K*E*S*W*I*C*K 11th-18th July 2009

I'M BACK!!

Soooo, I survived a week way, way up North and all of the associated travelling. Today is my day off before GRADUATION tomorrow, so I'm having a rest, catching up on real life and sorting out what I'm going to wear tomorrow. Needless to say, it is raining and so there has had to be a rethink in the outfit department. Oh well.

Sooo, Keswick.

Well, I took the train to Stoke on Trent on Friday (10th) and overnighted there. We made yummy cake to take to Keswick and sorted out some of the crafty stuff. On the Saturday, we got to Keswick around midday and went to bag beds in the girls dorm. Good plan as the bottom bunks are much sought after!! On the way up we saw lots of the Lakes such as Grasmere and Derwentwater. Ruth took me on an afternoon tour of Keswick and we ate our lunch on the shores of Derwentwater. When most people had arrived we got our IDs and t-shirts, had a little meet n greet session and had dinner. Then we headed off together to the evening meeting.

That evening meeting would be the only one we would go to, as the purpose of our being there was to allow the parents to go to the meetings! Anyway, Sunday went like this:

Up, shower, dress in glorious blue Keswick team t-shirt, go to prayer meeting, have breakfast. Then we headed off to the the MAin Tent for the Morning Meeting where Tom Putt (our leader) was preaching and we were bigging up the kids/youth work and helping out with registration. Me and 4 others ended up going on stage and doing the actions to a song I'd never heard of - in front of a couple of thousand people!! Then we were free until our first real kids work meeting that evening - with the 8-11s!

That evening we introduced the kids to the theme for the night meetings "Faith that does stuff". They took a structure something like this: registration and outdoor games, welcome, think tanks (little buzz groups lead by two leaders), singing, the talk, singing, think tank, GAMES.

Now the games were things like the Generation Game (led by Cam), King of the Leaders (won by Tom Beaumont), Gladiators, Gunge or Glory etc. We did that each evening from Sunday-Friday.

On the weekdays our timetable was a bit like this:
7am: Up, join queue for shower, shower, dress.
7.45am or 8am: Prayer meeting for 15mins
8am or 8.15am: Breakfast!
9am: Departure for the Main Convention Centre.
9.30-10.30am: Set up the age group venues. For us this was preparing the craft and the kings for the story, listening to the story so we could tell it again, having our free cup of tea, putting out the outdoor toys and setting up registration.
10.45am: The first parents/kids show up and some of us are playing, others leading kids in and taking coats/drinks etc.
12.30pm: Kids are collected, we tidy up and head back to Rawnsley.
1.15pm: Lunch at Rawnsley
2pm til 5pm: FREE TIME! I wanted to go to the Pencil Museum but never got around to it :-( Still, there were a few nice shops - all with sales - to look around!
5pm: Our bible teaching from the main speaker (an American chap called Dale Ralph Davies) on 1 Kings. This was followed by our briefing for the evening programme and dinner.
7pm: Evening programme for 8-11s
9pm: Kids leave. We pray and debrief.
9.30pm: Freedom again! A couple of nights we went to the chippie, or there were card games or films to be watched etc.

It was an exceptionally tiring week especially given the amount of travelling required on my part!
Saturday saw us leave Rawnsley at 9am for Booths, the supermarket, where we had breakfast altogether. People left periodically over the course of the morning and I left around 11am. I got the bus from Keswick bus station at 11.20am and got to Penrith at just gone 12pm - the scenery from the bus was gorgeous! There was an hour wait at the station for the train to London Euston, but I was chatting to this missionary lady I'd met on the bus who then gave me some of her food, so the time flew past!
Then it was the Tube from Euston to Charring Cross (I was so lucky - almost every other line except the Northern Line was suspended!) and the train to Hastings from there! Total travelling time: 7hrs!

Grat week though. Amazing scenery. Wonderful kids team. Might even go again next year!