church is having a party on
Saturday 10th October and you
and your family are invited.
There will be games to play as
well as food. Last year lots of
children came as well as plenty
of adults and everyone had fun.
If you’re free come and join in, we’d love to see you.
Have a look on the back page for all the details and colour
in this flower if you have time!
Adventurers
Summer is time for adventures and
holidays away from home and the
children's news included travel
plans to Wales, Channel Isles,
Spain, France, and family across
the country. We look forward to
hearing about their holidays and
seeing them all safely returned.
On Sundays we have been hearing
about people in the Bible who went
on journeys too. We packed our
rucksack and pretended to camp out with Abraham and
Sarah, to sleep under the stars and dream with Jacob
and follow the story of Jesus on our map. We called in at
Bethlehem where Jesus was born, Nazareth where he
grew up, the River Jordon where he was baptised, The
Sea of Galilee where he stopped a storm, Capernaum
where he helped a little girl, Jericho where he met
Zacchaeus, and Sychar where he met a woman at the well.
September is a time of new beginnings and we will be
marvelling at how God created the world and everything
in it. The children face new beginnings too. They have
been excited to tell us about their new schools or classes,
new teachers or uniforms. As they move into nursery,
infants, juniors and even high school we pray that God
will bless them all with new opportunities and friends to
enjoy and confidence to face different situations
and challenges. Good Luck to you all.
Junior Badminton
Junior Badminton starts again on Friday 11th September
at 6:30pm. The club is open to children in year 5 and
above – new members welcome. If you’re interested in
playing or improving your skills please just pop in.
Footsteps: summer special and craft work
Below, TLC
Footsteps
Did you have a good summer? As it was summer we had a
Footsteps summer special one Thursday morning. It was
great to see so many children come with their parents
and Grandparents. The morning started with a treasure
hunt around Church and then plenty of games.
We then heard the story of Naaman. Naaman was a very
successful solider, he was one of the bosses. People
thought he had everything, but he had a problem. He had
leprosy. This was a very bad skin disease, so bad that
when someone had this illness nobody wanted to go near
them. Derek was pretending to be Naaman and his arms
and face were white, to show us that leprosy affected all
of your skin.
Naamans wife had a servant girl. When she saw Naaman
she told him that he needed to travel a long way to see a
prophet called Elisha so that he could be healed. Naaman
did this but when he arrived at Elisha’s, Elisha sent a
messenger to tell Naaman to wash in the river seven
times. Naaman was really mad Elisha hadn’t come out to
see him and then he is told to wash in a dirty muddy river
seven times to clean himself. That didn’t make sense did
it? He was that mad he stomped off.
One of Naaman’s servants then said to him ‘If you were
told to do something difficult you’d do it, so why not give
this a go?’ Naaman thought about it and decided he might
as well give it a go. So he did. Derek made us all count the
number of times he ‘dipped in the river’. We counted 1,
then 2 and carried on until we got to 7. Do you know
what? Derek got up for the final time and his arms and
face were clean, just like Naaman in the story.
Naaman was healed because he had done what God had
told him to do.
To help remind us of the story there was plenty to make
including a horse and carriage, a Naaman salt dough model
and a chocolate krispie cake with a jelly baby in (to
remind us of Naaman in the muddy water), as well as lots
of games to play.
There was then the family challenge. Each family had to
wrap someone up in a toilet roll to make it look as though
they were covered in bandages!
The next Footsteps is Saturday 26th September at the
usual time of 3:30pm – 6pm. Grab an adult and come along,
there’ll be plenty to do!
Explorers
Are you scared of anything? The other week we thought
of things that people are scared of. Spiders were on the
list as well as thunder and lightning.
We then had a quiz. Phobia is a grown up word for fears.
Can you work out what each of the following
fears/phobias are?
1. Astraphobia
2. Trypanophobia
3. Pteromerhanophobia
We found it hard working out what they were. We’ll give
you a clue. One is the fear of thunder and lightning, the
other a fear of flying and finally the fear of injections.
Go on see if you can work them out!
Do you think Jesus’ friends, the Disciples, were ever
scared? They were. Once, after a busy day, Jesus and
the disciples went off in a boat. Jesus was tired and fell
asleep. While he was asleep a storm started. The
disciples were very scared, even though some of them
were fishermen who were used to storms. They were so
scared that they woke Jesus up. When Jesus woke up he
immediately calmed the storm. The disciples were
amazed; Jesus had to be very special as no one else could
calm a storm.
We all go through tricky times in life. It’s hard when
you’re in the middle of difficult times but remember
Jesus is there with us, we just need to talk to him.
As we all go back to school or off to University
remember, Jesus is with us. He also sends people to help
us, parents and friends as well as others. You’re not on
your own.
Did you manage to answer the quiz questions?
Astraphobia is the fear of thunder and lightning,
Trypanophobia the fear of injections and
Pteromerhanophobia the fear of flying.
Well done if you got all three right – we didn’t!
Toddlers Little Church (TLC)
As is our custom, on the first Thursday of the summer
holidays we welcomed our toddlers, their parents and
grandparents into church for a special time together. It
is also lovely to welcome older brothers and sisters who
always seem to enjoy our activities and are happy to help
the younger children.
Our activities this time were based on the parable which
Jesus told of the wise and foolish house-builders, and the
children made stick puppets of the appropriate Mister
Men.
To make it more understandable for our little ones we
called them Mr Wrong (wrong shoes and gloves) and Mr
Right (you've guessed it, everything matched!). After
this they went to help make a collage to display their
coloured pictures of the story. Doris told the story and
then Edna played the piano for us to sing, of course, "The
wise man built his house upon the rock" with suitable
actions, and more of our favourite songs.
Before we went to share our snack time we gave Ethan a
Bible to keep as he moves to nursery in September.
After our snack we enjoyed playing with the cars, bikes
and prams in the hall, time to run around and generally
letting off steam! The grown-ups are looking forward to
seeing our younger children when they come back in
September to Toddlers.
Our next TLC will be on Thursday 29th October. See you
then.