Time to think

I've had some brain space over Easter to mull over my project and the issue of what it means to run it in my spare time. I wanted to log it as part of my ongoing reflection before it gets lost in the pressure of juggling other work now hols are over...

I know my course tutor is keen that any project be sufficiently lightweight to ensure longevity and a healthy non-reliance on central resources as there will be less and less to go round in future church circles.

While I do see his point, I wonder if this lightweight approach is fine for certain mission contexts but not others. For example, for projects working with children, elderly frail or learning disabled, I'm not sure a lightweight model is as easy or appropriate. More thought needs to happen in planning, preparation, safety, the logistics of getting the group to meet in one place.

I'm aware too that these groups share a similarity in that they have two groups within their sub-cultures i.e. the dependency of the firt group means that parents and carers are very much party of the day to day subculture but their needs are not the same as the first group. One could argue, any project working with one of these groups is actually working with two, therefore doubling up on the task of building relationships and taking more time.

Add to that, it will take even longer to grow a project if members have little initial connection to you.

So, light weight model works well for Christian adults looking to set up a project where they know each other, can sit around and drink coffee and chew over deeper life/faith issues. But not everyone fits this category. In short, does this lightweight model discriminate against some of our more marginalised groups in society?

The irony is that many of the creative projects working with these marginalised groups in society don't have full-time staffing because they are not deemed important enough to warrant it on their own. So I'm realistic enough to not try and argue for full-time leaders. One of the reasons some of these things have kept going is that a team has formed to sustain the work. Ideal really.

However, what do you do when you've been asked to start a project as one person (as I have) and/or the place from which you then hope to recruit team members has a culture that lacks confidence in volunteering, lacks imagination in what something might grow into or lacks free time to give to something. (A small traditional church, for example.) You're on your own!

It leads me onto another issue that I think I've touched on before. Some of these well-meaning recommended fxc processes involving stages that you develop over time don't seem to work too well when resources are limited. Three of four stages of lightweight approaches begins to look quite heavy.

I also can't get away from the fact that to start a project and make relationships can never be really light weight. Sure, the logistics can be. A meeting can cost little, take little time to organise but – and here comes the crunch - can you do lightweight relationships? Surely, not? OK, no need for everyone to become BFF but it takes time to listen to each other, to learn about each other, much less trust each other. Otherwise it'll just be shallow, surely. If what differentiates a fxc from an outreach project is that exploring deeper issues happens within the fxc and not 'main' or 'real' church, then I'm not sure light weight will cut it.

So what do I conclude? Aim for light weight in a way that doesn't require full-time leaderhip is good but to imagine a project can be developed into a long-term effective community at no cost is naive.

A glorious finish!

Phew, well we did it. Last night was an organisational triumph. Glad I had done so much in advance and worked out teams/delegated roles etc for every half hour slot because it was all quite mental. Having said that, the kids were amazing - really focused despite their palpable off-the-scale levels of excitement. All the family members came as hoped. A nice mix of brothers, sisters, mums, dads and even two grandparents. Everyone seemed quite relaxed and happy to be there and not awkward as I feared - to be in a church building etc. I advertised the Good Friday children's service and 7 out of 20 kids are coming. (I'm making hot cross buns as part of the service.)

A friend (one of the mums) commented that at some of the messy church things she's seen, you never gets the adults eating with the kids which is a shame. Too early plus other family members needs feeding at home later anyway. Therefore it felt really special to have everyone sitting down and eating together last night. You couldn't do it every week but the gift of last night is that we were able to make it feel special - like a family meal out to celebrate something. Tablecloths, menus, music in the background, flowers on the table, schloer to drink all helped. The church warden kindly bought all the kids in the club an easter egg each to say thank you for their hard work which led to much jumping up and down with excitement. One child had even bought me a present to say thanks.

Washing/clearing up took ages, sabataged somewhat by drinking champagne with the team toward the end to celebrate all we'd achieved. And my brain is still a bit scrambled now from the intensity of it and how well it went. Thanks again to all who helped - I couldn't have done it without you. So here ends my pioneering project for now. Just got to add up the final sums and think about feeding back to my funders/course mates. All good.

One day to go...

One day til the madness begins...the last session (boo hoo) of cookery club is tomorrow to which parents, siblings, grandparents are invited to stay for a meal the kids have prepared at 5pm (normal pick up time). The kids are SO excited. They keep coming up to me in the playground when I drop Natalie off in the morning to talk about it.

I am pleased to say that I have come through my sleepless night phase and the general sense of panic I was feeling last week about cooking so much food in such a small oven in such little time. I've got it all planned out to the last spring of parsley. Now I say...bring it on.

Mexican

I think the session last week was the best one yet. I felt the balance of fun and calm was just right. I gave them a fairly complicated recipe (nachos and vegetable fajitas) and they coped well. They washed up without asking although they needed a bit of nagging to finish tidying their work space. I had a craft ready for the early finishers as a distraction from the usual climbing the walls and falling over each other. It's a shame they can't all work at the same speed like robots, really… (only kidding) but there is something annoying about the kids with more energy and speed taking up more of your attention because you've got to remind them to stop chasing about or find things they can do while the slower ones catch up. Some of my slower members are so sweet and I would love to be able to give them more time as they tell me things that are happening in their lives.

My thoughts are now consumed with the final session in 10 days time which is the meal they've invited their families to. It's a logistical nightmare. I was awake from 1-5am on Thursday night scribbling down times, menus and table plans. We're feeding a 3 course meal to 50...I must be mad...

Just read this morning a transcript of Archbishop of Canterbury's talk at a conference a few weeks ago in Lincoln. Really good, I thought. He reminds us that projects like these shouldn't be about entertainment, problem-solving or quick fixes. I'll email it to anyone who's interested.

Salmon and mango salsa

Last Thursday's session went well, I think. The main cooking bit went extremely well. I emphasised at the beginning that I wanted a calm and quiet cooking session and they did brilliantly. The recipe was just the right level of complicated and looked so impressive in their plastic boxes to take home. They enjoyed the 'guess the fruit' game - pomegranet, passion fruit, lychees, papaya. My husband mischeiveously asked me afterwards if I taught them about similies in Song of Songs ;) I assured him I did not. And they enjoyed the fruit craft with cocktail sticks/umbrellas and bits of melon and kiwi cut with cookie cutters.

I was also chuffed that a few days beforehand, one of my kids came up to me in the playground to ask what they were making and when I told her, ran off to tell her little group of friends (who are also members) who listened in elated attentiveness to what we were making. I love the fact that I'm responsible for creating such excitement for them.

All that said, they were still extremely giddy after washing up. Because they finishing clearing up at different times, this means they end up in the church lounge just messing about while we wait for the slower ones. We've had an idea though! We're going to set up an activity for them to do after washing up in the hope that will keep them focused. I'm very grateful that my project mentor is a teacher. She says this is all very normal for working of kids of this age!

I'm still chewing over what will happen after this phase draws to a close. I'd love to build on but I simply don't know yet whether we have enough resource (by that I mean volunteers, interest, funding again for next year).

I'm also aware of the difficulty of assessing whether a project has worked or not. By what criteria do you decide? Also, 6 months is a very short time-frame when building trusted relationships with a lot of families you didn't know at the start.
Way too short.

Barbeque chicken and Valentine's Day

Well, I'm quite relieved. Yesterday went much better than the previous session. One of my helpers from last time wasn't put off by hamburger chaos (thankfully) and came and helped again. I was also more careful to explain what specific help I needed from her and she was brilliant. She's willing to help at all sessions which is fantastic.

After last time, I kept recipe/ingredients really simple and the barbeque chicken was pretty much just mixing up the sauce that they then poured over the cooked chicken (and then popped back in the oven for a bit more cooking time).

The up side of keeping the recipe simple is that clearing up was minimal (after the children left at 5.00, we were all cleared up by 5.10). The down side is that we'd all finished cooking at 4.10 with 50 minutes still to fill!? However, they enjoyed the Ready Steady Cook game (they had to design a recipe from a bag of random ingregients and the winner got to take ingredients home) and they LOVED the sweety bracelet making which took about 25 minutes of quiet concentration. The quiz was less of a success as it was hard for all of the kids to stay engaged. I also got them all to lie down on the carpet, relax and listen to Shakespeare's Sonnet 18. It took about 10 minutes plus a stern talking to to get them all to listen, lie down and be quiet. Honestly, it's like herding cats...

It is really hard to know how hard to come down on them. With the extra kids that have joined, the group is noticeably louder and more unwieldy. If any of you have any tips on quietening/calming methods, do add your comments.

Yesterday was interesting in that it was parents evening across at the school at the same time (I went over for my daughter after cooking was over.) So more parents popped in and out during the session. One mum and three teenage sisters stayed for pretty much the whole time (although there was a fair amount of to-ing and fro-ing in and out of the front door for cigarettes and mobile phone chat) And the mum and baby brother of my 16 year old helper stayed too. At the time, I couldn't help but wonder if all these other people present just made it all more stressful i.e. having to watch the door for security, small children around, increased noice level etc but on reflection, I realise how lovely it is too. To have family members come and hang out with us and help/do crafts is what it's all about, isn't it? I feel abashed at not having realised it at the time and reminds me over unhelpful leadership tendencies that want to control outcomes rather than see what delightfully unpredictable elements emerge.

So i think I'll go for a slightly longer recipe next time, that increases time they are cooking but doesn't increase set up/clearing up too much. I'm thinking baked salmon (they can have a happy time with lemon, butter or maybe maple syrup?? and foil wrapping) and then they can tackle some sort of simple sauce.

My thoughts are also wandering to the future. We finish sessions at Easter so what next? We have a new incumbent coming in April and it might be interesting to chat with her about what next/else may be possible. I'll keep you posted.

Food for thought

I blog with a heavy heart. Last session felt like hard work. It was an important learning curve and I take heart that the best way you can learn is by having a go.

Things got complicated a couple of days before when I discovered two of my regular helpers couldn't make it. After a very restless Tuesday night, thankfully, two new people were able to help (one a parent) but neither of them knew how to work the oven (the oven has amind of its own – something to do with the way the timer works or doesn't work!?) and neither were the sort of people to take charge if the kids are getting giddy and I can't be in two places at the same time. Don't get me wrong, I am VERY grateful for their help – it couldn't have happened without them – but I think I am just reflecting back the pressure of me as the overall leader when there are new volunteers who have never been before.

I was also too ambitious in what I asked the kids to make. Hamburgers and salad. And of course I realise in hindsight, the more complicated the recipes, the longer and louder everything takes and the more paraphernalia that needs clearing/washing up after. My 3 new kids seemed to really enjoy it but that of course added to the complexity of the session. In hindsight, it all seems so obvious that I planned too much but I think my stress about volunteers made me partially blind to this.

I also learnt from this session that making napkin swans doesn't really work with paper napkins (cloth napkins with an iron works best) and that children find it hard to remember dates in their heads if they aren't next week. Fair enough. I've had a few confused parents ask about the end of term meal assuming that is was this week from what their kids told them rather than the date I announced of march 25th.

I'm very glad of the regular contact I have with the kids and their parents at the school gate. It takes the pressure off the sessions themselves to get to know people as well as the cooking. I've had lots of short but good conversations with parents about how well their kids are doing. They tell me their kids absolutely love it which is so good to hear – it makes it all worthwhile!

I do think the team/volunteers thing is an interesting issue. I've heard it said that when something is your idea, it's always difficult to get help from others. It all makes me wonder if I missed a trick at the beginning of the process by not embarking on a more consultative process that other people would feel was their idea as well. As it was, Abi the curate and I dreamt it up together. I wonder if anyone would have wanted to get involved in the dreaming stage, even if I had asked them?!?

An older lady at the church made comment that those members of the congregation who are older have served the church faithfully for many years making tea, doing flowers, washing linen, children's work etc. A lot of them feel its time for the younger ones now. Problem is there are precious few younger ones and many of them work as well as raise families.

Suddenly it all seems very bleak for small churches if they want to start something new. I realise that my club is just one stage of a much-needed longer process of engagement. If I read Singlehurst (SRK) or Lings (arches) right, ideally any further stage (or stages) has to happen while the first stage continues too (running concurrently). Suddenly, that feels like a massive amount to sustain for a small church.