For some churches, this was their first holiday club while others had been established for some time.

The crafts, activities and games offered at the clubs opened up opportunities for young people to create friendships and promoted healthy living.

Here’s a round-up of holiday club news. Details of how to apply for a grant will follow.

Holiday Club resources

‘Snapshots’ is a free downloadable resource for those running holiday clubs for children aged between 5-11 years of age. It ties in with the CYW theme for the 2023, Love is…

Dalton Community Church in North Western Synod, Sawston Free Church and Kelvedon URC in Eastern Synod, Vine Church in Thames North Synod all used Snapshots. Whereas, Hutton and Shenfield Union Church in Eastern Synod and opted for “Time Travellers” which focused on the characters from the old testament. Others chose themes such as creation, parables/ miracles of Jesus, life of Moses, Romans 12:2.

Grants

The grants paid to churches helped to provide resources and, often, food and refreshments for children and their families to enjoy.

Park URC hosted children from refugee families and offered a two-course meal to all , a collection of churches which worked together to host holiday clubs, were able to include young adults in their volunteer team and Trinity Church Stafford in West Midlands Synod ran a community-based club which focused on craft and baking.

Matlock URC were able fund spaces and activities for toddlers in their sessions.

Cannington URC in South Western Synod and included the parents and extended family in their Sunday celebration and within the week’s activities itself.

St George’s URC and Morpeth Methodist Church, both in , were able to run a club for the first time and titled their holiday club week ‘Global Guardians’ all activities focused on looking after the world.

Saughtonhall URC in Edinburgh titled theirs ‘The Greatest Showman’ and had a circus theme. The young people enjoyed learning new circus skills and also learnt how to sign their theme song using British Sign Language. After exploring the Old Testament characters based around a record breakers theme, the children of Ottery St Mary URC all took a medal home at the end of the week.

Members of a holiday club at URC in Bridgewater, Somerset produced an all-ability mini show about the life of Joseph.

All holiday clubs were able to run with the support of their volunteers, churches, CYDO+ team, CYW team and the funding available.

Learn more about the URC CYW holiday club resources.

Apply for a holiday club grant.

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Welcome to the Time Travellers – a free downloadable resource for those running holiday clubs for children aged between 5-11 years of age.

Tying in with our theme for the year, Jubilee, we are travelling through time together to meet some of the children of the Bible and see what they can teach us about following God, listening to God, meeting with God, belonging to God and worshipping God – what can we bring back with us to the present day and our ongoing journey of faith?

��This material is not designed to be prescriptive, although you may use it that way if you wish. Nor is it designed to be exclusive; feel free to swap and change the ideas included here for ones you think more suitable for your groups. It is written as a five-day plan but you may decide to do a one-day extravaganza, a club once a week through the holidays, or maybe just select a couple of the sessions to do on two or three days in the week.

You can adapt this holiday club material in a variety of ways and the appendices at the back of the resource will give you suggestions and ideas of how to do so for various different settings.

Download our resources

• Time Travellers – full resource (PDF | 62mb – this is a very large file. If you have trouble downloading it, please email children.youth@urc.org.uk and we’ll send you a digital copy)
• Time Travellers – poster��(PDF | 8mb)
• Time Travellers – music sheet and words (PDF | 458kb)
• Time Travellers – Jumping Jack template (PDF | 166kb)

The full resource contains:��

• How to run a holiday club (PDF | 5mb)
• Reflections for volunteers and leaders (PDF | 220kb)
• Plans for the whole session on following God (cloud and fire) (PDF | 4mb)
• Plans for the whole session on listening to God (Samuel) (PDF | 4mb)
• Plans for the whole session on meeting with God (feeding of the 5000) (PDF | 4mb)
• Plans for the whole session on belonging to God (Lydia) (PDF | 8mb)
• Plans for the whole session on celebrating God (Palm Sunday) (PDF | 9mb)
• Appendix 1: 11 to 14s (PDF | 4mb)
• Appendix 2: Under 5s (PDF | 4mb)
• Appendix 3: Intergenerational (PDF | 4mb)
• Appendix 4: Vintage (PDF | 15 mb)

Additional resources – activity sheets

• Activity sheet for following God (cloud and fire)�� (PDF | 268mb)
• Activity sheet for listening to God (Samuel) (PDF | 303kb)
• Activity sheet for meeting with God (Feeding of the 5000) (PDF | 292kb)
• Activity sheet for belonging to God (Lydia) (PDF | 273kb)
• Activity sheet for celebrating God (Palm Sunday) (PDF | 244b)

Dramas and interviews are available on the on the Timetravellers playlist.

Apply for a small grant

Small grants of £50 or £100 are available to support United Reformed churches in running a holiday club.

• Apply for a small grant

Feedback welcome

As always, we would really love some feedback. Do let us know what you found helpful and if there is anything else you wish we had included. Should we do another such resource next year, what would be most helpful to you? And do let us know how you use it – some pictures for our Facebook page would be greatly appreciated. Contact lorrainewebb@urc.org.uk or��children.youth@urc.org.uk.

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Children & Youth work grants

Our small grants fund is one way that the Children’s and Youth Work Committee supports activities and experiences for children and youth as well as the training of existing and potential children and youth workers.

This year, to help churches resume or start up activities for children, a grant of either £50 or £100 is also available to support churches running holiday clubs.

 

• General CYW grants (individual)

  Carmichael Montgomery Fund

• General CYW grants (group)

  Discipleship Development Fund

• Holiday club grants

  Children's and Youth Work Small Grants Fund

• Links with Uniformed groups

  DIscipleship Development Fund

The Children’s and Youth Work Committee is there to support children and youth activities and the training of existing and potential children and youth workers. This grant can support an individual’s participation in an activity.

Grants can be made towards the cost of attendance, required materials and/or travel. The type of activities which might warrant support include:

1. Attendance at children’s or URC youth activity at local church, Synod or Assembly level;
2. Training events for existing or potential children and/or youth workers involved in either running or development of children and youth work activities within the United Reformed Church or ecumenically;
3. Participation in URC International exchanges, visits, etc or other activities for the development of the individual;
4. A child or young person attending events which will help them grow in their Christian faith.

The Children’s and Youth Work Committee may not be able to fund all requests and thus cannot guarantee that every request will be successful. Applications will be looked at more favourably if the applicant has done some fundraising and/or received some other funding towards the cost of the trip (ie from the local church, Synod, local community).

The Children’s and Youth Work Committee will also not award to the same person two years running and priority would be given to a person that has not received before.

We would normally give up to 50% of the overall cost and up to:

• £200 for an activity in the UK;
• £350 for an activity in the European Region;
• £500 for an activity in the rest of the world.

but it may be less than this depending on the overall costs.

No more than��£500��per person will be awarded to an individual for any one grant. Individual applications from members of the same group will be considered as a group application (e.g. a group of young people from one local church attending an event together) and should be submitted using the group application form.

Applicants for this grant must be associated with a United Reformed Church and have the backing of their church leadership. We request a referee to support your application. Please allow sufficient time for us to contact your referee before your claim is considered. With this in mind, please apply at least six weeks�� before the event.

If you are successful, following your attendance at the event we request that you submit a report, which could be written and illustrated with photographs or PowerPoint presentation or in some other media, to the Children’s and Youth Work Office which may be published on the website.

Individuals may also apply through their synods for a discipleship development grant of up to £200 for training and opportunities that meet the discipleship development criteria. Please contact your synod CYW representative for more details.

Application forms

• Application form for individuals (PDF | 187kb)
• Support reference form (individual applications) (PDF | 132kb)

If you open these with Adobe Reader rather than in your web browser, you can fill them in, save them and email them back to us without needing to print, scan or post them.

The new discipleship-based small grant fund for Children’s and Youth Work is part of the Discipleship Development Fund which is intended to contribute to the development of lay people of all ages . This means the purposes for which it can be used are as broad as can be generated by creativity and vocation, in line with the aims of the URC’s Discipleship Development Strategy (DDS), which are to equip the people of the United Reformed Church to:

• Create opportunities for everyone to encounter the living God, whether they already identify themselves as followers of Christ or not
• Encourage everyone in their prayer life and relationship with God to enable them to live as disciples of Jesus
• Encourage everyone to make the most of education opportunities that are relevant and appropriate for them in their discipleship journey (eg events, conferences, courses, resources).

These awards are fundamentally aimed at Lay Discipleship Development and not intended to have mission as their main focus and priority. Groups and can apply for a Mission Enabling grant of up to £1000 (or £6,000 over 3 years) /your-church/mission-enabling-fund/ or can contact children.youth@urc.org.uk to enquire about other sources of funding for small-scale mission-focussed projects and activities.

The groups small grants fund would normally give up to 50% of the overall cost and up to:

• £350��for a group activity in the UK;
• £500��for a group activity in the European Region;
• £1000��for a group activity in the rest of the world.

Applicants for this grant must be associated with a United Reformed Church and have the backing of their church leadership. You will see on the application form that we request a referee to support your application. Please allow sufficient time for us to contact your referee before your claim is considered. With this in mind, please apply at least six weeks and no less before the event

If you are successful, following your attendance at the event we request that you submit a report, which could be written and illustrated with photographs or PowerPoint presentation or in some other media, to the Children’s and Youth Work Office which may be published on the website.

��

• Application form for groups�� ��(PDF | 175kb)
• Support reference form (all group applications) (PDF | 132kb)

A note on completing the application forms

If you open these with Adobe Reader rather than in your web browser, you can fill them in, save them and email them back to us without needing to print, scan or post them.

To support churches in running holiday clubs, the Children’s and Youth Work committee offer a grant of either £50 or £100 towards the costs of resources, snacks, decorations, equipment etc. Those who receive a grant will be asked to report back with a story about their holiday club and, where possible, photographs which can be shared more widely to encourage others. Please note that this grant cannot be applied for over more than three consecutive years or more than once within the same year.

• Application form for Holiday Club grant of £50 or £100 (PDF|158kb)

A note on completing the application form

If you open the form with Adobe Reader rather than in your web browser, you can fill them in, save it and email it back to us without needing to print, scan or post them.

CYWC is offering small grants (£50 or £100) from the Discipleship Development Fund to URC local churches to strengthen their relationship with a uniformed group (Boys’ Brigade, Girls’ Brigade, Guiding or Scouting).

The purpose of the grant must be to pay towards something which will foster, build or improve the relationship between the local church and one or more uniformed children’s and/or youth groups with a connection to the church.�� This could be anything from provision of accommodation to funding a suitable event or activity.�� The church might host a sleepover event, donate resources or give URC Children and/or URC Youth cloth badges to the members; or the groups might organise a cleanup of the church gardens, redecoration of the space they use, joint eco project or other creative idea. This could be matched funding to a URC Guide & Scout Fellowship grant (see ) or a stand-alone grant.

A note on completing the application form

If you open the form with Adobe Reader rather than in your web browser, you can fill them in, save it and email it back to us without needing to print, scan or post them.

• Application form for grant of £50 or £100 to strengthen links with uniformed organisations (PDF|159kb)

 

Grants & funding opportunities

Find out about the grants and funding opportunities the URC offers churches, community groups and individuals

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Welcome to Supersleuths, the first ever URC Holiday Club material.��This free resource contains suggestions for a holiday club for 5 to 11 year olds and also contains appendices for intergenerational, toddlers, 11 to 14s and for vintage holiday club.

Holiday club materials

Download the whole resource, individual sections, activity sheets, colouring-in sheets, music sheets and lyrics, and additional dramas.

Paperwork and admin

• Consent/registration form (Word | 363kb)
• Register (Word | 304kb)
• Accident / incident form (Word | 302kb )
• Sample behaviour policy (PDF | 88kb)
• Annotated Risk Assessment (PDF | 34kb)
• Premises sample (PDF | 49kb)
• Premises template (Word | 297kb)
• Session sample (PDF | 48kb)
• Session template (Word | 301kb)
• Personal Risk Assessment for volunteers (PDF | 156kb)

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