Long weekend

For those of my faithful band of readers that wonder whether I ever get to stop and relax...

We've just come back from a refreshing & invigorating, if a little damp, long weekend in Norfolk celebrating Kate's birthday. Kate celebrates really well and she draws together a great crowd with infectious warmth - even if, by her own admission, some of them would never hang out together otherwise.

It was wonderful. We ate, drank, laughed, got rained on, walked, shopped, watched an air show and generally, lived out in a Norfolk field. It was sad to leave - knowing that the trip continues without us - but duty calls!

Re-energized

So, I mentioned in an earlier post about the new Energize publicity that we've been working hard on recently. Here's a closer look at the new material...

I've personally spent a great deal of time perfecting the DVD giveaway - even down to the fact that I was copying disks on my computer and printing labels one DVD at a time throughout the day...

If you'd like to see a copy of these for yourself, please let me know

Thousands Turn Up To My Birthday

I'm not kidding... Of course, they were all coming to Christian Resources Exhibition but it all counts!

We took our promotional "racetrack", our brand new flyers, book & DVD and a whole pile of foam hands to Sandown Park racecourse for this massive Christian exhibition. I have in the past been rather cynical about the worth of this event for Urban Saints (and perhaps with good reason - it is expensive and hugely time-consuming to organise) but it's fair to say that it was worth us being there. I think we managed to create a stand that was fun and informal but that people wanted to visit and we gave away lots of stuff and took plenty of details.

I worked on the set-up day and then on the key "youthwork-focused" Thursday - my birthday - with the added bonus in 2010 that it was extended hours! Still, my stand-mate Mike bought me chocolate, a Methodist called Jude bought me lunch and my boss took me out for dinner! I was embarrassed about how many people knew me (and I them!) and even my parents and my sister turned up unexpectedly... which was nice!

The day had started bizarrely when I arrived at the office to find one of our regional directors asleep in my room and then to top it all, after a long day, we headed off to the Urban Saints Team Gathering and everyone sang "Happy Birthday" and gave me cake - even if I was too tired to really appreciate it!

The theme parks & the car parks

Ultimate Event was brilliant as usual. It was our third, straight year at this cracking afternoon/evening. The music was great, the weather held out, our leaders zone was packed and we sold loads of merchandise - including the ubiquitous foam hands! This year all we got to see of Alton Towers was the car park but that didn't dampen our spirits... We'll be back again in 2011!

I'm also A MODEL!

Anyone been following the saga of the Urban Saints Hoodie competition?! If so, you'll know that it came to a close this week. It's been a torturous journey involving multiple videos - mostly shot "in secret" - gunge, chaos, voting and in no short measure, the wonder that is Facebook and in particular, the Urban Saints fan page...

The journey ended with me revealing the results in our secure merchandise bunker, wearing (if only for one brief moment) a ladies t-shirt! Apparently, this image was "disturbing" for my colleagues but I think they are jealous of my toned physique and my healthy acceptance of my own feminine side! That, and it's funny, of course...

I'm a model!

My regular followers will (hopefully) have noticed that I've been rather quiet recently. I assure you that this is not because I have been slacking off. Rather, things have been so hectic that update emails and blog posts have got squeezed out. This weekend, I'm off to Lightwater Valley, in Yorkshire, for XLS but after that my most busy period in the whole of 2010 begins to wind down...

In the meantime and in the absence of any other kind of update, I'll be posting some short snippets (with pics) about what I've been up to. Normal service should resume in June!

The above photo is a version of our most recent Energize promotional display - complete with new leaflets, a complimentary resource booklet and DVD and even a working model of the Energize "artwork" (basically a Scalectrix track with some lovingly crafted decoration!). We've been working hard to get this finished recently and it has been traveling around to different events with us. It officially launched at last week's Urban Saints Team Gathering - although elements of it were seen at Ultimate Event at Alton Towers and the Christian Resources Exhibition. More on those later I imagine!

Gold Mining

So much has happened since I last posted - no doubt I'll post a few highlights soon - but wanted to share one thing that really struck me on Friday. We had the second half of our latest Urban Saints Team Gathering and we had a visiting speaker - Rachel Gardner from Romance Academy.

Despite the fact that she is clearly very mistaken about the significance of coffee (don't ask!), Rachel is a very inspiring woman to listen to. Her stories from the Romance Academy projects are enough to bring tears to the eyes and her very obvious passion for her calling is unmistakable. She also referred to a philosophy that should resonate with all those of faith.

Today, at church, I was chatting to someone about why "us Christians" are always portrayed as, or at least assumed to be, "against everything". We pondered whether it is because in general you only hear about Christians in the media when we don't like something. Yet when asked, people often say the Christians they know are good, caring, positive people. So how do we bridge this "reputation-gap" and change this corporate perception then?

Back to Rachel Gardner then... "What we do is like gold-mining. We look for any glimmer of value and worth in a situation and we focus on it. If we find a hint of gold in the dark and dirty rockface, we mine it for all its worth. Then we are affirming what is good and true and noble rather than always being known for what we disapprove of."

If we had more of that kind of thinking and motivation, we might not have such a bad rep, right?! Grab your pick-axes ladies and gents!