The Morgan-Gurrs

Many people have asked how to pray for us while we are at Spring Harvest.
Below is the text of what we are giving out to those who receive our prayer letters:

Praying for Kay & Steve at Spring Harvest

Week 1: 3rd - 8th April:
Kay is the Site Special Needs Consultant (Kids and Adults). Steve is a VIP guest, helping Kay and doing two performance slots in ‘Skyline’ (7^th April, 3.15 – 3.45pm and 9.30 – 10pm )

Week 2: 8th - 13th April:
Kay is the Site Special Needs Consultant (Kids and Adults). Steve is a VIP guest, helping Kay and doing two performance slots in ‘Skyline’ (12^th April, 3.15 – 3.45pm and 9.30 – 10pm )

Week 3: 13th - 18th April:
Kay and Steve leading Whizz Kids.
Also leading a ‘marriage’ seminar on 16th in the afternoon

Specific information:

2nd April (Good Friday) is the final set up day, and this is the day we will arrive on site. (Other set up teams and head office staff will have been there a while before!)

2nd-3rd : Kay will be checking venues for accessibility, meeting with the children and youth special needs teams, Training the stewards and speaking teams on dealing with those guests who have additional needs, and making sure everything is in place for those guests.

Kay also has responsibility for mentoring the special needs volunteer teams in the youth programmes for the two weeks.

Guests start to arrive on 3rd April in the afternoon – This will be Kay’s busiest day. Changeover day on 8th  April is also a very busy day!

Kay’s work is very varied over these two weeks:
Talking with parents of children with additional needs if their child isn’t coping/settling, making sure children’s specific needs are addressed, advising special needs coordinators in children and youth venues, Making sure adults that need additional support in various venues are helped to access the programme (Access, induction loop, signers, large print words etc, etc) Basically – if a child or adult had an additional need, and are having difficulties – Kay is the person they speak to.

The ability to be in three places at once would be very useful – that’s where Steve comes in! At the end of each week she has to make sure reports are written plus noting ideas for next year.

Whizz Kids Programme on Week Three:
There will be a total of 41 people on team. The majority of the team have never served on a Whizz Kids team before.

The children we have are aged 4-7 years old (Only 4 year olds who have been at school for one term)

The team arrive at lunch time, and we start registering children at 2pm until 8.30 pm. We also need to train the team during the afternoon. Because of the cost of hiring vans, we can’t get the van to site until after 2 pm, so set up is going to be quite stressful!

The first children’s programme runs on the 14th.

Timings are: on 14th- 17th

7.30 am – Team prep, set up, devotions, rehersals etc.

9.40am – 1pm – The programme is running, but the last child is usually on their way by 1.15/1.30.

We then have to pack up the venue and have a debrief, then get to lunch by 2pm….. It’s quite tight on timing!

For the team, the afternoon is free, but various team are expected to do babysitting in the evenings. Kay and Steve are generally busy with team and programme stuff for the whole of each day.

The 18th is different: The programme runs 9.10 – 11.30, after which we have to pack up the venue, and load the van ready to go back to Leicester.

Kay and Steve will have been up from before 6 am on this last day as they have to have their chalet cleared before breakfast. With the long journey home, it’s a very tiring day, so any help with the unpacking at the Meadows in the evening would be much appreciated!

We’ve just noticed we didn’t do an update on our visit to Latvia!

With all the preparation for Spring Harvest, the visit to Latvia, and the many other things we are called upon to do, unfortunately writing our blog came at the bottom of the list. We hope you have been following Kay’s twitter updates on the right of this page, as they have photos and a running commentary on what we have been up to.

The visit to Latvia was awesome. The team over there is growing very fast, and they have some lovely folk involved with all aspects of their work. Touch camp starts very soon, and planing for all their other camps is coming on well.

The purpose of our visit was to attend their annual members meeting, to encourage, help and advise, and spend some time with our lovely director over there and her new husband.

We leave for Minehead on Good Friday, leaving the house in the very capable hands of our house sitters.

On weeks one and two, Kay will be the Site Special Needs Consultant, and Steve is classed as a ‘VIP’ guest(!) He will be doing two performance slots in the skyline each week. If you’re there, check the Harvest news to see which days and what time, and come and encourage him. He’ll also be helping Kay with her role as usual.

On week three we will be once again leading Whizz Kids – and that’s the role that takes so much time, preparation, planning and so much of our sanity!!

Please pray for us – for wisdom, integrity, safety and peace for all three weeks, and for the whole team (Most of whom are new to Whizz Kids) on week three. Many of our leadership team at Whizz Kids are either new or have taken on different roles – please remember them in your prayers too.

Do keep following the twitter updates, and we will try to update the blog regularly whilst we are on site!

We’ve been on a lot of motorways, A roads and B roads in the last week!

Last Sunday we drove down to Hassocks, ready for an early meeting on Monday morning in Worthing, and drove back in time for tea in Leicester.

We managed a day at home before going to Ross on Wye for a couple of days to celebrate our 14th Wedding anniversary – a welcome break amid all the busyness!

Tomorrow evening (Sunday), Steve’s youngest son, James is to be baptised. James’ journey has been a long one, and his testimony is awesome. He is quite nervous and would appreciate prayer. We will be taking a few tissues along to the service………!

On Wednesday we will be back on the motorways – in the evening we will be at a camps taster evening at Dalesdown, and then on Thursday morning we will be flying out to Latvia for the CW Latvia annual members’ meeting. (leaving our trusty house sitters in place to look after things back home). We fly back on Monday 8th.

Do keep an eye on the twitter updates (On the right of this page) as we will try to keep twittering from Latvia!

Kay is doing some research at the moment about bullying and how the Church community helps children and young people who are bullied.

If you have a moment – could you look at the page about this and answer some questions?

Thankyou!

Our team conference (5 -7th Feb) at Dalesdown was great! A lovely time of fellowship all round. It was great to have Graham and Steph Reed with us, as well as the newly married Iveta with her hubby Andris, over from Latvia. It was also wonderful to have David Iliffe, the founder of Children Worldwide with us briefly – he is very frail now, and finds it difficult to remember who people are. But on the year we were to present the vision for the future – it was a privilege to have him there.

The food was absolutely awesome – which is always helpful! Add to that the fact that we had planned in plenty of time to just chat and drink coffee/tea. It’s always so good to meet up with all of our members and hear what they have been doing, and to encourage each other in our many ministries.

The new vision and plans for the future were presented and very well received.  All the members were enthused and excited about it all, and our newer members were able to see the amazing history we have and how the past and the future tie in together.

It’s always difficult to describe what Children Worldwide is about and how we got to where we are, just because we do so many things! So it has been a good exercise to think it through and write it down as part of the vision for the future.

One of our friends from church came up with a very good description of Children Worldwide this week: “You’re a bit like a crocheted patchwork blanket – each square beautiful in it’s own right, but each one essential to the look of the whole blanket”. They were right – each member with their own amazing sphere of work, but each one vital in the make up of the organisation!

Since our last blog we have been at the Children’s Ministry/Family Ministry ‘Hand in Hand’ conference in Eastbourne, had various meetings, been to the Spring Harvest Team preparation Day in Derby, and are now in the south, Having had a Family Foundation Trust board meeting last night.

The Hand in Hand conference was excellent. Over 100 packs about Children Worldwide were given out, Steve did really well with his seminar on Puppetry (oodles of excellent feedback!), and many good conversations were had.

The Spring Harvest team preparation day was very useful – all we need to do now is see how we can make some of the themes work for 5 – 7 year olds. We’ll fill you in on other discussions as and when we know more…..

The Board meeting was one of the shortest we have attended – but a good one!

Tomorrow Kay is doing the Child Protection training for staff and volunteers at Dalesdown and then meeting up with one of our lovely colleagues for lunch.

Our full team conference is this weekend, preceded by the Children Worldwide management group meeting on Friday morning – but more of that nearer the time!

You may have seen on our diary that we are running Whizz Kids for Spring Harvest in Minehead on Week three. (13th – 18th April)

This is the group for the 5 – 7 year olds, is great fun and a wonderful experience for both kids and volunteers!

Because of the school holiday dates  this year, and with moving site from Skegness we have lost many of our regular team. Many of them have family and their children will be back at school, others are teachers or students who cannot make it either.

If you can be free that week, and fancy an amazing opportunity to work with children, (And don’t mind going through all the safeguarding checks) go to the Spring Harvest Volunteers page to register an interest.

We’d love to have you!!

Of course if you don’t feel comfortable working with kids, there’s lots of other roles you can volunteer for on the same page.

Meanwhile – we have the site visit tomorrow……. Minehead and back in a day – interesting!

Our diary dates until April have been added again – and hopefully they will stay there this time!

A text version of our news letter is also there, along with a link to the full colour version with photos.

Today should be a snow day – but when you work from home, snow days are just not the same!!

Tomorrow we’re at Glenmere school in Wigston doing an assembly, that is unless they have a snow day!

Steve is currently planning his seminar on puppetry for the Children’s Ministry and Family Ministry ‘Hand in Hand’ conference (Still spaces – and has an excellent programme – go if you can!) and Kay is putting together everything needed for the Children Worldwide stand. If you’re going to the conference, do come and see us – our stand is in the food and drink area.

Do keep checking our twitter updates (on the left) we try to update with every thing we do. If you want to follow us on twitter, our profile names are KayMorganGurr and SteveMorganGurr

Keep warm and keep safe!

Oh dear – it seems our last couple of posts have disappeared – including our up to date diary and our latest new news letter!

We will remedy this as soon as possible, but in the meantime…..

Happy new year to you all!

We’ve hit the ground running this year, with all sorts of things keeping us busy: new publicity to get out, new information for a newly designed Children Worldwide website to write, people to mentor and support and teaching material to write for Spring Harvest!

Today we started the latest assembly run with two assemblies – one in the morning and one in the afternoon. This term we are looking at Naaman and the servant girl. The kids were great – if a little excitable! In the first school, we have to walk through the key stage one classrooms to get to the assembly hall – causing excited mayhem before we had even started! Hopefully, even with having lots of fun, we sent them back in a calmer state than the one they arrived in.

Meanwhile – back to the emails……..

The busyness of Assemblies, meetings, all age services and management of Children Worldwide continues apace!

Everything feels fresh and exciting, not just in our own work with kids, but with the future plans for Children Worldwide too.

Last week we presented the vision and plan for Children Worldwide to our fellow directors/trustees of Family Foundation Trust (The charity that ‘undergirds’ all that we do), setting out our core aims and objectives as they currently stand, and how we intend to improve and implement them in the future.

We can’t say much more about them here as we need to present them to the Children Worldwide Management Group next week, and then let our wonderful members know about the exciting things ahead – but watch this space!

A couple of weeks ago we had a wonderful answer to prayer:
We had been offered a grant towards equipment we use in children’s work, and were told we could use some of it towards a car. With what we had already saved towards a car, plus chipping into our own individual savings, and the addition of this grant, we have bought an 06 reg Citroen Picasso. It’s an ex motorbility car, so it has been very well cared for, and was £1,000 below market price – an internet offer!

Our old car had done well over 99,000 miles, and we could see big bills for it’s up keep in the future, so we had been praying for a long time for a way to get a newer and more comfortable car. We’ve had the Picasso for nearly two weeks now – and love it!

On Sunday morning at 10 am we will be at Sutton Christian Centre doing an all age service.