Greetings!
Week ten has just passed, that means there are two weeks left of the training. This last week has been pretty busy driving around – you’ll see. As for the “6 inches of snow” that was predicted to fall this morning… hang on… no joke, it’s just started to snow! Only problem is that it’s really wet and it’s not cold at the moment, so I don’t think the snow will stick around. Big flakes of snow though. I’ll keep updated you on the snow situation later.
Wait, the snow has just stopped. Oh well. That was a fun 2 minutes.
Moving on.
Monday
I spent Sunday night in Rothwell, Northamptonshire, at my friends’ house but Monday morning he had driven to work and left me a key to lock up and leave at my own leisure. It was so good to see my friends for a few hours, but let’s start with Monday.
The plan for the day was to drive to Cambridge, wander around a bit and enjoy Cambridge, meet a friend there and then drive to the Frontier Centre in Irthlingborough for the RockUK conference. Simple.
If you’ve never been to Cambridge I would strongly recommend visiting. There are so many lovely buildings there so make sure you don’t wander around looking at shop fronts (although there are some nice shops too), look up at the buildings, the churches, the colleges, there are so many interesting things to see. Lots of bicycles, often street performers, market stalls, all kinds of lovely things.
I like walking around places on my own, at my own pace, which gives me time to enjoy and soak up the environment, the people, the smells and the sounds.
After I had met my friend and had wandered around for a while, we drove off to get to Irthlingborough (albeit via Rothwell again, as we had been invited for dinner). It was a matter of minutes before my friend was fast asleep in the passenger seat – she must have been so tired! She only woke up briefly to say she had a stiff neck but as quickly as she had stirred from sleep to say that, she was back peacefully asleep.
I’ll skip the most part of the day. It was wonderful just to be able to wake up when I was ready, to relax, to go back to Cambridge after three months away, just to have a day off with no real agenda at a very relaxed pace. Of course the main highlight would have been meeting friends.
Tuesday
At Frontier Centre for the next four days. The conference didn’t start until 11am but my day started bright and early as I had been asked to play bass guitar with the worship group (and I hadn’t played bass guitar since I some am-dram performance in February. Or sometime early in the year. I can’t even remember what the pantomime was?).
Staff conference is a couple of days in duration, allowing time for all Rock UK staff to meet together from all four centres in the UK to talk about progress over the last year, what has happened, what hasn’t happened and how God has moving in and through the centres/staff. It’s really wonderful to work in a Christian organisation that first and foremost puts God in the centre, then alongside the mission and ministry.
There were a couple of testimonies and some guest speakers too, such as Jonny Young ex-RockUK staff and current GB Paralympic rower and all-round excellent guy; it was just amazing to hear what has happened recently in real people’s lives to encourage and strengthen faith.
In the afternoon we all formed groups of about 7 to do the group challenge – “making and racing chariots”.
In the sports hall there were some large sheets of cardboard, cardboard tubes, a length of cord, cable ties, cellotape and some coloured crate paper then some instructions and jigs. Each group had the same materials, the same design, the same challenge and the same amount of time. We all split up in our team and some sketched out the design on the cardboard sheets, others were cutting, others assembling and then some making some aesthetic designs too.
Unfortunately when the time had elapsed our chariot did not have any wheels attached which made pulling it around the sports hall a real drag. At least we didn’t get DNF because we still completed the race, but I’m not sure which is worse – not finishing a race or finishing dead last. It was a lot of fun though. The more competitive teams finished with carpet burns and plenty of injured limbs.
In the evening there was a “hollywood” style party to celebrate and keep the fun going. Everyone dressed up as stars, actors and actresses, notably were the group who dressed as Oscars in gold morph suits and one guy who just wore holly leaves (I guess he misread the memo). After dinner there were board games and word games plus the table. The table. This is a table secured to the floor, and the game is just to go around the table without touching the floor. Of course I did it! Why wouldn’t I? I managed to go around the wider section of the table easily enough but it took a few attempts to go arrow the narrow end, but I did it.
I have a few bruises.
Wednesday
Staff conference continued with more centre updates and videos such as the one you’ll see in a moment, then we spent some more time looking at the book of Daniel before sharing communion together and more time singing -although I only sang a bit because I was playing bass again.
Absolutely wonderful time together, a really great group of people, making new friends and meeting the guys I’ll be working with at Carroty Wood when I move down there in January. It’s like a big family. I love RockUK, I love what they’re doing and I love that I’m welcomed as part of the team.
Ok, so here’s the RockUK ITP video that we put together. It’s made up of clips and photos from all the ITP guys and Dave magically put it all together in only a few long hours going right through until the early hours of the Saturday morning before he travelled down from Scotland to Irthlingborough. You should read his blog too, it’s good and he’s a great guy.
In the afternoon, a couple of the instructors from Frontier Centre took us to the climbing wall and abseil tower to practise our rope techniques as their set-up is different to Whithaugh Park where we had been learning. It was good to try out on a different tower but also to get a different instructor to talk us through how he does things, learning different methods and sharing more skills knowledge.
Thursday
Today we become swordsmen! Actually that comes tomorrow, but today we learn about becoming swordsmen!
That’s right, ish, we have a two day course to learn fencing and know how to instruct fencing. It was quite intensive, as all the training seems to be, but so much fun.
Our instructor was an experienced fencer and brimming with character, opinions and conversation. The first thing he did was talk about the history of swords while pulling sword after sword from a sports bag. I must admit that although I found him very interesting and very much enjoyed his talk, my thoughts were on his multitude of blades – “ooo, i like that, i should buy one of those. Ooo, wait that one’s better, look at the craftsmanship and elegance, mmm i’ll get one of those too. Ahh I’ve always liked those swords, maybe I should get that one.” and so on. I don’t know if it’s a man-thing or a me-thing but I do like sharp pointy things but I do not at all like the idea of slashing at one another in a war. That is awful. I can’t imagine what a battlefield would look and sound like. I digress.
The day was spent doing various exercises, learning different techniques, and basically just spending time fencing one another.
My legs were fairly painful as the fencing stance and movement requires bent legs, not as far as a squat but still bent, nothing like walking. I can do walking. Fencing requires effort. Fantastic though, especially as everyone was trying to fence as we had been instructed.
Friday
After a night’s sleep my legs were feeling a little achy and just wanted to walk normally, however we’re fencing again today but this time there is an assessment.
Skipping all the training because it’s repetitive and makes me wince thinking about it – it was a lot of fencing, activities and fencing games in quite a short period of time. I’ve only just started to recover!
The assessment was to run a fencing session as an instructor, which would cover six elements:
- On Guard!
- Moving forwards and backwards
- Lunge
- Holding and using a foil
- Parry and reposte
- Counter reposte
That’s the basics of fencing really. Knowing how to move about and what to do with a foil in order to score points. There is not advanced here because the sessions may only last about 2 hours and the children need to be having fun while fencing so that they might be inspired to continue fencing later in life or join a fencing club. My role as instructor is to be clear, to keep them safe and to have fun.
We all passed. So when we go to our individual centres we can run fencing sessions. The two day course was excellent, if you want to know more check out British Fencing.
So last week I became a competent archer and now I’m a swordsman. I feel great (apart from the physical fatigue and general aches and pains). The next two weeks should have me signed off to do rope work and then complete my level one coach for kayaking and canoeing.
Then it’s Christmas.
Well, that’s been my week – staff conference and fencing training. Amazing week.
Oh and don’t let me leave without telling you that today, Sunday 7th 2014, I’m getting baptised. I became a Christian 7 years ago and since then I didn’t seem to make time or ask about baptism – I hadn’t intentionally put it off or avoided it, but it just didn’t happen. There was an opportunity that came up and I asked to do it too, and today’s the day.
I keep meaning to write my “about me” page on this blog, and I’ll make sure I write about this there too.
Hope you’re well and you’ve had a good week. Feel free to add comments below or get in touch.
As for the snow earlier, it’s just a regular overcast cold day now. So no snow. Maybe another time? I’m off now, to go to Newcastleton village to see them turn on the Christmas lights.
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