Feedback from this year’s festival:

Very many of you kindly joined in with the online response forms and have already spoken with some of us and I want to thank you for taking the time to help us learn from your comments, observations and stories. Some of you have even noticed that we do indeed try to develop things accordingly!
But I thought it might be helpful for you to get a wee glimpse of what the overall kind of feedback looks like – so I’ve posted the link to the feedback summary on our FB pages or you can find it on the SM site itself.

Plans for 2020 – why the early DATE?

Every seven years or so the ‘last week-end in June’ arrives rather early and 2020 is one of those special occasions. So with the revival of StreetReach to be fitted in, before Glenarm’s own DalFest we had little room to manoeuvre.

BUT, while many schools will still be operating on Monday and half of Tuesday PLEASE bare the following in mind:

1) All pupils in Year 14, 13, and 12 will already be off-school (having done exams), thus it’s only Year 11 and below that would be affected in anyway.

2) Remember Summer Madness is a legitimate Educational Trip. By any reckoning, ‘SM’ promotes the social, emotional, cultural and religious development of students in many and profound ways and we are confident that the value of the camp experience is well recognised through the sector.  As it happens, we will be writing out to all head-teachers to alert them to the possibility of some parents requesting ‘time-out’ to attend Madness and of course many of you will already have very positive relationships established with many schools in any case.

3) It is important to alert those in your group to any possible issues as soon as possible.

4) Even so, some of you might decide that the ‘short week-end’ is the best option and we would encourage you to plan for that along with encouraging the group go consider the StreetReach opportunity. We can hardly overstate the powerful impact that SR can have on your group and hope that you may carefully/prayerfully look at the prospect of joining in. (The Tuesday is always a ‘turnaround day’ and SR really gets to work on the Wednesday).

FREE INDEED…. With Mike Pilavachi, Anne Calver and Esther Swaffield-Bray

We are excited indeed! to welcome this wonderful line up of speakers for SM2020 and we look forward to keeping you up to date with plans for the programme as it develops over the next few months. We’ll also be asking for your input on the seminars, activities and worship plans so do stay tuned.

STREETREACH  1ST – 4TH July 2020

With your help, we are planning to support projects across Larne, Carrick and Glenarm and encourage the local churches and groups as they reach out to meet community needs. Whether you are a seasoned veteran of such social action campaigns (Glo, Shine, Spark, Impact, Expression, GLU, On the Move, etc…) or yet to experience the delights of sharing God’s love in action, please do think and pray about how this opportunity could serve both your group – AND the good folk of Larne and Carrick.

P.S.
I hope you are also part of the ‘Youth Ministry Network’ on Facebook….. we generally keep that up to date along with the SM FB pages (and website)