Hostel Pupils lead the Stramash - Part 2

The Gorge(ous) Team

H2O and local outdoor activity and education provider Stramash continued with part two of the four week training opportunity for young leaders from Glencruitten Hostel. Based around gorge walking at Sutherlands Grove, this week we explored leadership styles, with different team leaders trying out being 'bossy', others being 'encouraging', one being 'caring and empathetic' and so it went on. Chats and discussion along the way made for an exciting and enlightening evening, including a long consideration on the purpose and reason for the creation of midges!

Next - Coasteering!!!!! 

Leading and looking out for each other

It's all good!

 

GFG - A Mini Island Adventure

Island Treasure Hunters!

Right word, good order!

In the last of our wee out-and-about season, GFG'ers took to the seas, thanks to Captain Neil, on a wee jaunt to a secluded bay on Kerrera.
Following on from our previous 'be-attitudes' chat, gfg went off to 'discover the words' highlighted in the previous weeks' chat. Having found 'Peace', 'Justice', 'Need' and 'Comfort', it was time to re-cap on what in heaven we had been talking about over the preceeding weeks (closely followed by a hunt for a jar of very sweet and sticky 'treasure'!).
Guest chef, Ruth, provided beef-a-la-burgers and juice-aux-cartons for the hardy hunters, with the evening rounding off with a bit of hide-and-seek!
Thank you to Neil and Ruth for making our evening possible and to GFG'ers for enjoying themselves SO much! (Titanic re-enactment included!)
Next, we make a video of the Be-attitudes! Watch this space.

Titanic Poses all round

 

Exploring Luing with Xplore Xtra 4.0

Steady...............

Wooooops!!!!!

Well, the weather doesn't get any better, at least not around West Coast Scotland!
The last in our season of Xplore Xtra events was hosted by the JAM youth group from the glorious island of Luing. Folks gathered from Oban, Kinlochleven and of course Luing, to enjoy time together on a treasure hunt, outdoor games time, BBQ heaven and a sunset swim (well, for many but not all!)
Prayer stacks were created by the shore, as the sun went down in the West, and, believe it or not - no midges!!
By Saturday morning, again in brilliant sunshine, the chat was 'I don't want to go home', 'I want to move to Luing!' However, we did eventually scoot across the channel and Atlantic Bridge and return to mainland life.
So, a very BIG thank you to JAM for such tremendous hospitality, and particularly to Fiona and Mhari for providing us with a visit to remember.
The group leaders will be getting together in the near future to consider the way forward for future Xplore Xtra's and how we should move forward with this valuable opportunity to bring young folks together from different areas of the county, to journey together and discovering more about Jesus.

Sunset Swimmers (and friends!)

Thank you Fiona and Mhari

Out and about with GFG

 Over the next few weeks, GFG will be out and about around Oban, on land and sea, considering the 'BE-attitudes' that Jesus encouraged folks to be!
After a mini-island adventure (not to be confused with out major island adventure!), the group will be putting their creative heads together to produce and video some dramatic/ mime interpretations of the beatitudes we've been looking at. Such fun all round, and what a sooper part of the world we live in!

What a Stramash at Glencruitten Hostel and beyond

H2O and local outdoor activity and education provider Stramash are again teaming up to provide valuable opportunities for young folk from Glencruitten Hostel, weekday home for high school pupils from the Inner Hebrides and outlying rural areas. The small team involved have spent time on activities in the past. With this in mind, we decided, rather than simply 'do' activities (exciting as that is!) through this series, we would explore team-building, and leadership skills with a smaller group of young people. So, over the coming weeks, we will be using outdoor opportunities to do just that!

FUND-RAISING, FUND-RAISING!!! was the cry!

Lots of Tea and Cake

Busy busy in the  Kitchen

GFG are in the throws of a fund-raising frenzy,aiming to raise enough of a fund to enable the group to go on an island adventure in September with Stramash. A recent coffee morning at The Well got the funding show on the road, with over £70 raised. Well done team and some cracking cakes about too! Next on the fund-raising agenda is a sponsored cycle on June 22nd, when group members will cycle around the Loch Creran loop from Sutherland's Grove, around 10 miles in all.
SO, if a GFG'er comes to you looking for sponsorship, please, please say 'yes!'
Watch this space for updates as to how the funding pot is growing
(ps - the target is over £1000)

Xplore and 2 Lochs Project have a Conversation with Scripture

Our weekly gathering of senior age pupils, Xplore, were recently joined by some of the 'guys' from the 2 Lochs Project. After some fine dining together, the entourage made their way to an Action of Churches Together event, "A Conversation with Scripture".
The tour guide for the conversation was Brother Stephen Smythe, ACTS General Secretary. Alongside folks from Oban area churches, the group explored aspects of scripture based on Acts 1, and had a splendid time doing so, so much so, that 2 hours of 'conversation' flew by.
Certainly our later chat over a cuppa at The Well was most animated, and all, even initially nervous attendees, had had a fruitful experience.
Next in the Xplore calendar is our long-awaited and much-anticipated Xplore Xtra 4.0 trip to the beautiful island of Luing - Coming Soooooon!

Modroc craze takes over at Xplore

This mask-making with Modroc seems to be taking over at our weekly groups. It may look a bit weird, but what it is doing is help group members to relax a wee bit away from the stresses and tensions of exam time. It certainly is a lot of fun and you get to laugh at others who can't laugh back (or their face cracks! - Teehee!)
Over the next couple of weeks Xplore have a pretty full schedule. Friends from Kinlochleven will be joining the group, eating together and having a 'conversation with scripture' led by Brother Stephen Smythe of action of Churches Together in Scotland. Later this month, Xplore is island-bound, as Xplore Xtra 4.0 takes place on lovely Luing.
Keep a wee eye on the blog to find out how it all goes.

A Historic Link

When Tara Coia responded to an invitation to speak at H₂O’s Friendship Club, she enthused all the members with her talks on the MacDougalls of Dunollie, bringing what might’ve been dry history of bygone days to life by showing us objects, letters and papers from the daily lives of a local land-owning family.    What she didn’t expect, was to meet someone whose family had a been farm tenants of the MacDougalls for many years, and remembered well the people Tara was talking about.    Annie Roberston – who will be 101 in June – is an active and lively member of the Club, and in acknowledgement of her long association with the family, Annie was presented with a copy of Highland Postbag – a compilation of MacDougall correspondence through 150 years.

Tara with Annie and her presentation book

“It reminds me of my childhood watching Granny card and spin the wool, singing in Gaelic”

Concentrating hard !

. . .  wrote one our Friendship Club members this week after a second visit to the Club by talented Tara Coia from Dunollie House.    Members arrived at the Well to find bags of Yak and Camel wool alongside the traditional white and brown of local breeds, and they were soon encouraged to have a go at carding the wool, ready for spinning it into a fine cord which can then be knitted up.

Carding wool

While carding was relatively easy, members found co-ordinating feet and hands to spin the wool more of a challenge than expected !    However under Tara’s encouragement that “It’s just a matter of practice !” she was soon getting the hang of a skill that was handed down through generations of Scottish women.    As ‘modern’ women we were all happy to have a go at the portable hanging spindle but a bit amazed that our ancestors would’ve done this with a child on their hip while watching the sheep or stirring the pot for supper – but hey, women have always been good at multi-tasking !

Tara makes spinning look easy !