Children's worship and activities

Junior Church
Junior Church is our children's group. We have approximately 12 children between the ages of 0 and 11 who attend regularly. We have five leaders who take the group on a rota, with several parent helpers. Recently we have also been fortunate to have an additional volunteer, Elliot Warriner, who is a student at Archbishop Holgate's School and working towards the Duke of Edinburgh Award.

The children begin in church and then adjourn to the meeting room for their own service, which consists of 'circle time' where the children share any news from their week. Then we have a story or drama on the same theme as the adult talk, followed by a craft activity, prayers and refreshments. The children rejoin the main congregation for the final song and communion. They also like to show the work they have done.

During the All Age Service, usually once a month, the children remain in church for the whole service. We have a dedicated children's area with some toys for the babies and younger children as well as colouring sheets and books.

Heslington Trophy
Heslington hosts the thrice-yearly York churches Sunday afternoon five-a-side football tournament for under 13's (both girls and boys), who compete for the Heslington Trophy. The next tournament is in September. The Summer fixture took place on Sunday 13th June on Lord Deramore's School field, by kind permission of the Headteacher.

There was a good turnout with a total of eight teams taking part, including three from Stamford Bridge, two each from Wham and York Community Church and our own team from Heslington Church. We welcomed two new members to our squad - Hong and Aryan - who joined Asher, Billy, Brandon, Chark, and Johnny.

Out of seven games played, we won two, drew two and lost the other three, two of these by the odd goal and finished in sixth place overall. Our goal scorers were Hong with five, including a hat-trick, Brandon with two goals and Aryan and Billy with one each. Everyone enjoyed the day and we are eagerly awaiting the next tournament in September in which we hope to field two teams.

Many thanks once again to John and Matt for organising this very popular event.

John Hatton Memorial Trophy
The Heslington Trophy proved to be so popular that the children who outgrew the under 13's team wanted to continue playing, so we started a team for the over 13's which now competes in the John Hatton Memorial Trophy competition. The team welcomes both boys and girls and the aim is to have fun, build friendships and keep the children involved in the church. The older children all now attend the church youth club.

The latest tournament took place at Archbishop Holgate's School on 18th July in which six teams took part, including 2 teams from Heslington. The other teams were York Community Church, WHAM, Christchurch and the Rock Church. We only planned on fielding 1 team but as so many children turned up, Graham ( the organizer ) kindly let us play 2 teams.

Although it is a tournament aimed at the Over 13's age group, we fielded one team of Over 13's consisting of Matty, Bilbo, Harry, Fran and Olivia and another team of Under 13's consisting of Billy, Asher, Jonny, Joe, Hong and Brandon. Despite some spirited performances we finished in 5th and 6th place. Our goalscorers were Matty with 2 goals and Bilbo and Asher with 1 each.

When presenting the winners trophy to York Community Church, who won the tournament for the first time, Graham also took the time to praise our youngsters for their football ability and enthusiasm. The next Over 13's tournament takes place at 1.30 PM at AHS on the 26th September.______Carl Hirst

Church-sponsored Brownies and Rainbows meet on Monday evenings on the Church premises.

The 1st Heslington Rainbows have 17 members with 4 adult helpers, one young leader and one guide. We meet on Mondays 4.30pm to 6.00pm. We have lots of fun doing craft activities, baking, playing games and going out. We have achieved our roundabout badges with the new members since last year. The Rainbows are very excited about their trip to Bishopthorpe Palace on 5th June and hope to take part in the university carnival parade on 6th June. The Rainbow Guider is Sue Laurence.

The 1st Heslington Brownies have 17 members with 4 adult helpers. We enjoy a pack holiday each year and have lots of fun as well as doing lots of work on badges, especially the Woodlands badge and we learned about Ghana. We also enjoyed making things, cooking buns, biscuits, pizzas, decorating things and best of all, if we can, eating them! This year is Girl Guiding UK Centenary so we have been doing lots of activities in connection with that. Both last Easter and this, our pack holiday was in the Esk Valley near Grosmont, watching the steam trains go by. We also had a ride to Whitby on one of them and heard how the Harry Potter films were made at the station. The Brownie Guider is Janet Owston.

Church-sponsored Scouts, Cubs and Beavers meet across the road in the Scout hut. The boys' activities assist their development as they learn to socialise, work together in groups, make friends and undertake challenges appropriate to their age. The Heslington Scout Group has had a particularly interesting and fruitful year in 2009.

Our Beaver colony for ages 6 – 8 comprises 18 Beavers with 1 waiting to be old enough to join. In the last year we had a sleepover at Snowball Plantation. We have been on a visit to Bolton Abbey and a mini 3-peaks challenge in the North Yorkshire Moors. We are going to a sleepover at Snowball Scout Camp, an Emergency Activity Day at Northallerton and a water activity day in Richmondshire.

About 3 Beavers will swim up to Cubs over the next few months which may give us some places available in this age range later in the summer. However, we are currently searching for a local adult to lead the Beaver Colony after September 2010 in order to continue with the Beaver meetings.

Heslington Cub Pack (age range 8 – 10½) currently has 24 members. The year saw us on District camp at Leeds in May, bell boating in June, visiting Rievaulx Abbey in September and a trip to Elvington Air Museum in October. We have been very successful in the Ebor District sports events, being joint winners of the 10 year old swimming trophy and being District champions in the basketball and 5-a-side football competitions.

Similarly our Scout troop for ages 10½ – 15 remains full with some 20 members and activities have included a mixture of hikes and camps, canoeing, pioneering, campfires and rock climbing. We have held an April weekend in the North York Moors, a summer Camp, a week at Sherwood Forest in Nottinghamshire and a bivouac night sleeping out under the stars on the North York Moors.

We currently also have eight Young Leaders (aged 14-17) helping the adult leaders run the various sections. Our Young leaders have also pursued programmes of personal development, including the Duke of Edinburgh scheme, and taken part in their own activities, often with a mountaineering flavour including expeditions and long-distance challenge hikes such as the Yorkshire 3-Peaks Walk. We were particularly proud that two of our Young Leaders went on the York Scouts 2009 Mission to Malawi to help build and decorate clinics in a remote part of Malawi, as well as forging links with local people, helping them where required and to develop scouting there.

Owing to the invaluable work of a few supporters on our small Committee, the Group has been able this year to access grant funding to carry out a significant refurbishment project to our scout hut. With assistance from Awards for All and also the Community Foundation, we have been able to reclad the building, provide new double-glazed windows a new lighting and heating system, new floor covering, internal redecoration and other improvements. Looking ahead, we aim to replace our minibus within the next two years.

The Group Leader is Andrew Eccles.

Our website is http://www.heslingtonscoutgroup.org.uk