Aylesford Youth Festival – Confirmation Class 4th July2009 The day's events by Joanna
As part of their preparation for confirmation the children were taken to the Aylesford Youth Festival which this year was on the theme of St Paul.
Ten out of the eleven candidates with Father Geoff and three catechists left from St Pius at 8.15am arriving at the Priory run by Carmelites at 9.45am. After registration and choice of workshops there was an introductory session. Over 250 young people gathered for this from the Southwark and Brentwood dioceses. We were pleased to see a party from our adjoining parish St Joseph’s. We were told that like St Paul we were all here for a reason and that God saw soemthing wonderful in each of us. We were all then given a piece of paper on which was written an action that we were to do throughout the day e.g offer someone a compliment, spend a quiet moment reflecting.
Mime – Stephen Murray
The followed an extraordinary mime by Stephen Murray ( see him athttp://www.beholdmimeministry.org/) who mimed for us Ananias’s call to go and meet St Paul . It included mime,monologue, music and much humour.
St Paul’s facebook
The children where then divided into year groups , the largest being year 8-9. They were divided into groups using different coloured sweets. This was run by David Beresford (Sion Community) and Emily Davies (CASE) . Each group was then set the task of presenting a still montage of episodes from St Paul’s life. As each group presented their scene the others had to quess what scene this was . “ St Paul “ then added in more detail even demonstrating a new modern tent – a far cry from those St Paul used to make.
Lunch break
Duing the hour break the youth could play sports or try the challenges of the bouncy castle.
Workshops
There were two series of workshops of 1 hour 15 minutes each. The workshops included: creative work based on the life of St Paul, singing, street dance, singing, sports, team building ( included guiding blinfolded people through the bouncy castle) , drumming, sign language, creative arts changing the world, and spirituality which began with an excersie in trust and then examined a short piece form St Paul’s writng and relating it to our own situation. There was also another mime session by Stephen Murray this time on the passion of Christ that kept everyone enthralled despite outside noise and distractions.
Mass
We then all gathered for Mass which included some presentations from the workshops and a practice of the music. There was wonderful array of instruments to support the singing. The Mass was celebrated by the Youth Bishop Kieran Conray. We were taught how to say the Creed for the deaf and throughout Mass sign language was provided.
Everything finished promptly on time and we were home ahead of schedule.