Hawick and Bradford

Hawick (aka Hoick)

- drive south, far away from sea this time. Living in a nice house with a dog called patch. whole level to ourselves! freezing. so turned heater on every morning

From Oban we hit the road and travelled south, far away from the sea this time, actually to the furthest inland point on the scottish boarders, to Hawick. It is a lovely place and stunning for different reasons to Oban, but still stunning. Joy, Andy, Jack and I stayed in a three story house in a small village called Denham which was about ten minutes drive from Hawick town. With a poplulation of 700 apparantly. The house faced the village green which had a massive war memorial plonked in the middle of it. In fact it seemed that most of the village surrounded this square green as it was so big! There was a very friendly dog named Patch, a springer spaniel, who lived in the house and always grabbed your shoe if you took it off and werent quick enough to pick it up when you came in. The house was FREEZING in the mornings. Like, Scotland Freezing, not south England freezing. So all the heaters went on in the morning straight away! and there was a heater that they had attached to the wall in the bathroom, and if you stood beneath it, it was hard to get away again because it was so niiiice. Stepping out the shower was the worst bit. but then you just stumbled as quick as you could to the heater and you found the will to live again.

The first sunday we were there we went to a little old lady church. Brilliant. To give you an idea, there was a sign saying “expect a miracle” as you walked in to the church building. After this service of “number 225 in the hymn books” there was another service, this time it was more of a family service so the age range was alot more broad. In this service there was alot of hype about the week to come working in the school. They told us that it was a miracle in itself that the school had invited us to come for the week, and some people had had visions of the school being a fortress and the drawbridge being let down for us to enter. except we werent just entering, visions had been had of us storming this castle. Another vision involved a map, and a spark being set off on the point of Hawick and something along the lines of “hawick will be the spark to set the boarders alight” being written across it. So. in this church i took everything with a pinch of salt… just because i am sceptical about things i dont understand, visions being one of them… but there was a general and undeniable hype that this week was going to be important in some way.

This week alot of things went wrong… there were two illnesses on different days so we had to make due without La Roche the first day, and without Keel another day, thankfully La Roche managed to take his place and drum all day, without any practise really! Being halfway through a three week tour didnt help much either, and i know for me there were times when i felt a bit overwhelemed with that amount we were undertaking, especially with the added feeling of knowing there was an entire week left after this one! So in many ways it did feel like we were under attack. But looking back on it, this is an encouragement because it must have meant that our presence in that school was doing something big. Someone didnt want us to be there, but God did. and it turned out to be a very good week. Unfortunately the gig on the thursday was canceled due to flash floods, however we managed to do a very similar concert the following morning in year 7 assembly, so in a way, we managed to communicate our message for the gig to perhaps more year 7′s than we would have done at the gig if it had gone ahead…

One of the best parts of this week was the Bean Scene. This was a bar, cafe, theate and cinema aswell i think all wrapped into one cool venue we managed to hang out in the bean scene after some of the days which was a great way to chill out and just relax, i also purchased the best roast hazelnut latte i have ever had in this cafe!

　

　

　

　

Bradford (with t’ bradfordians) … and risk

- Had a brilliant week from the start. had a quick stop off in manchester, and whereas i still didnt see sara as she was on the other side, we both decided it was nice that we were near each other! also, on sunday the church service was challenging and very helpfull. Very friendly people! Hugged before asking us our names!! haha now that is the way it should be!

- unloaded in the “car park submarine” temporary buildings placed together to creat a long corridor of rooms… could see all the way down therefore a submarine… in the carpark of the church, opposite the police station… was fine once i got my head round the fact that that was where i was!

- Church building was new and was called “church on the way”. which made me laugh because everyone around the area called it “church on T’ way”. There was a cafe built into it where people could hang out, mainly for the youth i think. This had wireless internet so we all hung out here most of the time. This is also where we staged our first game of risk!

- the church also had a kind of christian bookstore… so books and cd’s and cards and “encouragement book marks” along with the vital WWJD bands. It was cool though, and this is where they had thier tea and coffee bit after the service.

- also, people from this church had a handshake worthy of Donald Drew. Which made me feel a little more at home.

- the hall we set up in was more like a theatre than an assembly hall, because of the lighting rig and techy box on a balcony at the back, and we managed to use the lights on the schools lighting rig for both lessons during the week and the final gig on thursday night. We had the help of a year ten student who worked the school lights for the final gig – which was awesome because we even managed to follow becca with a spotlight as she entered down some stairs and onto the stage! very very rediculous. but very very brilliant! haha

　

　

　

　

　

　

Beginning of Scotland Tour – Oban (and first taste of Haggis)

Leaving late morning on saturday the 7th November I was not looking forward to the 56 MPH max drive up to scotland, which would eventually take up to about 12 hours in total. Thankfully, we had arranged to break the journey at Selby in York for the night, meaning only a 6 hour drive that day (still enough to make me dread the journey…) We stopped off at Selby because this is Keel’s home town, and his parents were prepared to host us for the night. They fed us really well, and provided a massive TV to watch X Factor and Strictly, so we were all happy haha. They also put on a firework display in thier back garden for us that night! Marked probably by the first sparkler i have held in years!!! I was very excited

The second day journey was more interesting to look out the window. We left england behind and started our winding journey through the highlands, which is beautiful! The last time i was here was in 2004, when i was on holiday in Appin, a small… er… town? Village? Hamlet? something. which is very close to Oban, where we were headed! So i got to see the islands in the loch that i had canoed in 5 years ago again, and they still took my breath away. The weather actually the entire week we were in Oban was very kind! So the tour we had on the first day which took us around Oban sight seeing was really really nice (makes Oban sound like a big place… its really not – which, im gonna add, makes it all the better!), and the travelling to Oban high school everyday was just as amazing!

Sunday night we arrived at The Well, which is the town’s youth centre run by the local churches. The well is a recently converted workshop that has been decorated and furnished with bean bags and leather sofas (really great to flop on after a day in school!) The well was heated by those heater light things, which were like sunbathing to stand under. So absolutely amazing. The organisation which run the youth centre are called H2O, which stands for Hope to Oban, and these are the guys that work in the schools too. We met Ewen, the main schools worker who would be working with us all week – he was a very animated scottish bloke who was very entertaining to watch, a really funny, intelligent guy who was a brilliant ambassador for God in the school. We also met Rachel, another H2O worker who was lovely and also quite funny. (she cooked the Haggis on one of the nights) We had Tea here in the Well.

So monday morning. The first time we had to perfrom was at about 10:45, for an assembly. This was a real blessing because normally we have to be ready for a 9:00 assembly – which means set up starts at around half 6. which means pick up is around quarter past 6. which means breakfast is at about 6. which means shower is at about quarter to 6. which means getting up at half 5! … you get the idea. So we had to get up at 7, which was a lie in for set up day! We set up this time in a medium sized school hall which had a decent sized stage at one end, which was fun actually, I think i prefer it when there is a raised stage to perform on…

 

 

The week was really good, the best tour we have had in my opinion and we met some really cool kids. A couple of college metalheads made quick friends with us, we were told its not every day that a rock band makes it this far up north, especially not one that will take the time to get to know the people in a school. These guys were awesome and made us laugh loads, they came and saw us every free period they had in thier time table, even when we doing lessons aimed at the youngest guys in the school. A teacher told us that these guys didnt want anything to do with a christian group coming into thier school, especially a christian band, and they assumed the God Squad were about to wack them over the head with our bibles and hyms… but when they had seen us play, as musicians themselves, we won thier respect and when they talked to us at lunch and other times they realised that we were all down to earth and “normal” to an extent.

 

The gig was also my favourite one so far, despite being superficially not as impressive as previous ones – as we didnt have lazers or smoke machines and the wall behind us wasnt blacked out… Still, it goes to show that a good gig doesnt have to be visually stunning. Although we still had the usual bi light and projector providing lighting and visuals. The music was awesome and I loved playing guitar. An impressive 17 kids put their names down on an email listing sheet to recieve info about follow up events etc, and a whole bunch of them raised thier hands to show that they had prayed along with Andy during his quick talk telling the guys about how Jesus died for them, so they could be free runners in life (as one of our songs says) allowing God in so he could lift us.

 

Was a really fun week, miss it loads. a beautiful part of the world with some great people. I am so glad i had the opertunity to go there and meet so many of its people. even gladder that i could go there to tell them about God, so that they had more of an understanding of His love which is definately at work today.

 

Much love

 

　

 

　

 

　

 

 

 

Gorleston – the land of the strange games

On the tail end of the the activities week in Hawkwell we were setting up again on the saturday, this time for an alternative halloween gig in Gorleston. The local youth group had invited us down …(or up to be more geographically correct) and had named the evening Treat with Taste. Much to annoyance of Laura and I as people always seem to forget about Diversion! The set up was joined by the set up of the youth group who began to black out the room with black material around the walls. This added a huge amount to the aesthetics of the room, however really frustrated me because it just got in my way when i was trying to set up! This did make it quite a stressful set up because i couldnt do things the way i wanted to in the order i wanted to, especially because the youth group borrowed our only ladder… oh dear. This gig was musically one of my favourites because there was a stage where the drums and decks were set up for Keel and Lar Roche, and the rest of us were on the floor which looked awesome. But the best bit about this set up was that my amp was behind my head on the stage, next to Keel. So not only could i hear myself better than i had ever done before in a gig because my ears were being blasted by my guitar, but i had the opertunity to improvise a little too because i could hear what i was doing properly The reason i cant normally hear myself as well as this is because i dont have a moniter that is specifically mine. Andy, Becca and Keel all have In Ear moniters, La Roche and Jack both have speaker moniters that face them on the floor. Which leaves me normally with just my amp and a bit of Jacks moniter because i stand near him. Laura and I performed our sketch Gnome, which i will describe in another blog post, which was marked by the fact that i correctly said “this is how we bid” rather than “this is how we vote” which is the mistake that i had always previously made! A readsim as my A level drama teacher would say This sketch is a short one, so Laura and I hosted the gig really and did all the crowd warming up and stuff, which is always really fun. We also hosted the games that were played, our “messy” one (proved very clean after some of the games that the youth group played) which is a race that basically involves a couple volunteers sticking an after 8 on thier forehead and then trying to get it in thier mouth without using thier hands. This gig we also played the conveyor belt game which involved the winner of the previous game staying up and having to remember 15 items modelled by the members of the band. This was funny to play, and Laura emerged afterwards with a choice of two prizes, a choclate box shaped prize wrapped up, or a splodge of a prize wrapped up badly with paper… the kid could then decide which one she wanted. The chocolate box one was empty and the contents were in the badly wrapped prize… the audience cottoned on to the fact that we were trying to trick her and so she went with the splodge of a prize. Just a little way of making the point of looks arnt everything. Bit of a silly game though! The Youth Group wanted to split our concert up with some of thier own games, that were traditionally messy and just a bit crazy… so i thought it would be rediculas to write an acount of what we did without mentioning these games. The kids there were split into 6 teams at the start of the night, and these teams were against each other in all the games. The first game involved one member from each team having peanut butter spread all over thier face and then the rest of the members of the team throwing marshmellows at thier faces to see if they would stick… the team with most marshmellows then won… I was like, ok… fair enough. in my innocence thinking that would be it… nope. pretty much took a turn for the worse after that with a game that involved spitting a peice of bannana across the room. Then spreading a plastic sheet out on the floor, covering it with mince sauce, tomato ketchup, mustard and other sauces and getting one team member to race another across it on thier bellies pushing a dead fish with thier noses… Im gonna let that one sink in abit… Do you see how it was messy?! Haha it smelled nasty and was very entertaining to watch The last game they played however really pushed the boat out. it even pushed the limits of basic human rights im sure. It was called Vomit Spit. Would you like me to go on? … ok. basically they had filled a paddling pool up with porridge and water and various bits and pieces to create a sick looking like mixture. and it did look exactly like that. At this point both becca and i had decided that games like this would never happen in the respectable Shires of the south!! The game was for one member of each team to dunk thier face in the mixture and collect as much as they could in thier mouth and then transfer it to a bucket by thier team by spitting it out again… the team with the most “vomit” in thier bucket at the end of the game won… oh boy. anyway. we were fed very well so was a good night out. Scotland next! Much love

Hawkwell Activities Week – Half Term

 

Half term would sound like a break for a company who work mainly in schools weeks, however we were busy as usual and this time in a place called Hawkwell (I am still not exactly sure where it is) As the title suggests we held an activites week which was actually awesome and despite having time to do whatever they wanted to do as they werent in school, around 25 kids from years 7 to 11 decided to come to Hawkwell Baptist Church every day from monday to friday to work with us on music and drama projects that lasted the week. I dont know what they were expecting at the start of the week, but i’m sure they had no idea of what was in store for them! To be honest neither did I… or any of the first years on this gap year for that matter! This was very different to a schools week, and as this was our first activities week, we were asked to follow the second years who knew what was going to happen. Actually we picked it up pretty much instantly as the week is really chilled out but still packed full of creativity and quality work!

 

Every morning Taste did a song or two to warm the kids up for the day, but Monday was marked mainly by the kids deciding on what they were going to do, drama with Diversion, or music with Taste and the rediculasly long name learning game which probably took the best part of an hour… The “game” was the memory one where we would go clockwise around the circle of people and say our name and our favourite food and then you had to remember all the people before you and say thier name and favourite food before you said yours. That was a very poorly constructed sentance… i appologise. however it is now 19 minutes past midnight on 31st November. Anyway, it may sound like the game was a drag. but it worked! For the rest of the week i had no problems with the names of the kids we were working with And if you did accidently forget thier name you could always just refer to them by thier favourite food… such as chicken nuggets and ketchup girl So those who decided to work with Diversion for the week came with me Laura and I to the chill out zone which was the fluffyest carpet i have ever seen, boundried by an indoor gazebo (interesting i know…) and bean bags and cusions sprawled everywhere. Amazing. So this day was mainly getting to know each other a bit better before we dunked ourself in with work. Monday also hosted the first game of pool i have played in a good while. I was terrible…

 

Tuesday was drama games! ok. Sounds really lame, but actually was alot of fun and very entertaining The good samaritan was performed to me and Laura in the style of Western – If you can imagine that! But workwise the group had a very cognitive day. Basically we got the group to brainstorm ideas about characters, plot, style based from the stimulus of “relationships” which had been given to us by the church. The idea was to pretty much leave it down to the kids to devise and create thier own pice of theatre, rather than creating it and directing it for them and in our way. Because this was the kids spare time, being half term, it probably wasnt too bright an idea to control everything the did… which was actually a risk, also exagerated by the fact that the group was made up of all girls… a very bad idea to stick all girls in a group and expect thier to be no fights apparantly says Laura, who went to an all girls school… However the group worked immediately and with no problems and they came up with the name Herd Wot as thier group name. This is because its an anagram of The Word which is thier youth group’s name, and the slogan that went with it was “the word in disguise” – this title was chosen because it links to the idea behind the piece of drama that was talked about which was about meeting strangers online and them not always being who they say they are. Which was decided by the group as quite a relevant and important issue to present to thier peers who would be in the audience that friday. This due to the popularity of facebook myspace and other things etc…

 

Wednesday to Friday was given to the devising and rehearsing of the piece. The plot emerged that a young girl named Georgia would meet someone online, supposedly a 14 year old boy called Charlie. They would continue to have conversations despite the advice from some of Georgia’s friends warning her not to, other friends encouraged it thinking due to the evidence that there was a picture of the boy and the way in which he spoke online was enough for him to be genuine. Georgia eventually becomes tiresome of her friends differences in opinion and so agrees to meet up with the boy, even though it is clear that she herself is not entirely sure. The story ends with her leaving the stage as if leaving the house to see the boy, and then a news program appears on the screen on stage which reveals that a 14 year old girl had gone missing in the Essex area. It was decided that a CCTV recreation would be a powerfull way to end the piece and so both the news reel and CCTV footage were shot using the actors working with us. Dan the techy edited and put together the video, ending it with screen fuzz and the words “Do you really know who you are talking to” right at the end after the CCTV shot.

 

Taste had been working all week on creating a song with the remaining kids who had opted to do music at the start. They created a band with all the kids which was called Connect, and the song was called Face to Face… which is now hated because it wont get out of our heads!!! writing, practising and then rehearsing the same one song all week means it manages to find a very secure place in your head to haunt you when you get sick of it!

 

The week finished with a gig on friday night, to which the kids were all going to perform in with the music and drama we had created that week. I dont know the exact number of kids at the gig but it was a fairly good amount and the venue was kitted out with smoke machines (that were vanilla flavoured!) and lazers that we hadnt used before this year – it looked amazing. The gig was a huge success and both the drama and music gave me at least with goosebumps. It was a really fun end to a fun week, which was actually very chilled out – said that at the start and i think i will end with it too! Great to see so many kids hear about God and get excited about it!

 

much love

 

　

 

 

First Schools Week – Ambergate

After much confusion due to a  last minute pulling out of  a planned school visit somewhere in Grantham, Joy amazing Clark managed to establish plan B and create an oppertunity for us to go to another school, all the time working with the team, attending meetings and replying to the seemingly endless amount of emails she receives! The school that was found was Ambergate Sports College , which coincidently is a stone’s throw away from the school we are working with next week!

So we arrived in Grantham, Lincolnshire ( in the big orange van which we tour in) and the fields and scenery on the journey here brought back many memorys of over a decade ago… wow. That made me feel old to write that ! … I was 6 i think when my family moved to Lincolshire, to a rediculasly remote town called Gayton Le Marsh. So small things like seeing a white post and chain brought many flash backs!  We turned up at a big , cold house and were given rooms to dump our stuff – my stuff  has remained in “dumped” condition so far… because i figured that as i havnt done it so far… there is no point!! haha. The owners of the house, David and Les have kindly put the entire team up, minus two, for the two weeks we are in Grantham. And they have quickly become famous for the food they provide for us every day… especially the puddings!!

The Schools week then began on monday morning with a set up of 8am, which as it was our first real time, took 2 hours – about twice as long as it should be when we become good at what we do. We decided that setting up in the school would be a too disturbing for other lessons going on as the only rooms we could use were class rooms. The sound from the music and drama and all the bits in between would be a little too loud and because the sports hall would be far too big  for what we wanted to do, we couldnt use that either. So we ended up in a side room to The Church of The Epiphany which was even closer than a stones throw away! The room was pretty ugly and bare to begin with, but with a load of  black material and a bit of Laura and Becca magic, the  room was transformed into an awesome Check It Out Stage.  The first group of kids we had then was at about 11am, after sound checks and rehearsing etc. We had the whole of year 8… which because it was a small school meant only about 10 kids!! But they loved it and we loved it all the same. In schools we have various lessons we do with kids which i will write another blog about at some point! 

The kids really enjoyed the music, the drama and especially getting to hang out with us at lunch times!! They were amazing to talk to, and were even asking us for our autographs! I have had to create a new signature for the occasion because they dont know who  BRead is!

It was a really good week, and i will tell you more about the lessons and how they went when i next get a chance to write!!

Much love

Spare time and weekends

I have been working as an Optimum volunteer with Viz-A-Viz for three weeks now, which means i have had three weekends with them too, so i decided i should talk about what i do in my spare time as well as my working time. For the most part actually my spare time involves me chilling out at my home in essex, this during the weekday evenings. However at weekends, so far i have aimed to return to Vicky, my girlfriend. This has included going to Petersfield to see her, going to her auntie and uncles in Greenwhich to see her and also going to her home town of Farnham to see her. The travelling is definately managable and only made uncomfortable by the dragging round of a travel bag of dirty washing – this has only happened once so far, however i very much hope it does not happen again! This weekend as an example, the 19th and 20th of september, i travelled to Farnham, a place which is valued highly in my opinion so i was very excited to go back! I spent the weekend with Vicky and her family, all whom i am quite attached to (cant believe i just used “whom”!) and also value very highly. They are an extremely welcoming family and I never fail to feel at home when i am there. I also never fail to go hungry when i am there as Caroline (Vicky’s mum) and Vicky herself both feed me like a king! I had a brilliant weekend away from essex, which is recommended in the introductionary pack! and also encouraged by Joy and Andy Clark, the two leaders for the ministry i am working for – they both have to my great relief made it clear that they understand that we all have lives and relationships outside of the rehearsals and touring that we are doing and will be doing this year. This however, should not and does not comprimise the commitment i have for the ministry i am working with.

I realise that this sounds like i am avoiding life in essex and not making friends here, but that isnt true! Even without the meeting up with other volunteers over the past couple of weeks, the time we spend together in rehearsals and Fika time are enough for us to have already become friends.

Weekends in the future are exactly that, in the future, and i have not planned what is happening past next week! So each weekend will be taken as it comes more or less, played by ear. Also, as we begin to tour, my spare time will not be so regular as each weekend, due to the schedule of this year. This means my spare time will come perhaps in the middle of the week, as an example.

Spare time is a time to sleep in and chill out, as i have been specifically instructed by my director not to do anywork at all in them! So i follow my instructions and take a break from the work we do during the week.

 I hope this wasnt superfluous!

Much love, Ben

Keel’s desk, farmville and the new name of Flingles

So the first two weeks saw the introduction and beginnings of work in the Office. This included  choosing a desk which i would sit at in the office during the times when i wasnt rampaging around rehearsing upstairs with Laura. The desks are arranged in two lines of three desks, facing each other and by a window… Keel last year apparantly choose the window desk and made it his own, however without this knowledge i pretty much set up camp and made it my own. Graciously, he let me have it without a fight. The down side to this is now i face LaRoche so my new found addiction to farmville on facebook is only encouraged by the talk we have every morning about how our farms are doing… we are real farmers! 

My health at the start of the gap year has not been brilliant. A mysterious rash that appeared on my stomach one morning was thankfully not bed bugs which was what first went through my mind… however after one very quick glance the doctor immediately diagnosed it as Shingles. This meant taking medication 5 times a day for a week, which actually i was very good at remembering to do! One at 7 (ish) in the morning, one at 11, then 3, then 7 and then 11pm before i went to bed. I have now stopped taking these pills and the rash is on the way out without causing me any discomfort. which is awesome!

Anyway, whilst having shingles i also developed a cold… grrr, immune system down is never a good thing! The cold was compared to a flu and then the two words were slammed together… This then lead the team members, especially La Roche, who are all big on nick names, to call me Flingles. So for now at least, if you ever say pringles funnily, i may answer…