I don't often see otters, but spotted the first one of the year running across the A87 on the way home from church last week (me, not the otter). And today the weather has risen 10 degrees overnight too!
January has been busy in the office, getting up to date with youthwork reports, newsletters and the annual report, the latter of which are available on the website. And of course the mad dash getting things together for the annual celebration quickly came upon me... 3am video editing on Thursday, but we did have ten years to cover! An excellent evening, well attended and a special thanks to Calum and Highland Council for putting on a ferry for us from Lochcarron with the road still being closed. It did seem strange not having our chairman present, sadly due to the death of his mother in law, but Roddie led the 10th annual celebration very well. I am concerned however that his church may not a get a sermon tomorrow, given all the effort he put into the songwriting to mark my ten years! Hope the recording worked. Andy Bathgate brought a great message from Mark chapter 1, reminding us of the good news which we bring, and everyone else did their bit to make the whole evening a success. That even included a last minute change of venue due to a burst water main in Dornie! Thanks to Fiona for getting the school opened for us. Three prayers from young people, including Joshua Mockett, a Bible reading from Jackie MacLennan and Colin Carmichael, and worship led by Tony, Mary and Heather. Thanks to all and more. We even had a message by video from the chairman, and he managed to limit it to just over 7 minutes; not bad!
After all that, I was truly surprised to be showered with gifts: a brilliant photo collage from the years (right up to last week in Glenelg youth club) thanks to Bethany Lane and others. And then prevents for Joshua and Keziah, flowers for Ruth, a meal at Kinloch for the two of us and a rather nice, though thoroughly undeserved, iPad. Guess I've no excuse to update the blog more regularly now!
Thanks to everyone; I only wish we could give iPads out to all, which would be a more accurate mark of our first ten years, as COOL truly is a community project which we've worked on together. I like to think too that our presence has played a small in bringing the churches together, as well as all the young people we've worked with over the decade.
Back to some youth work now, which includes numerous primary assemblies, some deep thinking to do regarding our discipleship, Alltnacriche weekend planning and a couple of days with SU next week... here starts the next ten!
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad
