Youth Across Hemel Annual Report September 2022 to August 2023
I am pleased to present this report as we near the end of the fifth full year that Youth Across Hemel (“YAH”) has operated as a registered charity. As we enter a new year, we continue to make good progress in all our focus areas and have built capacity to grow in influence and impact.
Providing Resources
Since forming as a newly formed charity in July 2018, our focus has been on building up capacity, getting policies and procedures in place, securing volunteers and funding and building important networks and relationships.
We have focused our limited resources on the following areas
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Building networks and relationships
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We have maintained and established new relationships with head teachers, teachers, church leaders, youth leaders and other youth organisations
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Providing training
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We have been actively seeking volunteers, with a number of Hemel’s young adults having assisted with events and other activities. We have trained a team of volunteer school workers who deliver lessons as part of the RE curriculum in one local school. We look to continue to expand this model over the coming year, ensuring that they are appropriately trained and supported for the work they are involved with.
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Working with local churches
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We have been engaging and working with a number of local church leaders and youth workers and, wherever possible, using their facilities for events and activities. We visited nine local churches to update them on the work and engage their support through volunteering, prayer and donations.
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Running events and clubs
Youth Across Hemel volunteers who also comprise volunteers from other churches and organisations, have run the following free events over the year:
THE MIX 17 at Christ Church Baptist Church, Kings Langley – Sep 2022
Themed Seaweed and Sumo: A taste of Korea and Japan, this Mix brought 30 young people together from local churches to create a delicious assortment of rice and seaweed rolls and have a crazy time wrestling each other in padded sumo suits. We played Korean games while listening to Christian K-pop, enjoyed some Korean and Japanese snacks and took time to pray for fellow Christians and others in North Korea, South Korea and Japan.
BONFIRE PARTY – Nov 2022
A cheery evening under the open sky at Spring Meadow Farm, by a roaring bonfire with games, sparklers, glow sticks, munching toasted marshmallows, and sipping chocolate milk. Huge thanks to our worship leaders who wrote a beautiful song just for the occasion – “I am welcome, wanted and loved by you.”
DENS SLEEPOUT – Nov 2022
Young people prepared their cardboard boxes, swapping their warm beds for a night’s sleep in the cold outdoors to raise awareness and funds for local homeless charity DENS. The four strong team raised a wonderful £734 for those in Dacorum facing poverty, homelessness and social exclusion.
THE MIX 18 at Belmont Road Baptist Church, Mar 2023
Escape from Egypt, brought together more than 40 young people for an afternoon of high adrenaline and brain busting challenges. Competitiveness ran high on the Human Hungry Hippos inflatable, most managed to solve the puzzles for the Escape Tomb, while Pyramid Origami and Hoopla Cactus also added to the fun. Mocktails, chocolate frogs, an inspiring message on help with mental health issues and a time of worship rounded off a wonderful time together.
LET’S GO KAYAKING – June 2023
Splashing on the Grand Union Canal in the summer sun! After playing tag in our kayaks, racing down and upstream, our fun-loving kayakers also enjoyed a few capsizes in the heat of the action.
Consulting and Supporting Local Churches
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Engagement
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YAH seeks to support local churches in the youth work they are doing, either in their churches or local schools. We visited a total of nine churches in 2023 and we continue to collaborate wherever we can and to encourage local churches to take the lead wherever possible.
Building Capacity and Momentum
We continued to build our database of contacts, ensuring that we are GDPR compliant, and have segmented our contacts into different interest groups in order to support relevant contact.
- Collaboration with churches and organisations
We have been liaising with a number of different local churches and para-church organisations, including STEP.
Working with Schools
Wherever possible, YAH prefers to collaborate with existing partnerships rather than compete with other organisations or duplicate activity. We work mainly through the following activities;
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Assemblies
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No assemblies were undertaken in 2022-23.
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Lesson Plans
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Partnership with Steps in St Albans has given YAH access to large array of lesson plans which avoids duplication of work. We have successfully adapted and utilised these resources and are grateful for Chris Birch-Evans and his team for their generosity and encouragement.
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Delivering Lessons - We started delivering our first RE lessons at Hemel Hempstead school in the 2022-23 academic year, providing lessons on suffering, miracles, religious art and refugees. These were given high praise by the school who felt the impact of our lessons would positively affect student grades. We have since been having conversations with other schools in Hemel Hempstead with the hope of delivering more RE lessons in the next academic year.
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Clubs
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The Summit: Kings Langley School - a weekly lunchtime club run by Rev. James McDonals from All Saints Church, Kings Langley, YAH Volunteer Lisa Dussek, and Kings Langley School leader Melusi Moyo.
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Hemel School Club – a weekly lunchtime club run entirely by South Hill Church Childrens and Families worker, Anna Nicks and Youth Worker, Sorrell Harden at the Hemel Hempstead School (HHS). In addition, YAH facilitated all of Year 7 of HHS to visit St. Johns church at Christmas time for a church service. YAH continues to liaise with the South Hill Church team, with the Head of HHS and Father Mike Macy from St Johns Church, Boxmoor to discuss other opportunities, on which, we could collaborate.
Networking Hub
YAH seeks every opportunity to link people together and to encourage collaboration between different groups where appropriate. Some of the networking activities we have done include:
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Database and Mailing list
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Our database includes school heads and teachers, church leaders, organisation leaders, church youth workers, volunteers, prayer supporters and donors. We do not currently keep any designatory data on Youth on our databases, preferring to drive all communications via Churches, Youth Leaders and School groups. This growing source of data has proved to be invaluable for our networking activity. A bi-annual e-news report is issued to keep our key audiences up-to-date with events and developments.
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School Heads and Senior Leadership Team
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We have been engaging with school leaders from four of the ten target schools in our area.
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Attending events
We will continue to attend events run by other church and para-church organisations where relevant to the work of YAH.
- Networking Breakfasts / Events
Having previously run Teachers and Church leaders networking breakfasts and a Youth work toolkit for churches, we are currently planning to run a networking dinner for current and potential fundraisers to increase the funding base for our work.
Prayer / Financial Support
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We have a WhatsApp group for prayer supporters where we post items for prayer. If you would like to be added to this list please contact info@yahemel.co.uk giving your email / mobile number with permission to use.
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If you would like to offer Financial Support to the work of YAH please contact Treasurer@YAHemel.co.uk, or visit our website for further information.
Team updates
- We were very pleased to have several volunteers join our team to help out at events - Pritam and Tirzah Josephs, Tom and Charis Beadle from Hemel Vineyard, Jemma and Hannah Young from Hemel Hempstead Community Church (HHCH), Tom and Sarah Powell from Christchurch. Our new schools team includes Andrew Brazier from HH Methodist Church, David Young & Richard Winski from HHCH, Mary Croft (now at Steps), Andy Barton from Belmont Road Baptist and Anna Nicks from South Hill Church.
The Coming Year
On reflection, it was a year of great progress for Youth Across Hemel, and we have set some ambitious targets for 2024 at our Strategy & planning event in July. Key for us over the next year will be:
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1) to expand our network of volunteers, to enable us to take on new opportunities
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2) to increase regular giving, from individuals as well as other local organisations; and
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3) to help grow and deepen relationships between the ten target schools in our area and their local churches.
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4) to appoint a schools’ liaison officer to help extend RE provision in local schools
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5) To grow our base of prayer support.
I am grateful to the team for their hard work, enthusiasm and dedication and my desire for this next year is that in these times of increasing fear and anxiety among our youth, we are loving & authentic in our faith and open to every God given opportunity to explain the hope that we have been given with the youth of Hemel Hempstead.
Damon Harding Chairperson Youth Across Hemel
Youth Across Hemel Financial Statement for year ending 31st August 2023
Balance b/fwd as at 1st September 2022
£6,349.31
| Income Regular Offering One-off donations Additional gifts Total Income Payments Events Publicity ThirtyOneEight Insurance / IT Paid volunteers Total payments |
£800.00 £4,500.00 £3,407.53 |
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| £8,707.53 £1,192.73 £449.09 £194.00 £617.47 £3,820.04 |
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| £6,273.33 |
Balance to c/fwd as at 31st August 2023
£8,783.51
| Statement of Assets & Liabilities | |
|---|---|
| Bank Current A/C | £8,783.51 |
Treasurers Statement
I have prepared the financial statement for the year ending 31st August 2023 for the accounting records of Youth Across Hemel.
Matthew Masters Treasurer 6 October 2023