Ready, Steady, Go.

It was such a blessing to gather with lots of our volunteers last week at our volunteer training day, getting ready for the year ahead.  Even though I don’t normally work on a Tuesday I always come in for these days, as I find them such a valuable space to get to know the team a little better and to learn some new skills and remember why we are all part of Step.

After a bit of breakfast and refreshments we started the day with a wonderful, calming guided reflection led by Daniel based on the scripture in Matthew 14 about the feeding of the 5000. We also focused on the parts of the story where Jesus takes himself off to a solitary place to be with God and we were encouraged to practice this as often as we can.

In September we always do our safeguarding refresher, which Helena is an expert at delivering. I have worked in schools for years and have lost count of how many safeguarding trainings I have done, however I still learnt something new. Now safeguarding isn’t always the most popular session as it deals with very sensitive and sad topics, but it is essential so that we can continue to work safely and be helpful to the school communities and young people that we work with. After the refresher as part of our cultural awareness training we looked at some aspects of youth culture that might be helpful for us to be aware of as we work with the young people in our care.

Next up Geoff led us in an excellent session about apologetics and the Grill a Christian lesson. We were split into groups, and each group prepared answers to some questions as part of a mock lesson. We took turns at being on the Grill a Christian panel and part of the audience. Some of us really got into the role of being a teenager asking tricky questions rather too well. I think this session was a real eye opener to many of us. It helped us see that it’s not as scary as it sounds and that we could be a part of it. We were encouraged that not everyone has to answer every question and that sometimes you might get a list of the students' questions before the lesson to help you prepare. I would certainly feel more confident to be part of this lesson now and as Geoff simply said ‘just give your reasons for why you believe what you believe.’ You don’t have to be the philosopher of the year to be able to join in with this lesson but what is helpful is taking time to think through some of these topics so that you are ready to give an answer for the hope that you have.

After a tasty lunch provided by Terrie more fun was had learning the ins and outs of the Fairtrade Lesson. Jez was able to bring the Fairtrade lesson to life and gave us some great guidelines and tips on how to run the game. I also helped in this session by advising the bankers on what to do (which isn’t a sentence I ever thought I would say with my dislike of anything to do with maths!). After being given an overview of the game we were split into teams of about 4 people and Jez led us through a shorter version of the game to give us a taste of what it is like.

There were also 2 bankers whose role it was to add up all the scores and keep on top of the fast-paced game. The aim of the game is to make as many trainers (with paper) as you can so that your team/country wins. However the game is unfairly favourable to the UK and the USA and so by the end of the game the other countries really feel the injustice of the situation. The teams that we created were surprisingly competitive and only a few people cheated (mentioning no names). A lot of fun was had and again I think the session helped us to feel more confident to lead or be part of a session in the future. It is so good to be able to experience some of these lessons and workshops before we commit to being part of them.

We are always looking for new ideas about what would be helpful for our volunteers to learn or do on our volunteer training day, so if you have any thoughts on the matter please don’t hesitate to share them with us.

Thank you to everyone who came along to the day it really does make a difference and we can’t wait to see you all again at the next one!