By Tim Blake, Childrens Worker, St Andrews’ Histon

For many people, I imagine the thought of having 200 children to entertain for 5 mornings in the summer holidays is some sort of nightmare. Not so for the leaders of the Holiday Club run by Histon and Impington Council of Churches. For us, this is an opportunity to raise the importance of children, to remember that they are all gifts to us as families and a community, and to give them a week to remember.

What ought to be a giant logistical problem becomes an amazing act of teamwork as around 100 people from across the churches work together on the various elements of the Holiday Club from refreshments and team lunches to the live band, from the creche to the drama, from the craft and games to the storytelling and comparing. I was truly gobsmacked at how the whole operation worked as I served on the team for the first time last year. 

For 2007 our theme is ‘WasteWatchers’. The title hints at cutting down on our waste and ties in with the heightened awareness of our need to look after our planet. Underlying the whole of the programme is the idea of transformation. During the first morning,the stage will gradually fill up with junk and end up looking a sorry rubbish dump, not fit to live on, mirroring what we have done to parts of our world. As the week progresses we will explore how can we help to transform our environment into a better place to live, how God once transformed nothing into something at the beginning of time, how Jesus can transform lives turning bad stuff into good, bringing joy in place of sadness and justice instead of despair. All of this will happen through; upfront led times with songs, drama, messy stuff and stories, and group times of games, craft and quieter reflection. By the end of the week, the rubbish dump created on stage will have turned into… well that would be giving it away - you will have to wait and see!

All in all, it will be a fabulous event full of fun, excitement, building friendships, making new ones and learning more about how we fit into the wonderful world we live in.