General Advice | Booking form | Letter to parents | Minibus hire | Programme
The Weekend away
Aim of this session
This is near-essential for any youth group. As a bonding experience, a time for spiritual growth and a time for the destruction of the sanity of any youth workers involved, the youth weekend away is a hallowed and wonderful Christian tradition.
Preparation
“Fail to prepare, prepare to fail” as my business studies teacher often said. Booking a place to hold the event is your first concern. Camping is only for the brave or the stupid (we're not talking about a “bible week” here...), so we'll assume that you'll be booking a weekend retreat type place. Five important things:
- Book the venue out well in advance:
Book the cheapest place at the cheapest time of year! Remember: Insects and the howling wind and the pummelling rain and ever-present mud and general coldness are all wonderfully character building for you and your youth group. An example booking form can be found here: (see booking form) - Write a letter to parents:
In order to save yourself hassle, make sure their parents know exactly where their children need to be, when and (especially) what they need to bring. An example letter can be found here: (see draft parental letter) - Book suitable transport:
This is wholly dependant on the size of your group. For large youth groups, taking a coach load down ludicrously steep and narrow country lanes is always a great way to start a weekend away. Smaller groups should arrange a minibus or lots of cars. Parents will often help out here. An example booking form can be found here: (see booking form) - Youth workers.
Make sure you have enough, and that duties are shared. You'll have enough to deal with when the trouble fun starts. Make sure you have several meetings together to work out what is going on and who is doing what. And eat biscuits. Lots of them. Nothing sustains a Youth workers interest like biscuits. - Make a detailed programme.
I can't stress that enough. It'll be your guiding light for the weekend. I've included an example. Make sure it's full of really dodgy clip art. They love that sort of thing. (see programme draft)
Time for action
“Already? How did this creep up so fast?” you'll mutter as you wend your way through the middle of nowhere on a winter-blackened Friday evening. At this point you'll realise that you are chronically under-prepared, and that you have also left your tumble drier running at home.
The aftermath
At the end of the day, it's all character building, isn't it! Well? Isn't it? Upon arrival home, you'll collapse on the bed. For the next few moments, one of your eyes will twitch uncontrollably. You will then fall into a coma-like sleep until Monday morning, when you have to get up for work. Monday evening will also be busy, contacting elders and being harassed by parents for the reasons behind:
- Why Graham has a broken arm.
- Why Emma has three new boyfriends.
- Why the church minibus has two flat tyres, a broken rear axle and is covered in cow pat.
Next >>