Bradfield Blog

Living Beyond Yourself

2012-01-25T13:31:00.000Z

Yesterday, I wrote about how success can mean that, as a leader, you find yourself facing things that you've never faced before and having to deal with all the nerves, emotions and challenges that come with that, as well as all the joys and causes for celebration. You can't grow something to the point of success and stay comfortable; I'm pretty sure it just doesn't work that way. I mean, I haven't got decades of life experience behind me yet, but that seems to be the case from what I have observed and experienced so far.

That's not the whole story though. One of the leaders that I really admire is Bill Johnson. Another, stereotypically, is Mother Teresa, Nobel Prize Winner, and one of my heroines. Yet another is Martin Luther King, and William Wilberforce deserves deep admiration. Nelson Mandela is definitely on my list and, though I have no intention to cheapen this list of heroes and heroines with a fictional character, I have to admit I've learned a lot about leadership and integrity from Jed Bartlett West Wing character extraordinaire!

This intimidating list of leaders undoubtedly have courage in common with each other, that trait that is needed to face your own fears and inadequacies and dig your nails into future to drag it, kicking and screaming or otherwise, into the present. They have humility too, in spite of their greatness and their courage. I have such great admiration for people who have given so much in the face of such obstacles and, in doing so, have created a new normal.

But these great leaders all have something else in common with each other too - they were all living beyond themselves. Therein, I think, lies a great secret, perhaps one of the secrets of finding contentment in every circumstance, no matter how nerve-wracking or personally humiliating. These people were not consumed with themselves, their reputation, and what others thought of them. They were not eaten up by consuming thoughts about themselves. They did not let what others thought of them, or how inadequate they felt, hold them back from their visions. They lived beyond themselves. Motivated, safe, in the fact that they all believed in something, or someOne, greater than themselves, and that One's presence, strength, power, and light, that One's joy, brought some kind of delight and freedom and ability to live a new normal in the face of an entire society, political system, world, even, that disdained their vision and even them.

I want that.

I want to be that kind of joy-filled leader.

Success, Courage, and What It Feels Like

2012-01-24T09:00:00.000Z

I read a post this morning by entrepreneur Meg Keene about success and how she never realised until she was successful that it can be even scarier than lack of success. It got me thinking.

This year has been the most successful year for The Bradfield Club yet. Success is wonderful. Success at Club means changed lives...actual people's actual lives are getting better. Success means new sessions every couple months, a growing team, engaged and committed volunteers, a building that is exciting to be in and filled with colour. Success means safety. It means getting to know parents, and having parents breathe a sigh of relief that someone else is helping their kids realise things about the world that they've been trying to instill for years. Success means sitting on the edge of an armchair talking to a young person who is truly, honestly sharing their heart. Success means renewed hope that maybe things can be different around here, that maybe We Who Actually Live In Peckham are not the underdogs of society. Success means recruiting during a recession. It means increasing staff hours. It means feedback from funders that we're doing even better than we thought we were. It means inspired volunteers who work five or six days with young people at other organisations and use their spare time to come and bless the kids who come to Bradfield. It means things happening, big things. Success means believing in growth, despite the depressing economic times. Success means vision achieved.

That is all what success looks like. But let me talk to you, for a few moments, about what success feels like, because, as Meg says, no one ever really tells you that.

You know what success feels like?

It feels like straining as far as you can reach with every inch of yourself into the future, digging your fingernails into what you see, and dragging it kicking and screaming into the present.

In other words, it feels like rushing to the toilet because the sheer enormity of what you're trying to do is more than your body can physically cope with, at times.

It feels like facing the next thing to be resolved even though doing so brings up all the nerves that even public speaking doesn't!

It feels like being out of your depth, not because anyone put you there, but because you grew this thing beyond what you are comfortable with and now you d*mn well have to deal with it (and then, having dealt with it, grow it again).

It feels like allowing real life issues that affect real life people to land on your desk, and, even harder, to land in your heart, and then, saying to yourself "Go, face this thing." And doing that.

It feels like doing things you don't know how to do, but need to be done, so if you have to read an entire book in two hours to figure out how to do something, and then go do it, then that is what you will do.

It feels like telling everyone "Let's do this thing, this is so utterly and completely going to happen" even when there is this little bit of terror in your gut that wonders if it will...and then, of course, it does.

It feels like choosing to remember - and to spread - the truth about Peckham (hint: not gangs, crime and poverty, but hope, family, and life!).

And then, occasionally, it feels like utter joy. The best bit - the joy bit - is seeing it all come together. Seeing something come into being that everyone said would never happen. Seeing success in the face of infinite obstacles. Celebrating. Truly, truly celebrating, because this is what it's all about. This is what allows you to whisper "It's worth it" in bed at night.

That is what success feels like. I just thought you should know.

But stay tuned tomorrow for another perspective...

Pictures of successful Bradfield Club Activities, taken by Rachel Shah

Unity in Diversity: Team

2012-01-23T09:00:00.001Z

We had our annual January social last week for Management Committee, Staff and Volunteers and I came home buzzing, inspired and full of deep gratitude for and pride in our Team.

Our team is fun. We have laughter, we have jokes, we have spectacular bowling skills. We even have strikes.

We are young, we are old, we are somewhere in between. We are white, we are black, we are somewhere in between. We are from many different countries and backgrounds. Some of us share some beliefs, others differ widely from each other. Some of us have more than enough to live on and others of us struggle to get by. We are parents, brothers, sisters, husbands, wives, grandparents, singles, students, professionals and more.

Some of us are great with people, some of us are great with numbers, some of us are great with a football, and some of us are great with a hammer and nails. Some of us have had really difficult childhoods, and some of us have had relatively easy lives. Some of us are really sensitive and insightful. Some of us are great at making things happen. Some of us grew up miles away and some of us grew up on the same street that we're living on now. Some of us are rebellious. Some of us are mainstream. Some of us have criminal records.

We are diverse. We are team. We work together towards a common purpose that we all believe in, and through all that we have become friends. Where else in the world do you get such a diverse group of people truly working together, not just side by side, but intertwined, relying on each other, and needing each other? Where else do I see people from such different walks of life coming together and recognising their need for each other? Where else do people say "I can't do this by myself, or with other people just like me. I need more than what I've got. I need team"?

I don't know where else, but I know it happens at the Bradfield Club. It sounds beautiful, but it's not easy. Diverse is another way of saying different, after all, and difference is essentially a polite way of saying conflict. We disagree with each other on many things. We get frustrated at each other. We have different expectations and we drive each other crazy. We don't always get this right and sometimes we treat each other disrespectfully and hurt each other.

But you know what? We know we need each other and we believe in what we're doing, so we persevere. We work through the conflict, or around it, under it, or over it. And we go out for brilliant nights out and fill our relationships with laughter.

And we go home proud.

Or at least, I do.

How to Use the Blog

2012-01-20T16:11:00.003Z

The Bradfield Blog has been going for a while, but with all the content and news on it, and all the different colours, it was getting a little difficult to read. I'm still learning about the technology, but for now I felt being able to read the posts was most important! I hope this "new look" helps.

So here are some things you need to know.

How to Comment:

It would be great to get comments going on this blog. To comment, you just click the text that says "0 comments" at the bottom of a post and then write in the comment box that appears. You can leave your name or you can comment anonymously.

How to get updates from the blog:

If you want to get updates from the blog delivered to your email, look on the right hand sidebar for the box that says "Follow by email." Write your email address and click the "Submit" button.

If you want to subscribe by RSS then click the appropriate button in the "Subscribe" box on the right hand ssidebar.

If you want to get updates from the blog through your own Blogger account, then you should sign in to Blogger and then click the "Follow" button in the top left hand side at the very top of the blog (above the title).

How to share the Bradfield blog:

If you liked something you read on here, we'd love you to share it by email, on your own blog, on Twitter, on Facebook or through Google Plus. At the very, very bottom of every post on the left hand side is a series of buttons. If you hover your mouse over one of them it will tell you what it does. Each of them allow you to share the blog post by email, on your blog, by Twitter, by Facebook or by Google Plus. Please do!!

Alternatively you can share the whole blog on Twitter or Facebook by clicking the "Share" word at the very top of the blog (above the title).

Please do link to our blog, we'd love you to do so!

How to search the blog:

If you'd like to search the blog, use the search box in the very top, left hand corner of the blog (above the title). For instance you can search for "11-14s" or "15-20s," "Girls Night" "Bradfield College" or anything else that you think I might have written about.

To see the most recent content, click on the title.

Would you like to write something for the blog?

If so, email me on rachel.shah@bradfieldclub.org

2012

2012-01-09T16:49:00.000Z

Welcome back to the Bradfield Club in 2012! It's going to be an exciting year to be in London, with the Olympics, the Queen's Jubilee, and enough Bank Holidays to keep even the British happy!

More importantly (of course), it's our birthday. The Bradfield Club has been in Peckham for ONE HUNDRED YEARS this year. Watch this space (and our website - www.bradfieldclub.org) for all the news of our upcoming Centenary Celebrations, which will also be known as our 100th Birthday Party. Fantastic.

We're so excited about all that has happened in the last 100 years and looking forward to seeing who and what is going to be part of the next 100. Bring it on!

Home Visits

2011-10-25T11:52:00.002+01:00

Weirdly, four weeks ago, no one turned up to Girls Night. This has never happened since we started it, and we were very surprised, but after waiting over an hour, closed up early to go home. The week before had been normal and we had no reason to suspect that anything much had changed. The week after the same thing happened, and despite getting in touch with the girls by phone and text, three weeks in a row of no-show made us realise that we had to re-evaluate.

A photo by Jonas B, used under Creative Commons license.

We knew the girls had all just started secondary school, and one of the few girls who had been replying to messages had been stuck inside with homework, so we wondered whether the format of a Girls Night that was previously a space for fun and chatting was no longer appropriate. The girls kept promising to come when we saw them, but didn't want them to come to please us...we wanted it to be an evening that they shaped to meet their needs...and despite their sweet promises, they never came anyway.

It's so, so easy with youth work to get very quickly into the bad habit of running things for people, serving people, helping people, and trying to be a superstar. None of this is healthy or sustainable, and it's often incredibly patronising, but as many of us have been brought up in a culture of doing things for people ("Be nice. Be helpful.") and many of us are working with people who have been brought up in a culture of expecting things to be done for them (because some people strangely think that that these incredibly talented, creative, self-sustained young people are too poor or stupid to do anything for themselves), we quickly fall into bad patterns. It takes such a battle to do anything more than just tick the boxes of 'participatory youth work.'

But that is what we are there for, for that battle, to live alongside and be a community, not to just serve out entertainment and hope it hits the spot.

So one evening when no girls turned up once again, Rose and I sat down together to decide what to do. We clearly couldn't involve the girls in planning, because they weren't there, but we planned a programme for the coming half term that we knew would excite them, but mainly as a way to create a forum or a space in which we could talk with them again. To start the process, to actually have face-to-face conversations, we decided to do home visits.

photo by brockamer, used under Creative Commons license

Home visits are not easy to do. They can be great fun, and incredibly insightful, but it is so against what is normal to just walk up to someone's house, uninvited, ring the doorbell and start a conversation. It's quite an art to do so in a way that is non-threatening and quick enough to communicate who you are and why you're there while you've got someone's attention. From there, great conversations can occur.

So the next week, Ally, Rose and I took it in turns to go out in pairs, while someone stayed back at Club (with the boys) in case any girls turned up, and we walked purposefully around the estate, ringing doorbells, knocking knockers and pressing flat buzzers, hoping to meet the girls and their parents alike, find out what, if anything, Bradfield can offer to them at the moment, and invite them to our forum/space in the second half term, and to trips.

We did five home visits in an hour and a half that evening - an extraordinary number for such a short space of time - and amazingly, everyone was in. We met three sets of parents, and five of the girls, and we found ourselves so proud of these young ladies starting secondary school, in their smart new uniforms. We found out that the new schools and new routines (and new homework loads) are the reason they have not been coming, but speaking to parents and siblings, we found out that what they need most is still a fun place to be where they can get away from the pressures of secondary school and let their hair down. The parents were keen for them to go on the trips and pleased to meet us, on the whole. We really got a brief insight into where these girls come from, and hopefully we were able to communicate to the parents and the girls that we care about them, are there for them, and are really flexible to offer whatever will be the best for these girls at this time. Most of all, they know they are not forgotten.

We've got fourteen girls as members of girls night overall so a number more home visits to do. I hope this week we'll have time to do a few more, but sadly I'm under the weather and currently at home in bed, so it may have to wait!

In the meantime, the last two girls nights have had attendees so something has changed!

Things Change

2011-10-11T05:30:00.000+01:00

A friend at church last night was asking how things are at the Bradfield Club and my answer was something like this:

If you look back far enough, things are brilliant. Sometimes it's easy to just look back a day, or a week, and think to yourself "I'm not sure things are getting better...we had less kids today than yesterday...or this problem has got worse since last week." But the problem with community work is that it's always ups and downs, and frustrations, and it's often easier to see the problems than to see the progress. If you look back far enough, though, you see that things have come a long way. You see that we have progressed beyond all recognition. You see that we are having much greater impact than we were and that we are far more stable as an organisation. So we have our ups and downs but our journey is one of moving forwards. If you look back far enough, you see that Things Change.

In light of that truth, I thought I'd look back to a post from October 23rd, 2007, and mention a few things that have changed from that discouraging day. The underlined italics bits are quotes from my blog post on October 23rd, 2007:

Since I started working there in January, we have not had internet. We have been pursuing internet (troubleshooting lines, reuters, the account, the password, ADSL somethingorother, microfilters...) in earnest for about six weeks yet, to no avail.

We now have the internet, wireless, speedy internet, and it works, even for the youth. In fact, I'm sitting in the Games Room on my laptop and I'm on the internet. YES!

The roof leaks.

After major building works, it doesn't anymore!

The floors doesn't meet health and safety standards.

before

during

after

They do now!

The ceiling is broken. ...fixed.

The upstairs fire exits aren't legal, meaning we can't use the top two floors at all.

We now use both floors upstairs, and have just made the top floor into a free fitness gym for young people.

About 50% 100% of the lightbulbs work. None All of them have covers.

The hot water doesn't work.

no more boiling the kettle for every bit of hot water we need

The hot water has worked consistently for years now.

The heating doesn't work (apart from in one room).

The heating works in all the rooms!

One gate needs a padlock; the other needs a padlock bolt-cutted off.

Both gates have been taken out, along with the whole fence, which has all been replaced with lovely new green fencing, which is stronger and less-prison-like, and both gates now have automatic locking with a fob/entry system. Wow. Big improvement!

Watch this space for a newsletter with pictures!

For about three weeks the phone line didn't work.

For about three years, the phone line has worked.

My mobile was stolen.

My mobile works. I still don't have a work mobile, but the caretaker does and so do the two youth workers.

One member of staff hasn't turned up for over a month due to various ailments.

That member of staff isn't here anymore but the staff we have are pretty dedicated.

We don't have a debit card. We don't have a credit card.

We have appropriate financial systems, including a debit card, and, more importantly, a BUDGET!

Some of the furniture is broken.

To my knowledge, none of the furniture is currently broken.

Only one computer works.

Before: our one refurbished computer salvaged from a pile of junk

After: kids gather around one of our four new networked computers donated by ICG

This was soooo crazy, sharing one computer between three plus of us. We now have four working and networked desktops for staff and three netbooks for kids. We are still short on computers so Aaron and I sometimes have to use our personal laptops but hopefully this year we will get at least one laptop for the two of us to share at work because it's not good at all using our personal computers, especially not for data management reasons.

Of the six core staff only one has not been unwell in the last month.

Naturally, working in this environment, this goes up and down, but on the whole the staff have been pretty well.

The interminable knotweed is eating away at the foundations of the building.

This remains a problem :(

Oh, and of course we don't have enough money to fix it all.

As does this...but so, so much money has been invested to fix all of the above and it's a brilliant, brilliant reminder that Things Change.

Journal Entry: Girls Night

2011-10-10T05:30:00.000+01:00

We were recently able to start a session for girls only - something we had been wanting to do for quite some time but didn't have the resources to manage. Now, thanks to Stuart and Daniel managing most of the rest of the sessions that are mixed gender, we have enough team members to have a girls' only night. This is an excellent progression, as The Bradfield Club is still sadly known by many people as "Bradfield Boys' Club" and we have a big fight ahead of us to be as inclusive to young ladies as we are to young men.

So - a step on the right direction - is Girls Night for 11-14 year olds.

In August, one of the girls wrote in her journal about Girls Night (unprompted by us) and then showed it to us. I was so moved by it that I asked her if I could share it with all of you, and she agreed.

"Girls Night. Every girls night they always support us. They are great people and there are great workers and they always supply us with food and drink and they make sure we leave safely."

How precious, what a privilege, to be part of these girls' lives.

Skiing: Bradfield College Residential 2011

2011-10-05T05:30:00.000+01:00

This post, along with the posts from the last two days, tells stories from a few of the activities that we undertook on our Bradfield College Residential this summer. Today's post is about our first ever trip skiing.

Skiing

This year, for the first year ever, Maurice took us all skiing to an indoor ski centre with real snow. We arrived with plenty of time, but did not get off to a great start as by the time everyone had all their gear, had found all their personal equipment, had divided into two groups, had got their gloves, had locked their personal things away and had got out onto the snow, we were off to a late start.

Our instructor was fabulous. He spoke quietly and calmly and expected people to treat him with the respect with which he treated them. He was patient, un-flustered and a very, very good teacher. Despite this, the vast majority of young people in my group struggled with the lesson. One thing I have observed frequently in working with young people in Peckham is that, for various reasons, many of them have learned to expect instant results and to give up when they are not immediately able to do something. Clearly this attitude does not work with learning to ski, and as our staff members were also on skis and equally as incompetent at moving around on them, we weren't able to fill the gap in the way we usually do - moving from young person to young person, encouraging them, answering questions, reassuring them, explaining, calming and translating things they didn't understand. One of our staff members was quite badly injured prior to the activity too, so we didn't have her wonderful influence to help guide us. Indeed those of us left as staff members were as insecure on our skis as the young people were, and without this work, many of the young people gave up far too quickly. They wanted to go straight to the high slope and weren't willing to put in the work it would take to get there. This was a great shame as the instructor was so fabulous, the opportunity so rare and the potential displayed by the youth to learn very real - but they just didn't believe in themselves, and so much of the opportunity was lost.

It breaks my heart to see capable young people giving up on themselves too soon. We have very real and important work to do in this area. The way the world works simply demands it - you can't get through life very far at all if you don't believe that perseverance and hard work does pay off.

Having said that, there were a handful of people who were the exception to this, who persevered despite their rapidly disappearing friends, and who managed to stay upright skiing down a small slope. I loved the experience myself - it was also my first time in a pair of ski boots!

After the lesson we were treated to a session on the tubing slope. THIS WAS SO MUCH FUN! In the car afterwards we found ourselves questioning how we could do more of this brilliant activity from Peckham.

Horse Riding: Bradfield College Residential 2011

2011-10-04T05:30:00.000+01:00

Every year Bradfield College hosts Bradfield Club members for a few days of incredible activities and new experiences. For more stories from the 2011 trip, see yesterday's post or any posts with the tag "Bradfield College Residential."

Horse Riding

Horse riding is an activity that, since I have been going, we do every year. It's an incredible activity, because it gives young people the chance to engage with creatures that are bigger and stronger than we are, and yet noble, powerful and responsive. Horses are creatures we can connect with, and yet they need and deserve our respect and if we don't manage ourselves and our own anger and behaviour around them, they are likely to respond badly to us, to our detriment. So riding horses is a real lesson in self-control, self-awareness and connecting with something bigger and more powerful than yourself.

This year, as we had so many young people participating, we didn't go out on our usual ride around the woods, but instead took it in turns riding the horses, with one person riding and one person walking the horse by the rope at the side. This was actually a real challenge and turned out to be quite scary. For the first time that I've ever seen a horse actually reared up with a young person on his back. This terrified me (I have zero experience of horses outside of this yearly trip and I was scared to the point of having to hold tears back in front of the kids - horses are scary when you're not used to them, seriously!!) but the young person in question managed to stay on his back, stay calm, and continue riding afterwards. I was so proud.

Charlie really connected with this horse from when he first arrived

so he was thrilled when he was asked if he would like to ride her.

Another observation from the trip was that one woman (and she was the exception) from the horse riding centre seemed to respond quite defensively to us turning up, and tried to control the kids and their behaviour by yelling and them and using scare tactics such as "You better behave if you don't want the horses to hurt you" (or words to that effect). This was incredibly unhelpful as the young people were - understandably - already quite scared about getting anywhere near a creature so much bigger and stronger than them which they had no experience of knowing how to work with, and the more scared they got, the more likely they became to respond violently or irrationally. The great irony, of course, is that in that way humans are not so different from horses and yet the very principles she was trying to teach the kids in responding to the horses (such as approach them with respect and stay calm and gentle if you want them to respond well to you) she was not herself using in responding to the young people. Nonetheless, we had plenty of teachers from Bradfield College and leaders from Bradfield Club on site who know and love our young people and were able to work with them to reassure them to the point of mounting a horse, which every one of them, to their credit, did.

The kids did me proud. I am so grateful to Maurice and Bradfield College for giving us that opportunity.

Daniel, one of our leaders, tries his own hand at horse riding, led by his colleague.

River Crossing: Bradfield College Residential 2011

2011-10-03T05:30:00.000+01:00

As promised, stories from the Bradfield College Residential 2011:

Maurice, a teacher at the Bradfield College, is also the link person between the Bradfield Club and the Bradfield College, and year in, year out, he plans and funds a summer programme for our members which allow them to try activities that they wouldn't get the opportunity to do with our facilities, resources and opportunities in Peckham.

It really is an incredible trip and it was exciting to take sixteen young people (the maximum number possible) for the trip this year. Over the course of the next few days, I'll tell you stories from a handful of the many activities we did this year.

River Crossing

One of the first activities that we did, which is an annual regular, is the river crossing. There is a river that runs across the bottom of Bradfield College grounds, and Maurice took us all down to the river with equipment to build two zip lines across the river. Instructions were included on knot tying and we were told which trees were safe to use as anchors to tie the ropes around. The leaders were supposed to supervise and not get involved and the young people were divided into two teams to compete against each other. They had to get all team members from one side of the river to the other.

Climbing a tree to secure one end of the zip line

One of the hardest bits about this exercise is right at the beginning - throwing one end of a rope OVER the river to be caught by a team member on the other side. Every time you fail to throw it far enough, the rope gets wetter and more and more covered in river gunk, making it increasingly hard to throw across. As leaders, we are supposed to be supervising and giving tips but we were all desperate to get our hands on the ropes ourselves...we are just as competitive, eager and enthusiastic as the kids themselves! In the video following, you can see one of our leaders in the background trying to teach a young person the technique for getting the rope over the water, and the foreground Maurice is teaching another young person how to secure the knot once he's climbed the tree.

Several young people had a go at getting the rope across but eventually our team member on the other side waded into the river and picked up the end of the rope and carried it out. We had some very muddy and wet team players at the end of the activity.

There were BIG debates about how to do it and who was doing what but in the end near enough everyone crossed successfully!

One of the young people even decided to try and cross it without sitting in it - just holding on with his hands.

This was the (highly amusing!) result for which this young man was awarded "Most Comedy Moment" at our formal dinner:

Sam's Site

2011-09-29T15:45:00.000+01:00

A young person - Sam - who is about eleven or twelve years old has recently joined the Club. He is an absolute delight to work with and has been a massive asset to our Bradfield family already.

Today I would like to promote his website, which he has made himself with the help of his older brother. Through it, he is selling booklets on how to make your own website. I admire his young entrepreneurial spirit.

http://amuwat.net63.net/index.html

Analysing the Riots

2011-09-19T08:00:00.006+01:00

A big thanks to Richard from the Management Committee for bringing this news article into us for the Management Committee meeting last week.

Unfortunately I didn't manage to merge these two images together into one as I was trying to do, but they still show the FT's analysis of the London riots - a fascinating one.

Here are a few of my thoughts - what are yours?

* it's more complex than made out here...I wouldn't say the riots were caused by deprivation...but I would say that a lot of the lawlessness and anger that was displayed in the riots, but which I and many others see just under the surface on a daily basis is caused by marginalisation and powerlessness, which is unjust and which needs to be fought and combated

* Stop and Search is a really really tough daily reality for many of these young people...it seems alright until its you being searched and then it feels like such a violation - one that many of these young people live with several times a day

* none of this justifies or even fully explains violence...and the truth is that many, many of the young people that we work with spoke out against the riots and were as appalled as the general public because - wait for it - they are the general public too!

* we're not all as different from each other as we make out

What's your take? Leave a comment and let us know!

Hello Again

2011-09-18T23:56:00.000+01:00

Dear Readers,

We are very sorry for the silence. It's been really busy at the Bradfield Club as we start the new term and I'm pleased to note that we have appointed a new caretaker, subject to references...

...so watch this space for an introduction coming soon.

We had our first week of the new term with everyone back. Our biggest need for this term is recruitment of volunteers, so we're going to address that on our team day out tomorrow, thinking not just about how to get volunteers, but also how to look after them, empower them, connect with them, and make sure they become part of the Bradfield family...also how to make sure they are the right fit for us and how to keep respecting each other when the going gets tough.

Building team is crucial to the success of challenging work and that is something we are excited about focusing on over the coming months.

Hang on in there with us, and thanks to all of you who are part of the Bradfield family far-and-wide...

from,
The Bradfield Team

We're all going home!

2011-08-31T15:19:00.002+01:00

No news today because we are all exhausted after two days of full-on interviewing and Daniel is having a couple of well earned days off!

Sessions are closed this week - our ONE WEEK of closed sessions before we re-open for the new term next week. We're still working but email and phone may not be answered as we are deep in recruitment and planning.

...See you next week...

Hazards to your Health

2011-08-30T18:00:00.000+01:00

I'm feeling bizarrely disconcerted at the Bradfield Club today. I came in this morning and one of the first things I did was - shocked - point out to Aaron that I was putting the fire extinguisher back on the wall and that it really can't be used to prop doors open. I was shocked because Aaron is hot on this point, having had it made to him on several occasions by different fire officers.

Propping a door open with a fire extinguisher is a severely punishable crime - who knew?!

As I soon discovered, though, Aaron's health and safety hat hadn't fallen by the wayside. Rather, he had set up a "hazards" test for our caretaker interviews today. Each candidate has to do a ten minute walk around the Club and write down any hazards they can spot and what they would do about them if they got the job.

Trailing wires are a trip hazard, and, depending on where they lead, sometimes worse...

Although I know this, I am so well trained after five or six years of being co-responsible for this building, and of seeing what kids can do given a bit of a hype and a bit of bleach/water/wire that it is really throwing me for a loop walking around the building and not subconsciously cleaning up the hazards. I have been amazed how much we have all learned in the last half decade about the dreaded "Health and Safety." I have been amazed at how second-nature it has become to us all, and how instinctive it is to simply divert and go and clear up the obstructed fire door, put away the bleach, move the wire, or put the rubbish in the right place.

Rubbish by the side of the building, especially paper and cardboard, is a fire hazard as well as an eyesore!

Worst of all there have been knives out in the kitchen all day. Although the front door is locked, it is all I can do to stop myself from jumping in that kitchen and locking them away. I've seen and heard too much of what can been done with knives to be comfortable with them just lying on the counter.

Knives hanging out by the mugs. Gives me the creeps!

I am someone, who, quite frankly, thinks that the Health and Safety agenda in Britain has gone over-the-top. I don't actually think that we need to protect everyone from every possible risk. Nonetheless, it has been part of my job - shared with various others at various points - to make this building safe....and trust me, five years ago it REALLY wasn't safe! I am encouraged, on a day when a few things are deliberately put awry, to realise just how far we've come, thanks to some incredibly generous donors, a dedicated team and a lot of hard work.

I've seen videos of the difference between a fire that is stopped by a fire door and a fire that is not.

We're talking total destruction versus survival.

Yet another day in the multi-varied life of the Bradfield team.

How many of the hazards pictured would you have spotted?

There are special rules about the storage of cleaning products and chemicals,

this is especially important when young children use the Club.

I guess I've learned hands-on that despite the hassle, it really does save energy, stress and mental well-being when things are safe. I found it incredibly overwhelming all those years ago working in an unsafe Club and I'm proud of how far we've come.

P.S. there are of course no children in today and no one was harmed in the making of this hazard test!

Bank Holiday?!

2011-08-29T19:33:00.004+01:00

Well it's quiet in The Bradfield Club today as most people are very sensibly enjoying the Bank Holiday! However, it's 7:35pm and Aaron and I are slowly winding down from a day's work.

This really is an extremely busy season at the Bradfield Club! This is our last week of the summer holidays before the new term starts, and we are interviewing candidates for our part-time Caretaker position which has recently available since Carole decided to resign from Caretaking and focus on the Administration side of her role. So tomorrow morning we have our first candidates, and as I was away on residential last week, we were in today reviewing questions, setting up practical tasks and printing out all the paperwork for a whole two days of back-to-back interviews.

This is Bank-Holiday-Office-Rachel-and-Aaron - surviving on cake, which is nearly gone!

We've also taken a couple of hours to clean out the art-room and start to get it set up to be used properly in the academic year 2011-2012...

September is nearly here, EEEEEK!!!

We're away on Residential...

2011-08-17T20:27:00.003+01:00

It might be a bit quiet on the blog for the next week because we're away on residential at Bradfield College - there will be lots of stories to tell when we get back though!

Reflections on the Riots by Daniel

2011-08-17T15:39:00.005+01:00

The London / UK riots were a shocking series of events that seemed to get worse and worse. Peackham wasn't one of the worse hit places however several shops were - criminally damaged, looted, smashed up or intimdated by looters. On Monday 8th August when the riots first began I joined a local southwark MP and a few councillors as they travelled the constituency talking to local business owners who had been looted, policemen, police women and even hooded groups of youths we saw wandering around.

A couple of days later I attended a meeting with Nick Clegg and Simon Hughes MP, the Leader and Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats. The meeting was also attended by local community leaders, councillors and residents. The meeting was held to see what actions the authorities should take on looters in the UK.

I am 23 years old and have worked for Bradfield for a year now, we have an extremely diverse population of staff, young people and other building users. I was and am doing my part for the community in these hard times and so are other Bradfield staff with prayer and risking opening club during the last stages of the riots to have a meeting with young people what was previously planned.

Please stay safe and remember to do your part for the community in these hard times...as every little helps no matter how small it may seem..

Bradfield Club Video

2011-08-16T13:00:00.000+01:00

Thanks to Bradfield College for making this video of the work at the Club.

Mr & Mrs

2011-08-16T10:00:00.001+01:00

For those who have noticed that my name has changed and are confused that Aaron and I now have the same last name...yes, it's true, we are married!

Aaron and I met through our church at All Saints and have been friends for years now. We have both been working together part-time at Bradfield for a number of those years, and this last July we were proud and excited to celebrate our marriage - in Peckham - with friends, family and many from the Bradfield Family too.

Bradfield is so much more than a youth club...we see births, marriages, and deaths here as we ride the roller-coaster of loving and working with people together.

Thank you to everyone for all the support and good wishes that we have received. It means a lot to us!

A Voice

2011-08-15T14:07:00.004+01:00

Last night I attended a Service for Peace at All Saints Church in Peckham. I was so proud of our church for hosting it and of everyone involved for hitting the nail on the head in a sensitive and positive way. There was a news crew there and they kept the cameras rolling as person after person stepped up to pray, to encourage and to speak hope. I was especially proud of the young people who spoke truth and who prayed for peace - they are standing against a whole host of stereotypes and they are really have the power to change this community. They can speak with great authority.

Simon Hughes and Patrick Reagan spoke of a meeting that was hosted by Nick Clegg, asking for advice from community leaders and youth workers in response to the London riots. I was proud that one of our youth workers was at that meeting, giving a true from-the-ground response.

I wept my way through the service, heart-broken for those who feel (as Simon Hughes said) that they don't have a stake in the community; that they are not attacking their own communities. I wept for the loss and pain and helplessness that so many feel. I wept for the lack of action seen by so many churches before and in the immediate aftermath of the riots. I wept for the moving response of not just churches but hundreds of people who just really care. I wept for the job that is ahead of us, at Bradfield, working with and standing beside those who rioted and those who were affected by the rioting. There is a big job ahead. I hope this will be a wake-up call for many, many people - yes, this can happen in Britain. Violence and anger is just under the surface. So what are we going to do about it?

I am so moved that when you google "Peckham riots" now you are just as likely to come up with a picture of our peace wall as you are to come up with pictures of fire and rioters.

We Still Love Peckham

2011-08-10T12:10:00.000+01:00

Peckham Shed - a theatre company for 5-16 year olds - created this amazing mural on one of the boarded up windows on Rye Lane. It's an amazing testimony to all the positivity about Peckham in the community. I am very glad and grateful to report a quiet night last night, and we are back to work as normal today.

London Riots Hit Peckham

2011-08-09T18:42:00.001+01:00

I suppose it was only a matter of time, though many were begging for the riots not to come so close to home.

Riot police keep spectators back from the fire

Last night I was working on my PhD and Aaron called out to check online because the rioters had come to Peckham. We live just off Rye Lane and 2 minutes walk from the station, so we looked both online and out of the window, and saw a rush of commuters coming from the station. One of them was a friend, so I called out the window to her and she came to the flat. She told me that there were about 100 masked young people by the station and that it probably wasn't a good idea to wander very far afield.

A police van with two smashed windows

We checked a few more reports and I saw a young person I know walk past and tried to speak to him, but missed the chance. Another friend was at work and was texting me to ask if I knew the safest way to get home. We went out to Rye Lane to see what was happening and by the time that we go there the station was closed, and the road was closed by a line of police vans and riot police. To the right, a building was on fire and smoke billowing. We called my friend and she decided to walk (she got home safely) - apparently a bus was on fire and the station was closed...later we saw pictures - the burning bus was a 2 minute walk from The Bradfield Club.

We called down to Club to make sure no one was there. Some Taekwondo kids were apparently waiting outside but Michael (leader of Taekwondo) went down and told them it was cancelled. DJ Club was cancelled and thankfully one of the leaders lives right opposite the Club and was able to keep an eye on it. Another staff member wasn't able to get his kids home and they are still at their aunty's house now.

Riot police run up Rye Lane towards the fire, after the rioters have moved on

We had a very bad week last week in Peckham, with reports of four stabbings on two consecutive days. One of them, which I will write about another time, was very closely connected to the Club and included one of our members getting stabbed on Commercial Way. All very bad. In light of this, and the heat and irrationality of the riots, it was an easy decision to not have the Club open during the evenings yesterday or today - we spoke to a couple members of staff and they instantly agreed with the decision. These are people who know the streets, care about the youth, and know what is and isn't safe.

Someone's home is burning in the background here

On the other side of it, we so want to see the youth, make sure they are ok, and urge them to have nothing to do with the rioting. We know that many of them will be tempted to get involved and by some accounts some already have. We need great wisdom to know how to deal with it if that is the case.

Some of the carnage left by rioters

In the meantime we are all shocked and sad as we see our neighbors' and friends' businesses, homes and even their own persons attacked.

This morning serious clean up was already in operation

This morning it was life supposedly back-to-normal although countless shops were smashed up, but as Aaron and I walked around to catch the word on the street, there was a frenzy of shops closing down. We are out of food at home so we diverted our route to get some food, and got in touch with London Youth and a staff member to let them know what was happening. We must have been among the last people in one of the last shops to close on the high street and our cashier (who I think was also the manager) kept saying "My heart is beating; we have to close." We ducked out under the closing shutters with our groceries and took our food home before going down to the Club.

Word on the street was that rioters were coming back to Peckham and shops started closing in a bit of a frenzy.

On the way to Club we saw a policeman we know and spoke to him. He had been on holiday but been called back to get on the streets. He said there are so many police on the streets that he doesn't think the rioters will be back in Peckham tonight. He's a good man and we told him that we are praying for him and if there is anything we can do he should get in touch with us. We told him we have all of the Bradfield Club and all of our church to call on if they need help and we all want to do anything we can, so he should get in touch if there is anything he can think of. He seemed quite emotional and told us we had made his day. We were quite in awe of the bravery of the policeman as we watched the riot police in action last night. We will continue to hold these police men - who at the end of the day are sons and fathers and husbands too - in our prayers tonight.

Sports Direct and 99p Shop hurry customers out as they lock down

We also passed a mural on one of the boarded up windows with contributions on "Why We Love Peckham" and young and old from all walks of life were writing on post it notes and stars about what they love about Peckham. We contributed and thanked the theatre company who were hosting it. They said that they were motivated because they work with young people and wanted to remind people that not all young people are thugs. We totally agree and commended them for their work.

We also stopped by Kelly Avenue's Central Venture Park - Southwark Youth Service's nearest youth work - and spoke to Trevor who is bravely keeping the place open during the day on the premise that youth need somewhere safe and fun to be in the midst of this craziness. It was incredibly quiet, but we had a good, if somewhat depressing, chat with him, sharing news from the area.

Despite it all, we still love Peckham!

Songs of Praise

2011-02-17T18:44:00.000Z

http://www.bbc.co.uk/i/yrlny/

Three days left to watch the Bradfield Club on national tele!

Our bit starts about 10 minutes in...do check it out.

Big shout out to Songs of Praise for positive representation of Peckham.

Bring on 2011

2011-01-11T19:52:00.000Z

It's 11/1/11 today - the first day back of sessions in 2011.

Today started off well, with the 4-11s flocking and overwhelming the staff we had on site for our 4-5:30 session. It was wonderful to see the children sticking up for each other - what a great atmosphere in which they are learning the true meaning of the word respect.

Some examples:

1. In a game of musical statutes, I made a rule that anyone who touches anyone else in the "dancing" bit would automatically be out as too many people had already been accidentally hurt by being banged about by each other. One of the kids piped up, "you should make an exception for him though," pointing to a very young autistic member, "because he's really little." I love that he wasn't just out to win, or to make things exactly fair, but to make sure that everyone could participate.

2. I - new to the unofficial rules of the club which Aaron and Junior normally run, only let everyone have one biscuit. One young boy came up to me and said quietly, away from the other children, "the children who are helpers normally get two biscuits." He wasn't a helper that week. Awesome.

3. Two little children were fighting over the ball for table football. I asked them to give it to me, which they did, and then explain using words what had happened. They explained, and then apologised, and then went off to play happily together.

These may seem like small signs of success, but they are actually huge. This club is allowing children to come together and learn to love and respect each other whilst having fun - they are learning in many other places that to have fun, be successful and be protected they need to be cruel to one another. I am excited to see these children grow together.

Photography as a One-to-One tool

2010-12-03T12:40:00.000Z

There is a certain young man who attends the 11-14s Club who originally found it quite hard to participate. He didn't seem to be able to join in a game of football, basketball or table tennis without disrupting it and ruining it for everyone else. He rarely managed to sit down during the whole of dinner, and frequently got into fights with other members of the Club. Nonetheless, he came back to every session, and built relationships with the staff. During one session, I (Rachel) brought in my own personal digital camera, as the Club does not yet own a digital camera. This young man immediately wanted to have a go, but the other members encouraged me not to. I had told them how long it had taken me to save up to buy the camera (two years) and they could see how precious it is to me. "Don't let him, miss" they argued, "it's not worth it."

Something in me - and I really don't know what - decided that this was a chance to believe in this young man and show him his own potential. I held onto the camera and told him how important it is to me. I told him that it is my own personal camera, but that I wanted to trust him with it. He took it careful into his hands, strapped it over his neck, and spent the rest of the session calmly and carefully taking responsiblity for the camera. He got models to pose for him and listened intently while I instructed him on how to use it. He gently negotiating with other members who wanted to have a go and shared with them, making sure they wore the strap when they had a go. He was patient when the uploading wouldn't work and came back the next day to upload his pictures to my computer. He has even started a potential accreditation in photography.

Isn't this just what all of us have had at some point in our lives? Someone to say, "I trust you with this." I think of how God has entrusted such a privileged job and his precious church and mission into the hands of volatile children, and though it gets so messy sometimes, isn't that just what brings out the beauty and strength in us all? Sometimes we just need someone to show our own selves that we're more capable, more responsible, more mature than we have proved so far. Sometimes we just need someone to take a risk on us, with something very precious.

Re-launch Is Go

2010-10-21T01:23:00.000+01:00

I have hesitated far too much to write on this blog. It is very difficult to write, because most of the things that are interesting and worth updating friends of Bradfield on are also confidential. Almost anything relating to the young people is confidential, and of course, that is the very heartbeat of all that we do. Pictures, which make blogs so much more readable, are also difficult to post as they so rarely are good photos with no young people's faces on them. I am realising increasingly how much more sensitive I have to be. The internet certainly has its pros and cons - wierd child stalker people - you are not welcome here!

Nonetheless, an update in the most general of terms is still interesting, as a lot has changed at the Bradfield Club - in a very good way.

Today, what I would like to do is introduce our new youth workers. Both these young men are local guys who are passionate about young people, really care about what happens to them and their lives and want to see other people's lives changed around as theirs have been. They are working with 11-14s and 15-20s respectively, and are here to both maintain the sessions that we have got and to start up new sessions. They are also here to increase our ability to do the all-important one-to-one work, to promote and recruit new young people, to set up work that is specifically funded or needed, and to help the Club be a safer place and increase our capacity. They are both excellent at these things and raring to go.

These guys have started at a difficult time as things are not easy in Peckham at the moment. It feels, in fact, less safe than it has done yet in terms of frequency of shootings and how quiet the streets are (everyone feels the need to stay indoors). Creative and brave strategies are needed to reach young people at this time and make a real impact and the new youth workers, with myself, need all our support in achieving that.

Jumble Sale

2010-08-05T13:26:00.001+01:00

I'm sad to say that our DJ equipment was very sadly stolen from the premises and the police have dropped the investigation and insurance won’t pay out as there is no evidence of a break in.

In light of this, we have decided to have a spontaneous JUMBLE SALE this Saturday to raise money towards replacing the DJ equipment – by September!

It will be at the Bradfield Club, this Saturday, 1:30-4:30pm and we already have a whole host of delights to sell, so do come on down! If you have things you would like to sell, let us know and we can pick them up in the car. If you can’t make it but would like to donate, please transfer your donation to our bank account, details of which are on the attached form, or send us a cheque to 5-13 Commercial Way, Peckham, SE15 6DQ. If you fill in the gift aid form attached we can get even more!! Do spread the word to friends and family who might like to join in or help out.

Those who are available to help with set up, we will be hear from 11am.

Hope to see you on Saturday and do spread the word!

Interviews

2010-07-27T22:48:00.002+01:00

This week is interview week - we've got 6 interviews - had 2 today, got 3 tomorrow, got 1 Thursday. It's really wonderful reading about people's past experience and what they believe that they could bring to Bradfield. It's a privilege seeing people's different gifts and talents, and how they see things from a different perspective - and how that could complement Bradfield. It's also humbling having people put in so much effort and commitment to show us the best of who they are and all that they have to offer. I've been on the other side of that desk enough times to know that it's not an easy position to be in, and today I saw two men handle it with dignity and enthusiasm - and we put them through the works with myself, Aaron (Centre Manager), Ben (young person and youth worker), Simeon and Rose (youth workers), Iain (Management Committee) and Tashaun (young person) all being on site for interviewing today - thanks for all the time and effort the staff have put in too. It really is such an important decision and defines the beginning of what could be a new era at Bradfield - I know we have the wisdom as a team to make the right one.

Conveniently (haha) we also had our kitchen Health and Safety inspection today - and it went alright!

Gratitutde

2010-07-24T00:18:00.008+01:00

This song - called Gratitude - by Nicole Nordeman - is beautiful and powerful, and sort of hard as well.

Send some rain, would You send some rain?

'Cause the earth is dry and needs to drink again

And the sun is high and we are sinking in the shade

Would You send a cloud, thunder long and loud?

Let the sky grow black and send some mercy down

Surely You can see that we are thirsty and afraid

But maybe not, not today

Maybe You'll provide in other ways

And if that's the case ...

We'll give thanks to You with gratitude

For lessons learned in how to thirst for You

How to bless the very sun that warms our face

If You never send us rain

Daily bread, give us daily bread

Bless our bodies, keep our children fed

Fill our cups, then fill them up again tonight

Wrap us up and warm us through

Tucked away beneath our sturdy roofs

Let us slumber safe from danger's view this time

Or maybe not, not today

Maybe You'll provide in other ways

And if that's the case ...

We'll give thanks to You with gratitude

A lesson learned to hunger after You

That a starry sky offers a better view

If no roof is overhead

And if we never taste that bread

Oh, the differences that often are between

Everything we want and what we really need

So grant us peace, Jesus, grant us peace

Move our hearts to hear a single beat

Between alibis and enemies tonight

Or maybe not, not today

Peace might be another world away

And if that's the case ...

We'll give thanks to You with gratitude

For lessons learned in how to trust in You

That we are blessd beyond what we could ever dream

In abundance or in need

And if You never grant us peace ...

But, Jesus, would You please ...

It reminds me that even whilst I pray, passionately, determinedly, endlessly, for peace in Peckham, for hope - and a home for young people - for a well supported and cared for team, for things to move at Bradfield, and move quicker, for funds, and hope, and safety, and change...for access to make a difference - access to police, to prisons, to homes...we so need and so long for these things...but maybe not, not today - maybe you'll provide in other ways and if that's the case...I'll give thanks to you...with gratitude...for lessons learned in how to trust in you....that even in the very darkest night, you are still my God.

But Jesus, would you please....

Whipped Cream, Pouring Cream or Ice Cream?

2010-07-21T22:49:00.002+01:00

Tonight was the last session of the term, and I'm glad to say that Kris and Akin came back to share it with us. Also glad to say that the previous problems with bullying that we have had seemed to be out the window tonight. We've been doing superheroes this term, so tonight, they got to choose a superhero film to watch (and they very wisely chose JASON BOURNE), play table tennis, and get a prize for every question they got right on a superheroes quiz. We also gave Raamarne his 2nd place prize (TJ got his first place yesterday) and Raamarne tricked me (hilariously, apparently) into getting one of the questions right by seeing the answer. Ha ha ha. Trev - who has been so helpfully volunteering with us recently - brought in a homemade pudding which went down VERY well, and we had it with cream cream and more cream (whipped cream, pouring cream and ice cream). It was also our last night with Michael, table tennis coach, who said he really enjoyed the Bradfield family. I'm glad to say we went out on a bang.

Redecorate

2010-07-20T22:59:00.004+01:00

Tonight we have been painting endless colours of the walls at the Club in the interests of recreating the Club from boring old institution to funkalicious youth club. It's SO hard to get decide whether to go for colours that are really lovely but quite boring, or whether to go really bold and risk it looking awful! The problem with the lovely but boring colours is that it really won't look that different from how it looks now. The problem with risky is that they are - obviously - controversial.

So far we have more or less decided on the foyer and art rooms. The foyer is going to be a fresh yellow with one dramatic but slightly inconspicuous wall in a purple colour to complement the stunning piece of art work that we have in there.

The art room is going to be Jasmine White (more or less - white) with Mulberry Burst - which looks AMAZING on the wall although it may not do so in these pictures here.

But the training room - oh the training room remains a serious dilemma. Here are our inspiration photos. A bit crazy!!

But so far all we have managed to do is decide on teal!

Peckham: Finishing School for Girls

2010-06-19T01:35:00.000+01:00

"Peckham, in Southeast London - one of the most deprived areas on the UK. Notorious for knife crime, gangs and guns."

So begins the charming British TV series, this week, Peckham - Finishing School for Girls, in which four posh girls come to Peckham for ten days - yes, ladies and gentlemen, they will complete this piece of fieldwork in ten days - for ten days, because, as one girl put it: "I'd just like to experience the...deprived life that these people have."

The girls themselves get mocked at by the programme, despite (in some cases - Steph, Serena) seeming to make quite an effort to be open-minded. As for how Peckham is treated - it's like it's the ends of the earth. The picture above is the exact moment (screenshot from iplayer) where - sitting around the TV in astonishment at the Bradfield Club - we all watched as one of the members of staff's son was subtitled on national TV. Subtitled. "I want to know what language they think he's speaking" his parent jibed, "because I can understand him."

I had previously been approached by the people making this programme to find out if I could support them in the process. I decided not to, for the very fear that it would not be a positive endeavour for Peckham and our youth. The other night when it came on, I knew I had made the right decision. I found the programme so sensationalist, and such a misrepresentation of Peckham, that I actually walked out. This made the other members of staff walk in to find out what could be so offensive to me. Together we watched the rest with some of the youth. We found it hilarious, intriguing, and offensive in not quite equal measures.

The narrator told the viewers, that "Peckham, sadly, has an unfortunate reputation," and then proceeded to explain why these girls needed self-defence classes as their tutor implied that it even the very next day could be a matter of life or death, and gave them a £30 budget to each spend on getting a "Peckham makeover" - i.e. buying what was portrayed as tacky clothes from our local high street stores in order to fit in better. It's not really unfortunate that it has a negative reputation - it's driven, largely, by programmes that make no effort at understanding and dramatise the differences between people rather reminding us all of how much we have in common.

The youth worker bridging between the girls said, "When people think of Peckham they think of gangbanging, they think of druggies, they think of chavs, benefit scroungers, single mums, runaway dads....all the negative things...even though they've never set foot in the area. I know from personal experience that there's a lot more to Peckham than the headlines...positive vibes: simple."

I completely agree. If you want people to have positive vibes about Peckham, though, don't make programmes like that.

Hang on in there

2010-06-16T23:52:00.007+01:00

It feels totally appropriate that I might be going rock climbing on Saturday - because this is what it feels like sometimes! Like: "if we've got this wrong, this is going to be an absolute disaster" When you're rock climbing, you've got to trust your plan, trust your training, trust your rope, and trust your partner/team - and you can have a totally exhilarating ride - and you can get really close to falling off, but if you hang on in there, you can reach the top.

Sometimes, Bradfield feels a bit like that. We're a small charity, with a relatively small turnover, totally reliant on the astonishing goodwill of others, trying to climb great heights on what is regularly paraded on TV as

"Peckham, in Southeast London - one of the most deprived areas on the UK. Notorious for knife crime, gangs and guns. "

Hang on in there, Bradfield Club - God's got you!

Bradfield Club is recruiting - spread the word!

2010-06-15T14:15:00.004+01:00

Senior Youth Workers

The Bradfield Club is a youth centre with a Christian ethos, that exists to empower young people in Peckham to live life in all its fullness. We are looking for two senior youth workers who are committed to bringing real change to communities in Peckham to start Jul/Aug 2010. One youth worker will manage work with 11-14s; the other will manage work with 15-20s, many of whom are involved in gangs and violent crime. Both will be responsible for session delivery, managing a team of session workers, running evangelistic activities, and pioneering one-to-one work. You must be trained in youth work principles and practice, and have significant youth work experience as well as the confidence and passion to work in a challenging inner-city context in creative ways. You must be willing to work evenings and occasional weekends. Both roles are for 30 hours a week, £20-25,000 pro rata. For these posts you must be a committed Christian, and both posts will be subject to an enhanced CRB check. Please request an application pack from info@bradfieldclub.org, specifying which position you are applying for. Closing date for applications is 25^th June 2010.

"I'm back again" (said Nora with a monumental crash)

2010-05-13T01:35:00.002+01:00

If you don't get the allusion to the classic children's book in the title then stop reading and go and find 'Noisy Nora' and read that instead.

Well, we had a good ol' break at Easter time and I jetted off to Chile with a friend from church, to Rio to visit my cousin and to the Amazon rainforest with Aaron...and then got volcanically stuck in Madrid, which wasn't bad either ;)

Of course it means the backlog has only increased, but we're still ploughing on through with significant progress being made, particularly in the accounts department (I use the term 'department' loosely of course).

In the meantime, sessions continue, which are my favourite bit, especially dinner time when we show photos, play games, nominate each other for points and chat chat chat chat chat. And eat cake for Simeon's birthday tomorrow!! Always 21... (which some kids believed)

It's really cool to see the youth taking much more responsibility onto themselves, even if they "only do it for points."

Points mean prizes.

In other news, Ben designed the coolest staff Bradfield tshirt yet. Pretty expensive to print, but watch this space...

Blitz the Backlog

2010-03-26T01:04:00.003Z

Hey guys,

A few people have mentioned to me recently that we don't update this very often but that it would be valuable, in their opinions, to do so. So here we are - trying again!

We had the Bradfield Celebration last week. The real delight of it, for me, was seeing young people brave themselves up and perform in front of an audience of people who have invested so much in them and yet to whom they are, mostly, still strangers. The greatest bit was after everyone had left when the stage was stormed by performers and friends from College and Club and chaotic, one-for-all-and-all-for-one kareoke was performed. It was hilarious and great fun. A bit of a late night for a school night, but a good experience. Thanks so much to all who worked so hard for it, and word up to Ally who pretty much single-handedly ran the whole night.

In other news, things at Club are quite hard. We are not really set up in terms of staff and infrastructure for the larger numbers, and there is still a big old backlog of things to get through - it feels like lists, lists, endless lists and more lists and still there is so much not done. I find genuinely engaging with people so motivating and wonderful, if inevitably messy, and yet to make that happen there is so much behind-the-scenes stuff that needs done and the lists seem to multiply. There is an awful lot of goodwill surrounding the Club though and hopefully we will be able to delegate as we really, really must blitz the backlog.

So that is going to be Project Easter to Summer.

Fire in Peckham

2009-11-26T09:44:00.003Z

This is Sumner Road. It's just a couple roads down from the Club (Rose, Aaron and I walk past it on our way to work) and very sadly at 4:30am this morning a fire spread to houses/flats there from a construction site nearby.

Aaron has been down there to ask if there is anything we can do as the Club is nearby with toilets, taps and big halls, and I think around 150 people have been evacuated. They took our number and said they will let us know but they are, naturally, not at that stage yet.

We know a couple of people who live on Sumner Road, two girls, a 12 year old and a 15 year old, with their respective families. We haven't heard if they were affected yet. The news is not yet reporting fatalities.

Peckham, Peckham, Peckham, how I weep for your children.

I had a picture in my head once of Peckham from a birds eye view, this is when I was praying, and there were fires all over it, little blazes, and then I could see a massive fire blanket, massive, woven out of the prayers of God's people, being slowly lowered down onto Peckham and putting out all the fires.

Do join me in praying. I can see helecopters from my bedroom window!

photos: Paul Wood, BBC News

Caretaker Wanted

2009-10-26T11:16:00.000Z

We are looking for a caretaker (12-16 hours a week) to deal with general DIY issues and help maintain the building and open up at weekends for club users groups. If you know of anyone who might be interested, please contact Aaron. Thanks!

New Term, New Turn

2009-10-08T10:38:00.003+01:00

This really feels like a fresh term.

It is the very beginning of year 3 since Aaron committed to staying here for at least 5 years, and since we all believed that God had encouraged us that we should be looking to what will bear fruit in 5 years time, not immediately. We want to plant trees, not just herbs! But trees take longer to grow.

It is amazing to see how far we have come in the last 2-3 years, given that most of that time we have only been working 2 or 3 days a week. In other words, no credit to us, it has been such a team effort and also supernatural power at work. It is amazing to see who God has brought on board, and how he has used people from all over London, and even the country, to support what is going on here in Peckham.

For instance, we are now the official charity of Manchesty University SkyDive Club!

(image from http://www.llc.manchester.ac.uk/undergraduate/residence-abroad/blogs/Lauren%20McCann/)

This is also the first term when we have a significant chunk of the volunteer team committing for a second year in a row, which is just fantastic. I can't tell you what a massive difference it makes, to the kids, to the planning, and to the sense of momentum, to have, including Aaron and myself, EIGHT members of the youth team - that's right EIGHT - carrying over from last year. Big props to the commitment!

Perhaps most excitingly to me at the moment, we have now got a little chapel/prayer room on the middle floor. It feels like the building now has a heart. So excited to have youth prayer meetings in there. Yesterday we had the privilege of praying with one of our our eldest members for the session we were about to go into, and for jobs.
Woot, woot, bring on the new year!

Update

2009-09-14T11:59:00.002+01:00

Brief Summer Update: Our Summer Scheme which involved various trips, sports days and of course the Bradfield College residential, was a great success. This was partly funded by Southwark Council's Small Grants fund.

Term is about to start with Drop In activities starting on 29th September. Planning for the term starts soon, so more info to follow...

Prayer!

2009-07-21T13:22:00.001+01:00

As part of our Summer Scheme programme here at the Bradfield Club we are going to run a 24/7 prayer room from 12 Midday on Monday 10th August to 12 Midday on Tuesday 11th August. It will take place in the Chill Out Room and half hourly slots will be available.

Prayer is central to our vision at the Bradfield and we'd love to invite you to join us in seeking God for Peckham with a particular focus on the young people.

If you would like to sign up, then go to our prayer wiki at http://bradfieldprayer.wetpaint.com/ where you can sign up and find out more information. We look forward to hearing what God has to say to us!

Life Has Returned

2009-07-06T17:37:00.013+01:00

This is what the Bradfield garden used to look like:

Through the gate and into the jungle...almost literally! Isn't that astounding?

After a lot of hard work coordinated by volunteers...yup....that's right...hard working, diligently minded volunteers... some shape returned.

Voila, before and after!

This summer, it is an absolute joy to sit in the garden and see an abundance of life surrounding us. It really is a true oasis now.

Update on Stabbings

2009-06-24T12:28:00.001+01:00

Update on previous post re stabbings...

The 'stabbed' lad is coming back to Club regularly now. The accussed 'stabber' speaks to me on the phone every now and then, but won't come back to Club and isn't attending school.

Apparently no revenge will be taken and it's only a 'little' incident.

The leg is totally healed.

DJ Club team

2009-06-24T12:24:00.003+01:00

TC, from the DJ Club, got a letter from the Council saying that the four boys' application has been shortlisted for interview. TC and DH are going to go down tomorrow, give a 5 minute presentation, and answer questions from the panel. Jossi is going to drive them down, and hopefully give them some moral support.

If we get the funding, they will hopefully be able to buy new equipment, expand the Club, implement full accreditation scheme, and for 'phase 3' set up a DJ Agency. They are excited, and want to become self funded. DH is a man with a vision and I hope he will step up to this challenge.

Yet More Police

2009-06-24T11:51:00.002+01:00

As we were locking up from Club last night, Rose heard sirens and shouting outside. Simeon went to investigate and make sure our guys who were walking home were ok. He came back saying it was really bad, and we stood and watched (the place was already swarming with police officers) until it had all calmed down. We knew pretty much everyone involved.

A was accused of raping C's little sister.
C and 'possy' were accused of storming B's house (B stands for brother cuz we don't know him, only his brother!), with knives, were apparently there were children.
B is accused of coming out in a rage and trampling Girl with C.
Girl with C has footmarks on her face (outline of a trainer) and a stamped back, and was taken off in an ambulance.
A, C and B were all arrested.
People were screaming and crying, even adult men apparently.
Big gang of lad were watching, a lot of whom used to come to Club, but seem to think they're too old or hard for it now.

Simeon, Rose and I are devastated. It's horrible being helpless. 3 shots were let of in Rose's ends on the weekend. It's just a disaster zone, it really is.

Caretaker Vacancy

2009-06-18T11:38:00.002+01:00

Bradfield Youth Club is looking for a caretaker (12-16 hours a week). To undertake general DIY and manual work, plus regular maintenance of health & safety systems. Looking for initiative, an awareness of building maintenance and health & safety legislation. Competence in both administrative and practical tasks needed. Local resident and willingness to work flexible hours preferable. CRB check required. Please contact olivia.brambill@bradfieldclub.org with a cover letter and CV. Applications close Tuesday 1st September.

Thanksgiving Service

2009-06-02T14:51:00.001+01:00

We are holding a service this Sunday 7th June from 3-5pm, primarily to thank God for all He has done over the last two years (including newly completed building works) and to pray for the future.

If you would like to share a testimony (e.g. something you want to thank God for in relation to the Bradfield, or something amazing you have seen God do here at the club) then there will be an opportunity during the service.

Children are welcome. Refreshments will be provided.
If you can make it then please let Aaron know.

Keys and Stuff

2009-05-07T12:53:00.004+01:00

One day stabbings, next day new front door. Less dramatic. Except actually quite good, since our last front doors looked like prison doors or something. Rather annoying though because now no one can get in, so we have to rotate camping out at the Club to let people in.

Ah well it's my studying day, not my rotation and therefore I am officially procrastinating.

By the way don't know what's happened re stabbings yet.

Double by way, we actually have a fabulous new blue canopy so we can lock up and do security without getting wet and so that people know where the door is and so the members don't get wet if they are waiting outside. Fabulous. This is thanks to Peter Roberts - the headmaster of Bradfield College - who already has hundreds of responsibilities and is truly supportive of the Peckham Club (as Bradfield College call it) in every way, taking initiative to go the extra 26 miles and running the Paris Marathon on our behalf, raising not just enough for the car but also for the canopy. Pretty impressive.

http://www.bradfieldcollege.org.uk/News/NewsPages/Pages/HeadmastercompletesParisMarathon.aspx

Soon(ish) we will be all sparkly and new!

Thank you Mr. Roberts!

Stabbings

2009-05-06T00:30:00.003+01:00

It was a quiet night, but made a couple phone calls to a few youth and it was really good to speak to them. We also heard that XXno1 allegedly stabbed XXno2 (sorry no initials even this time, until it comes out via the police rather than the rumour mill - both young guys, under 14, both good friends) at school, in the toilets. They are both members and we know them both really well. Obviously we are all really sad and want to do something. We will send a card to XXno2. We will have some contact with XXno1 too but I'm not sure what yet. We are scared that this is drawing them both into a world that for the next ten years it will be nigh-on-impossible to get out of.

Do pray.

MO is out of hospital. Bumped into him yesterday actually and he was surprised to see that I live not that far from his mum. LH didn't come to Club tonight and I'm not sure why.

STEPHEN was back, from Hawaii ("with work") - so good to see him again, though I think Sonia was blanking him, out of bitterness!

Management Committee meeting tomorrow night, and then on May 20th a big meeting in which all the council of both the Club and Bradfield College, and one of our wonderful trustees, CH, are coming down to see the Club and consider possible future support.

Lots of volunteers and staff - myself included - facing a run down body or some hard-to-process facts. Prayer support is always very valued!

Team Weekend Away

2009-04-30T11:30:00.006+01:00

I have been wanting to write about the team weekend away at Hitchin Barn. I will keep it brief, because what i write is just my perspective, and there were so many perspectives, of course. Perhaps others will add theirs.

Abi and I decided months ago (long before she resigned) that we would do a joint team weekend away in April. We wanted to share accomodation costs, and have the chance to pray and worship together as a bigger team of people doing youth work in Peckham. We had booked a place, given out dates and brainstormed well in advance.

But...leading up to the weekend I was pretty stressed, mainly because the upheaval in the All Saints team, and the timing of Prince Philip's visit, and then the clashing timings of Bradfield holidays and All Saints holidays meant that I wasn't able to communicate with the All Saints team about our itinerary for the weekend away, but didn't feel able to go ahead and plan it all myself either.

By the week before, I started thinking "this is impossible; it's not going to work." I was absolutely determined that we don't do a weekend away that was a waste of time for our staff and volunteers, who were giving up very valuable time that they could otherwise have been spending on projects with imminent deadlines, or with their kids, or resting - of course! But I couldn't see how we could quite pull it all together. The week before I started moving ahead on the plans even though I hadn't yet been able to connect with All Saints, but tentatively, in case we were still doing it together.

I became a bit of a nightmare around then, because I couldn't see a way through. Finally God broke through to me, reassuring me, and challenging me not to get stressed, overwork, work over the weekend, or try to do it in my own strength. Again I came back to that "not by might or by power but my by Spirit says God."

Eventually All Saints and I were able to connect, and Craig came in on his last day of holiday (talk about dedication!) to meet up with me. I felt really bad about that, but as it was the Tuesday before we left on the Friday, it seemed necessary.

We had an incredibly efficient meeting, divided up responsibilities, put together both our ideas to make an itinerary (which was more or less in place anyway) and realised that it really was pretty much all in place already apart from planning sessions and informing volunteers of details.

We continued to work hard over that week, and consistently, but I didn't find that I was woking like a stressed maniac, which is no small miracle in itself. I felt like God brought things together in a way that I had believed previously impossible, and I actually really enjoyed most of the planning, apart from the Friday morning when we were trying to do logistics and it was all a bit stressed. I had mis-remembered that Aaron and Olivia weren't working Thursday or Friday, but both of them kindly stepped in on Friday afternoon to pick up a few things for me, and we set off on time.

Very sadly, for various reasons a lot of people weren't able to make it (other work commitments/illness) but we had an amazing time together anyway. From my perspective it was really wonderful to be away together outside of Peckham, and there was a good number of people, though we really missed our other team members. Rose was a warrior, trying new foods and sharing a room with someone she had never met before, and I really felt for her in that, but loved her contribution and commitment - and dedication to going for a run every day too! Everyone who came really contributed so much, so willingly, and I don't think I've ever been on a weekend away before when every single person was hard working and didn't need asking to do things like help with cooking or washing up.

Olivia's knowledge of the barn, and how to run these weekends away, and commitment to structure was totally invaluable, and we couldn't have done it anywhere near as well or easily without her.

We came out with a good plan for Sept 09- Sept 10, and having
- learned the youth's names a bit better (Rose knew the most - 35 out of 58 of the photos we took, and some of them have only come once or twice of the remaining 18)
- discussed some of the young people's stories
- reviewed the vision of Bradfield, where we are up to so far, what are obstacles, and how we can move forward
- learned about managing challenging behaviour and practised on each other!
- planned the year to come
- prayed and worshipped together, for each other, and having shared communion
- discussed getting support as a volunteer and holiday times
- relished the sauna, indoor swimming pool, full size snooker table and especially the juke box!

It was a great time and I've very grateful to all who gave their time to it.

God came through for us!!

Next steps:
- report to management committee
- staff meeting with whole team to communicate decisions
- begin process of implementing the plan
- home visit for S - a story we discussed that we decided needed some further action
- get everyone to fill in support and supervision questionnaires and review them

Boredom in Hospital

2009-04-30T11:23:00.004+01:00

MO is still in hospital. Aaron got to visit him on Tuesday and spent about three hours with him by the sounds of it. One of the things that I really respect about Aaron is that he is rarely in a rush and almost always has - or makes - time for the people who he sees for one reason or another (visits, bumps into on the street, pop into the office at Bradfield etc). MO's primary ailment at the moment - according to his own expert medical opinion - is boredom, so I'm really glad he has a visitor, outside of visiting hours (Aaron just said, "Oh I'm just dropping something off" and then never left), for a really good chunk of time. Aaron dropped off our Club laptop because they have free internet there, so hopefully M will survive the rest of his stay on the boredom front and the staff will be able to focus on what they consider more pressing needs such as his chest infection etc.

During his time, some friends of his from a church in Nunhead gave him a Christian prophecy book (which he has finished) and Bible to read, which he has been reading (from Genesis), so he and Aaron got to chat about that. I am praying with all my heart that M finds what he is is looking for, and that he discovers that God is his best advocate, among all the other things he needs as well.

He was actually due to get out yesterday afternoon, so we will see...

Join me in prayer for this amazing young man's life, body and soul!

Hospital Visit

2009-04-27T16:29:00.002+01:00

I almost always miss the youth when I'm off on holiday. I relish the headspace, and the distance from paperwork and computers, but I miss the youth, and wonder how they are doing. This Easter holiday I particularly missed a young man - MO - who we have got to know very well, and who has faced crisis after crisis in his personal life. We have been quite involved in supporting him, and he is an incredibly strong young man with an awful lot to offer the world. But, as he put it once, "I can see how people in my situation would want to end their lives" and "This is crazy. I should make a movie of all this...." It's the tragedy of multiple stressors.

In any case, it was a priority when I got back from holiday to call him and when Sonia asked me in our first session how he was doing and I didn't know the answer I went and called him straight away. True to form, he was in hospital and had been for two weeks (the entire holiday). Honestly...and I think my life is stressful!

He got a tummy bug and is sickle cell so very vulnerable. They let him out after a few days but he got really sick again and has had to have blood and antibiotics for a chest infection as well, if I understood correctly. Aaron was able to visit him in hospital on Friday and take him some - by the sounds of it, much needed - necessities (toiletries etc) and perhaps even more importantly, Marvel comics to combat the awful boredom of lying in a bed all day and all night. It sounds like he's had quite a few visitors which is great, including someone important in his life who he has a somewhat estranged relationship with, so I'm really glad about that. It sounds like he's doing ok too, and hasn't lost his sense of humour.

We've been away on a team weekend away so I don't know how he is yet. I hope he's out, though last time I spoke to him he said "I think they want to keep me in till Christmas!"

Faith

2009-04-18T01:45:00.002+01:00

I had a bit of a revelation yesterday. The point of a story I was being told was that we should walk according to God's promises and not according to our experience; i.e. we don't draw truth from experience, but draw experience from the truth that is revealed in the Bible.

Doesn't that sound religious?! It's so religious that it's meaningless, and easy to agree with without really thinking about, but I think my friend talking to me must have used different language, because for some reason I started to think about it differently. I started to imagine the concept as, instead of walking on the "solid" ground of pavement, tarmac, grass etc, we could walk on the ground of God's words being laid down in front of us. For instance, when, at Bradfield, we had the party the solid ground of experience told us that it was a dangerous event to be holding. We had enough information to know that even guys from Brixton knew about it, and there is a massive rivalry (i.e. shootings happen based just on where you come from) between Peckham and Brixton. Besides that completely, the youth themselves were scared and a couple people had threatened us if we didn't let them in. We didn't have the proffessional security to deal with it. We had set the guest list at 120 max I think and apparently several hundred were due to turn up (I think in the end about 200 did). Despite several attempts we couldn't get through to the police. Even the youth had asked us to phone the police. All in all, according to experience, it could have been life-threatening.

BUT we believed it was right to go ahead. We believed it was right that the youth should be able to have a party that is not cancelled because one of them might be shot. More importantly (on the basis that just because something should be a certain way doesnt mean it is), we believed (and I prayed desperately for help in my unbelief) that God had given me a picture of angels surrounding the buidling, that he wanted us to go ahead, and that He would look out for our safety. We prayed with faithful staff members. We asked everyone we knew connected to the place to pray. Somehow, and I barely even know how, we walked according to the reality of God's promises and not according to the reality of Peckham. We held the party, it was an enormous success, we managed to keep those not on the list out, and everyone was perfectly safe, to the amazement of even the police, who did drive buy and question us during the event. It was one of the biggest breakthroughs we've had since we've been there actually in my (R's) opinion.
But most of the time I don't walk on that ground; I walk on safe ground, and ask God to understand and to help me with it.

I was thinking about all of that and thinking about how DO you walk by faith, and what does that really mean, and then I suddenly realised that most people do it all the time, and the people who don't are labelled "paranoid." I am always amazed - totally amazed - at people's faith in crossing roads. They have faith that the car drivers who have stopped are not pscyho, and are not taking the opportunity to lure them into a position where they could easily accomplish a hit and run murder. People usually have faith walking down the road that no one on the road is out to get them or to get random members of the public. People usually have faith that when the bus sign says a bus is coming in 10 minutes, it's not lying, even if it's not totally accurate i.e. buses are coming, at some point, soonish. I don't think it's that people are amazingly trusting, but just that you can't have a life, really, without some extent of "walking by faith." So...I guess that helped me to think, "It's not such a huge jump. It's not so crazy. In fact, as I absolutely do believe that God is far more reliable than random members of the public who I put my faith in every day, to live by faith in God is very conservative behaviour, though it may well and does lead to the most crazy-seeming actions. I just gotta choose what I put my faith in, and hope for a growing quantity of faith, and keep talking - because any relationship needs that."

It's an interesting thought...and I desperately want the result of it to be more living according to God's way of seeing things.

Grand Church Hoorah

2009-04-16T12:14:00.004+01:00

Really exciting news, from our partnership work with All Saints, is that TC has responded to Raymond's repeated invitations to church, and prayer, and has started becoming a regular attendee at the youth work at our church. He went on the youth weekend away and I can't wait to hear how it was. It's just what TC needs and I'm really excited. Fantastic!

Another Day

2009-04-16T12:08:00.002+01:00

Yesterday wasn't as horrendous. It started out with dragging myself out of bed, despite being up till about 2am processing work stuff the night before, for a 9am meeting with Aaron about the youth workers weekend away which is coming up.

I tried to explain to Aaron what was going on with me and Bradfield. I said that I feel that everyone involved at Bradfield is tempted to either take the road of acceptance or of idealism.

We are confronted with a situation that seems endlessly destructive. Even major investments of time and funds like the epic building works we have just had undertaken, are still destroyed by bad attitudes and carelessness as people scrape tables over the floor, leave things dirty, stain the walls...just weeks after it's finished. To an extent that is just the way it is, but when it's in every area, when almost everything you put your hand too is ruined so quickly, most people take one of two choices.

The Acceptors deal with their frustration by saying "that's just the way it is, the sun will rise, the sun will set, there's nothing we can do, another day will come." I am definitely not an Acceptor; I feel that we MUSTN'T give in to that, because otherwise we will never bring change. If we accept things the way they are, I feel we will just cave to the problem. I am determined not too and am in an exhuasting battle to keep believing that things can be different and that Bradfield can be an oasis.

The Idealists deal with their frustration by blaming others, and saying "This is ridiculous, we just need to do x, y and z." By refusing to accept the situation, they (we) put enormous pressure on themselves and each other to bear on our own shoulders the entire tide of despair and destruction that we encounter, and to fix it. Today. Ideally, yesterday, actually.

As you can imagine, there is tension between the Idealists and the Acceptors, and I think both are wrong. Somehow, there is a middle road, which is something like "This isn't right, and things shouldn't be this way, but it is totally beyond me and the team to change it without supernatural power." Then of course, the idea is, you turn to God.

Aaron and I also talked about anger, and about how angry we have both got when we have been confronted with situations in which bad things are happening to us, because of other people taking advantage, or lying, and yet we feel completely helpless to do anything about it. We talked - with Sonia too - about how rare it is that we face those kind of situations, and how common it is for the youth we work with. We talked about the destructive anger that rises up in us, and how we just want to hurt something, or hurt ourselves, in order to feel less powerless again and in order to somehow restore justice (it may not be logical, but it is instinctive). We talked about the only way I know how to deal with that is through God's supernatural power. We talked about how if we had faced the number and extent of abusive and negligent situations many of our youth have faced, we would not be the seemingly calm, contributing members of society that many see us as today. We talked about how society's expectations on these young people are appalling:

Face abuse. Face powerlessness. See anger and hatred modelled. Don't hear about God.
Then stop being angry and violent and give something back to us please.
Otherwise we'll lock you up.

It makes me angry.

I was really angry yesterday morning and really struggling, but we broke through in worship and then prayed a bit together.

Then we did interviews all day for a new caretaker. It's tiring being the other side of the interview table too! Aaron got a bit drunk-like from too much concentrating and talking I think!

Fun.

Degeneration

2009-04-15T00:30:00.003+01:00

Today was my first day back at the Bradfield Club since the Easter holiday of a week and a bank holiday. I was only in briefly the week before as well as I was taking a bit of time of in lieu and had just got back from some time in New York. So the last two weeks, really, I've been quite switched off from work. I often find it hard to switch off, and to get perspective, so that has been a really positive thing. Also, having a genuine break means that there is a sort of "deadline" - that you decide what to just discard for the term, what to get rid of, what to carry over (a smaller list than my day-to-day carry over) and look forward to new goals and new beginnings. The desk is left tidy, the inbox clear, and all in all, it feels like a line being drawn and fresh hope. I think that's why I could switch off.

Over the holidays I felt really inspired that what I really feel God wants me to do at Bradfield - because I truly believe that he wants me there - is to build and work on relationships, and to try and create something real, which is what I'm passionate about. I really don't feel inspired by the office work and I also really don't think that's what I'm meant to be there for. I also don't think I'm very good at it, relatively speaking. There's no life in it when I do it. It's just drudgery on the whole.

So I went back inspired to ask God what he has for me each day, and to do that.

Well, how do you think that went today? NOT TOO WELL.

You know what sucks, is that my fear, when I'm on holiday, is that when I go back, it will be just the same as always...and I really try and fight against that fear, and believe that it can be different. I really try to think that somehow I can rely on God and experience His peace and power, not just for a couple of unique instances, but daily at Bradfield.

And let me just say here that my lack of experience of that today is no lack in God Himself. I know He has it.

This morning we met up and I shared what I've been thinking about, and we talked about some team issues in a very positive way (I thought) at Cafe Ora. Then we went back to Club, and up to Ally's studio and prayed. Although we prayed before we even turned on our computers, being in the Club was immediately discouraging.

Despite several comments and a note, the cleaner has left water sitting on the floor of one of the new floors. Also, the building is not clean. Also the chill out room next door hasn't been mopped.

Also you can CLEARLY see that Club Users have been dragging the tables across the floor and the floor is scratched and dented. Also paint is peeling off on the window. Also there is chalk on the floor. This is after the cleaner came in this morning. But the cleaner shouldn't have to clear up chalk or dents in the floor because the Club Users are supposed to do that. And the group that didn't do it this time, didn't come to the last meeting either, and doesn't know about fire safety etc. Nightmare. Also a fire door was left propped open. Also the storage isn't sorted (and when on earth will we have time to do that?)

On the positive side, for the first time that I've ever known, the Sundays Dominoes group moved the sofa and table football BACK where they are supposed to go instead of blocking the fire exit or the gym. Hooray.

The discouragement for me is that whatever you take your eyes off, it degenerates. It doesn't just not move forward, it moves backwards, very very quickly. I could put ALL my time and energy just into maintenance, with no moving forwards, and be exhausted. It's madness, this pull towards destruction. The building, the area, the atmosphere - it has a history and its bearing scars of that history. It's draining everything out of me just getting up the energy to go back in and try and pull Bradfield back to where it was...because we've been away for a week....and it's degenerated.

I know that sounds over dramatic, but I can't tell you how discouraging it is to see two new floors being ruined, after - what was it - 8-10 YEARS of fundraising for these building works.

I'm absolutely fed up of it. It needs to be broken. It's not fair on people. How can LIFE grow? Bradfield does not feel like a home, and it's supposed to be an oasis. Yet alone does North Peckham.

It's hard to know how to go on and I'm finding it hard to go in tomorrow. I don't have enough time but I know it's not right to increase my hours.

I'm a bit fed up. But I feel better for expressing it.

Autumn Term

2008-10-01T14:34:00.001+01:00

Oh dear, we haven't updated this for a while...sorry about that.

We're opening the club for new membership today until 15th October and we're implementing a new membership and sign in system that will hopefully save time, and paper. Looking for volunteers to help with this; email Olivia if you're able to help out!

Bradfield Concert

2008-03-10T12:31:00.002Z

Tomorrow night is the Bradfield Concert:

The Bradfield Club in Peckham Concert

at All Saints Church, Peckham
on Tuesday 11 March 2008 at 7.30 pm

Interval with refreshments and Art Exhibition by Alison Clarke

Featuring performances from:
Choirs from Bradfield College, Reading
Tenor Mark Milhofer
The All Saints Choir
Young Performers from Peckham

R.S.V.P. info@bradfieldclub.org

All are welcome.

Record Breaker

2008-02-25T18:08:00.002Z

Huh, so much for a quiet week! Half -term Tuesday and Wednesday we had 43 and 53 young people respectively, the latter being a record breaker!

Crazy...

A Good Day

2008-02-18T20:11:00.003Z

Last week was quiet, relative to open week, and we didn't have any of the potential kick-backs that we could have had, thank you to those who prayed for us, and this week is half term.

This afternoon we had eight people from Finchley who are serving Peckham this weekend at our discretion. They were great; it was a real privelege to meet them. We showed them around downstairs and then told them about The Storehouse project from All Saints (partnered with Christians Against Poverty and very effective against debt) and about Bradfield and what we do here. Then we divided up into teams and went as follows:
- four girls prayer walked the area for about an hour and listened to God for anything he might want to say
- A (one of the team from this area who is now doing this 12 course in Finchley) and another girl and I went out flyering for CAP and for the performing arts after school club
- two boys + Aaron went to Southampton Way estate caged in sports area with a football.

The boys came back absolutely buzzing from their time. Apparently the 5 or 6 who were already there were warm toward them making it into a game, setting up teams etc, and after they left others came to join in. They had about 15 young people (11-14 or so) playing with the guys and asking them questions, giving them nicknames, and listening to the guys tell them about Bradfield. Apparently they are really enthusiastic for coming along to Bradfield, and it was just a really great time together. Isn't that easy? Aaron and I both absolutely loved being out on the streets again and both came back saying we want to do that more, and more often. I am even thinking about planning some detached work into our weeks - although we mustn't spread ourselves too thinly time-wise and then not invest in the young people we are already committed to.

The team who were prayer walking came back with some really similar concepts to the prayer walking that we did in February of last year:

- Jeremiah 29:1-14 (and on)
- oak tree, repeated on several signs, a sign of hope,
- Is 61 vs 3
- a picture of different coloured people sitting out to eat together
- a tree growing on top of one of the lift shafts - a symbol of hope coming out of the industrial setting

And they were praying for plants to grow in the currently cement areas and for a scary area covered in rubbish to become peaceful.

- Is 61, beauty out of ashes, like bring back grass and flowers out of the glass and concrete - connected

That was all very encouraging.

Finally, the flyering group found everyone we encountered receptive and open, and we even - post the prayer group praying about this - went into a betting shop to hand out debt counselling leaflets, which were surprisingly well received! :)

A couple of girls were interested in the drama after school club, do pray for two things:
1. that they would all know what 'performing arts' means because there seemed to be a bit of confusion over that
2. that they would actually come, turn up, on the day - likewise with soccer school.

Both performing arts and soccer school are due to start up next Wednesday (1week+).

There is such an increasing sense of connectedness and belonging in the Bradfield Centre and I'm loving being part of it. Ally Clarke, our artist in residence, particularly contributes to this and it is such a privelege to have her part of the team. I am still praying for breakthrough.

Tonight only one person turned up to the DJ workshop but he is in need of some one on one attention, so I'm really pleased. He has had about 2 hours of one-on-one tutoring. That is really important stuff for a 14 year old boy and how amazing to be able to offer it every now and then.

Also, his older sister (who wants to be a fashion designer when she grows up) and younger cousin have accepted Olivia and my invitation to visit London Fashion Weekend on Thursday and go to the catwalk show. We're all excited. Excellent.

Over and out...

Open Week Update

2008-02-18T20:06:00.003Z

I'm sorry that this is a couple weeks late in hitting the blog, but here is an open week update.

Monday was really encouraging because Rachel T and Chris G came down and it felt the 'presence' here was increased and engaging, and it was a positive atmosphere, although not high attendance. Chris G and I (Rachel) went out prayer walking and flyering and I just felt that was a really positive and special experience. Interestingly, we were stopped by the police asking us "Are you from round here...because you look like you have 'rob me' written on your back." That was a strange experience, but we prayed into it. In fact everyone from 'round here' who we spoke to was really encouraging and open. It was such a privelege to be part of that with Chris.

Tuesday I was in a meeting the whole session, in the end, but Aaron had some really interesting conversations, particularly with four boys, including talking to them about Jesus and giving two of them Beats and Blessings bibles from the summer.

Wednesday was the big one. I wrote an extremely extensive "processing" summary of it but it has since been removed on account of confidentiality.

All in all I feel, looking back, that it was a week of creating new excitement and consolidating our existing members, rather than getting new members. When Olivia and I counted up our regulars last week, we counted 30. I don't think we can take many more than that without more staff, so I am thrilled, actually.

Volunteers' Banquet 2008

2008-01-28T12:38:00.001Z

Last Friday we held a Banquet at the Club, to thank our supporters and volunteers. Thanks to all those who made the evening amazing, the decorating team, the catering team, and those who prayed for us. We had over 70 guests, from local All Saints members, to Bradfield Old Boys.

Change of Launch Dates

2007-12-19T15:28:00.001Z

The Open Evenings/Launch Week will now take place on 4th, 5th, & 6th February, not January as previously stated. Thanks!

Also, tomorrow is our Youth Christmas party so please pray for it!

Merry Christmas from Aaron, Rachel & Olivia.

Termly Update

2007-12-05T12:49:00.001Z

Here's a more comprehensive update of what's been going on at the club this term...

Currently, we run two youth drop-in nights, Tuesday and Wednesdays, 6-9pm for 11-18 year olds, including one hour of table tennis training. Trust and a sense of belonging, as well as attendance seem to be growing, with about 20 young people attending each night.
Table tennis is going well, and one of our young people won a local tournament. This same young person has agreed to be a coach himself, so we are hoping to start up a second training session, and we now have sponsorship to host a tournament at the Club, which one of our younger regulars has started to organise.
The equipment has arrived for the DJ workshop, and we have a group of five young leaders eager to start running it in January. Until then, we are focusing on training and supporting them in the planning process. We would love to see these young leaders have mentors as well.
The ‘Family’ Club run by All Saints has learned that there is an obvious demand for a football club, rather than an after-school play club, of which there is already an excellent one in the area. We are excited to be re-launching as Bradfield Football Club with Andy (from All Saints with Ambassadors in Sport) and the Children’s Team in January.
Finally, research and observations have revealed that most young people around here only eat on average two cooked meals a week. This affects their emotional and mental as well as physical health. We have decided to meet this need by serving supper during Drop-In, and hopefully using the opportunity to teach young people to cook for themselves at the same time.
Ally Clarke is now established in her beautiful art studio on the top floor of the Club, and had a meaningful commissioning service for her work and outreach here.
Natalie from Beats and Blessings (BnB) has not and seems unlikely now to receive her work visa to come back to the UK. Toby has continued to come down to the Club regularly and rap with young people over the DJ mixing that they are already doing informally, which has worked well. However, the change in circumstances means that we need to reassess our BnB strategy, so please do pray for us, and especially for Natalie and Toby.

Answered Prayer
Thank you so much for praying! The last two months we have had some quite key breakthroughs in answer to prayer, for example:
Broadband Internet at the Club is finally working!
Heating is working
Funding has come through and Olivia’s position is now permanent
Our funding for this year has more or less doubled since September, although we still need more this is a huge answer to prayer
Slowly but surely, young people are rising to the challenge of initiating and leading work within the Club themselves
We have been blown away by the generosity of people who have offered their time and expertise to get involved

Prayer
Please pray for
Guidance with knowing what step to take next with BnB and possibly someone else to work with Toby
More girls to come to the Club and feel safe and welcome here
A project manager and/or trustworthy contractors for the significant work that needs done in the building
Please pray for continued progress, specifically that we would build deeper relationships with the young people, that have a lasting impact
Rachel, Aaron and Olivia to have wisdom about how to manage our limited time and resources
The right person to join our team as a youth worker
Ally Clarke: for Ally (and us all) to build friendships in Bradfield Parish; that our work would be effective and appropriate to meet the needs of the area; for a sense of new life and fresh hope.

Wanted
Building Project Manager: with the skills to oversee re-roofing of our gym and other minor projects
Dance Teacher: to facilitate the girls in street/break dancing
Youth Worker: 4-10hrs/week, evenings, this position will be interviewed
Mentors: to meet up with young people one-on-one and talk about life issues
Rap/DJ/Beats expertise!
Events/Hospitality: supporting events planning, also cooking supper during Drop In
DIY: people who would like to do God Loves Peckham-style Saturdays at the Bradfield
Football/Sport Coach: to work with the teenage boys for 1-2hrs on a Tuesday night
CRBed Volunteers: to oversee young leaders (e.g. 5-6pm Tuesday for pool coaching)
If you would like to get involved contact Olivia, Aaron or Rachel (see below) or come along to our January Launch evenings!

Dates
North Peckham Prayer Meeting: for those with a heart to join with Christians across Peckham in praying specifically for God’s work in North Peckham, 14th December, speak to Rachel or Phil Atkinson for details
January Launch: 14th-16th January 2008
Midweek Easter Concert: Bradfield College, All Saints and Bradfield Club music and arts exhibition at All Saints Church, March, Tues 11th March
Contacts
The Bradfield Club in Peckham, 5-13 Commercial Way, Peckham, SE15 6DQ
bradfieldclub@googlemail.com

Office Hours Mon-Wed, 9-5pm
We have just launched a Facebook Group for support, involvement and prayer, which can be found by searching for “Bradfield Club.”
Aaron: Centre Manager
Rachel: Youth and Community Manager
Olivia: Events, Volunteers Coordinator, Administration

Nov 27, 2007

2007-11-28T00:44:00.001Z

Bradfield, a Breakthrough?
Tonight felt like a breakthrough at Club.
First, some background: over the summer, thanks to conversations with a man called Barry Jordan, and then to prayer and conversation with Aaron and Olivia, we set a vision for Bradfield. I've copied my expansion of the idea at the bottom, but it's very basic, basically not that we serve, lead and contribute TO young people but rather we train, support and encourage them to serve, lead and contribute to themselves and their own communities. Amongst ourselves we have been calling it the Joshua idea, from Team Joshua and from the words at the beginning of the book of Joshua in the Bible: "the time has come for you to lead."
It's not a new idea, it's not an exclusively Christian idea by any means (the council are all over it), and it's not a complicated idea, but it's amazing how radical it is. My experience of working most places (with a couple exceptions) that have even got to the stage of paying lipserve to this idea, is that it is just that, lipservice, and ultimately the leaders are still very much the adults, a few boxes are ticked by getting young people to say an idea, or say yes to an idea, but in the long run they are very much consumers of the work which is done, by the staff.
I am determined and believe it is right for Bradfield to be different, that we push and encourage and support young people to actually, genuinely put their ideas into action, to be the leaders, to be trained and supported, and to come out the other side looking something like the mature, capabable young adults they have every ability to grow into.
So since setting this vision to the team, in good faith, at the beginning of the term, about two months ago, and with amazing support, we have discovered that it is considerably easier said than done. There is a real dependency culture in Peckham, and it is extraordinarly hard even just within ourselves to fight the temptation not to just do it ourselves because it's so much easier. Even when we do overcome that urge, and encourage and cajole and tempt and push the young people into taking some initiative, at first it seemed like there was no motivating factor for them. Then, when there is an idea taking root, coordinating schedules, skills, and impetus seemed impossible. How long has it been now? Nearly two months of this, twice a week, and nothing, on the surface level has changed.
But tonight, tonight was different. Tonight so many of those conversations fell into place.
Tonight three of the young people who have agreed to be leaders of the DJ workshop (which is due to open in January) sat down and set a date and a time that they have all committed to come together with Simeon and I to plan this venture. That is SO exciting! And even more exciting is that that date is tomorrow, so it's actually going to happen.
Tonight, I asked a young person who we have been working with since January, and who is exceptional at table tennis if he would be up for setting up another table tennis coaching session and being one of the coaches for the other young people, and giving him a specific time, and he said "Definately, yes, definately." This is not the first time I or other youth workers have asked him that question, but it is definately the first time I've heard that level of enthusiasm in his response, and that was in front of his friends as well.
Tonight, D and S, two other young people actually planned with me setting up a pool session, 5-6 on Tuesdays, with themselves as the coaches. All I need to get for that is a CRBed volunteer or 2, not to lead, purely to support if anything goes wrong and to make sure our ratios are right, and then work with them on promotion, and their leadership skills. What an amazing opportunity.
Tonight, we told the young people that they could have a Christmas party at the Club, but only if they organised it themselves, and gave them a sign up sheet to be on team, and five people signed up, three were actually asking to be on team!
Tonight, I rang a young person to find out why he hadn't been coming, and if he still wanted to be in charge of organising a table tennis tournament, hosted by the Club and I spoke to his Mum who picked up. She said that he hasn't been coming because when he walked home after Club one night he got stopped and searched by a policeman (I have asked the police about this and they are allowed to do it to anyone, without any reason - they don't have to give a reason, although they do have to give paperwork if it is asked for). The policeman didn't believe him when he gave his name and so they followed him home. His Mum was really upset by this and now doesn't want him out late at night (this was around 9:15pm). I suggested that we could drive him home after Club and she was happy about that, but I said I would get back to her with details having talked to the team. Anyway, I mentioned the table tennis tournament and she must have mentioned it to him because I then got two phone calls back from him (which unfortunately I couldn't take because of the timing). In any case, he left a message asking me to call him back because he wanted to find out more details about the table tennis. This really touched me, because it shows initiative, and it shows a desire to be involved. This may not seem like big progress, but to me, although I can't put numbers to it, it is a big sign of movement forward.
What I would like is to get mentors for these young people. I don't know how to introduce the idea to them though. I think I need to meet up with Ruth's friend who is an expert in mentoring.
We also had a really good conversation in our staff meeting about work with girls which was followed up by an encouraging chat with Sarah who is interested in volunteering.
And two young people (Big J and TBo) initiated playing pool and table tennis with me, even to the extent of warding off other young people. Relationally, that felt huge, that their trust of me has increased.
In any case, it felt like a breakthrough.
The philosophy document I wrote at the beginning of the year:
Fundamentally, every youth club, whether consciously or unconsciously, carries out its activities according to an underlying philosophy of what people need and how to work with them.

The default position for a British youth and community centre is to engage with the “provider/client” model, in which
· The young people are the clients, receiving ‘help’
· The youth workers are the providers, with the responsibility for excellent provision lying in their court

This model can lead to the following negative effects:
· The young people as clients are in a consumer mentality, which can lead to the youth workers essentially providing entertainment in order to keep the young people interested and engaged
· Boredom – entertainment stagnates, the need for change is incessant
· There is a lot of pressure on the youth workers to ‘perform’ i.e. to keep service provision to a high standard for the ‘clients’ – the point of challenge is with the youth workers
· The young people are not sufficiently challenged, and therefore personal growth is limited
· The young people are dependent on the youth workers to effect change and growth, with whom the power and control lie – this is particularly dangerous in Peckham in which a dependency culture is already cultivated on the estates, particularly with regards to the benefits system
· Young people feel patronised
· Young people demand a lot, invest little and have no ownership

Therefore, Bradfield Youth Centre are proposing a radical change in philosophy, from the ‘provider/client’ model a ‘leadership training’ model, in which Bradfield is not a centre of entertaining youth work, but a centre of training young people for life, leadership and responsibility. In this model:
· The centre exists to facilitate youth leadership and service – young people bringing change within their own communities
· Members (young people) engage with the centre through running their own sessions, projects and events
· Youth workers exist to support young people in implementing their ideas, exposing them to wider horizons, providing skills training, and mentoring them

The positive repercussions of this model could include the following:
· Young people empowered to bring change in their own lives and communities; this is also positive for the wider community as young people contributing provide inspiration and hope
· Young people often know which ideas will work better than youth workers do
· Young people empowered to realise that they can achieve more than they had imagined
· When young people are in a position of being challenged to do something slightly beyond their capabilities, and need the support of those around them, relationships are able to be built which bring growth and change
· Leadership training brings up wider lifestyle issues, which are then able to be addressed by youth workers in a mentoring context
· Young people see that adults believe in them and stand by them without controlling them
· New creative ideas coming out from the generation which we are trying to reach

This is a new shift, which I have seen modelled and work exceedingly well in other contexts. We will begin this shift with a transition phase including:
· Over the first two terms some sessions will be run by youth workers as training for the young people, including the Beats and Blessings workshops which will train young people not only in how to make beats, but also how to teach others to make beats. Alongside this skills training will be modelling and teaching on qualities of excellent leadership.
· Youth workers will be meeting with key young leaders and handing over the running of the drop in sessions to them, with our close support
· We will make it clear to those who have initiated ideas with us (such as an evening cafeteria, a disability forum, extra table tennis training, girls only disco etc) that we are here to support them and work with them in implementing their ideas
· people who are not involved in contributing at this stage will be able to make contact with the centre and with other young people through the ‘drop in’ sessions, which will be a pool from which to feed out to other events, projects and workshops
· Youth workers will challenge ourselves on our language and attitudes, so as to reinforce the leadership training model rather than the provider/client model

Nov 14, 2007

2007-11-28T00:40:00.001Z

It was rowdy tonight. There was a lot of play fighting, which, sadly, we have had to ban. I'm a big believer in play fighting, especially for guys. I think it's a good and healthy way to get a lot of energy and aggression out, and honestly, I think it's really fun; I play fought a lot growing up. Excessively, no doubt. But it has to be within boundaries, so it's banned in the club because it's too dangerous, these boys are operating on fuses that snap with the click of a finger, their play fighting is pretty violent already, and if it did get out of hand it would be really hard to reign in before someone was seriously harmed. I would be really surprised to see someone deliberately hurt another Club member in the club to a severe level, but even in play fighting someone punched someone else in the chest today, pretty hard, and accidental hurt, or tension rising to the point that someone does something without thinking is very possible. It reminded me that we need, as staff, to wear our walky talkies again, because at one point my two male staff were both checking out a leak in the boys toilets and I was on my own with these 5 huge guys pretending to fight each other, which could get out of hand. Once (not when I was there) one of our guys stole a knife from the kitchen and the staff worker in the kitchen walky talkied to the staff worker by the gate, who stopped him and confiscated it. How cool is that? I love my staff, they are quick thinking, respectful, intelligent and fun youth workers and if I could find two more like them, I would be a very happy manager. If I could be more like them in many ways, I would be grateful too. I know for sure that when I'm hiring staff I'm going to be looking for someone like Simeon, not someone like me. I am so thankful for the opportunity though, and I want to be there, and hope I can contribute something different.
I had a really interesting conversation with Simeon today about the overlap or otherwise between rastafarianism and Christianity. We agreed we'd like to talk more, when we're not standing outside in the bitter dark of November cold.
There was also a (verbal) fight tonight because two boys gambled over who would win the table tennis, then one didn't pay and the other threatened to bang him up. Simeon and Aaron managed to sort it out, though I did have to call one of the parents to explain what had happened as some clothing was (very) slightly ripped. We realised that "no gambling" isn't on our Club rules list so we need to sort that out.
Another interesting observation; I ate like the young people do tonight. No dinner, a bit of fried chicken, and two packets of crisps. Ugh, I feel so gross, and honestly I could not concentrate, I was all over the place. Maybe its psychological, but I'm sure it affects them and keeps them wound up.
Still, it is an immense privelege to be there and I love it. I came away tonight buzzing, despite being tired to start with and tonight being an exhausting night. I really enjoyed the chance to play table tennis with one of the boys who is not a trouble maker, and to chat to him a bit more. I'd like to spend a bit more time with him and develop him as a young leader.
I can't WAIT until we're open more than two nights of the week.
Oh, and the GREAT news - we have heating and internet! We, Bradfield, that is. Heating at home is still not working. But at Bradfield, the heating is working; the internet is working. Our prayers are being answered one at a time. A special word out to Norman, Darren and Tom from ICG who have enabled the internet to be fixed in just a matter of hours! ICG have been extremely supportive and it has made a huge difference. Thank you!

Nov 12, 2007

2007-11-28T00:39:00.003Z

Youth Club
Aaron, Olivia and I went to visit a youth club in another part of London today. It was very interesting and I'm so grateful to the Club Leader for spending so much time with us and showing us around. He's a great guy, and there is a lot to be excited about there - 250ish members, the club is open every night, they have five different football teams, games rooms, weights, boxing, reading group, IT training which takes the kids to 2-3 years above the level being taught in schools, homework club, Spanish, French, weekends away...etc etc. They have taken kids who had left school and were hanging around on the streets doing nothing, made deals with them like to give them free and excellent standard of football training every day if they go to college every day, those guys have then gone on to get qualifications, come top of their class, some have gone to university, some have gone on football scholarships to uni in the States, some are employed by the club as youth workers now...that really is life changing. And they do well budget-wise as well...something like 16 paid staff and 9 volunteers and all the above activities for about £180,000 a year. That is REALLY not bad efficiency at all. They are struggling for money though (who isn't?), and like us, their building is in a state. Their heating doesn't work (nor does ours). They get asked to do things they don't want to do for funding. They straddle the many-organisations barrel of partnership - a good one, but a hard one, like we do. But they have a about 8 times as many members as we do, and I can't believe how much slack they get because frankly, from where I'm sitting, they are doing a fantastic job. It really spurred off some ideas for us, but also was an eye-opener about the kinds of struggles that we will face along the road. The club leader is a man of principles, and he really has stuck to his guns, to his credit, in my opinion.
I think perhaps the thing that struck me deepest was this: the club leader has been there for 23 YEARS. That is like me being here doing this when I'm 47. That is like Aaron doing this when he's 50. (Haha, Aaron, you're so old!) That, frankly, speaks volumes.

Oct 23, 2007

2007-11-28T00:38:00.002Z

Broken World - a Discouraging Day
I'm tired of living in a - literally - broken world. I was walking down the (in)famous Rye Lane today and thinking about the frustrations that I remember my parents and other Westerners, myself included this sumer, encountered working in a culture that is so different in values from the Western ideals of efficiency, speed, and competency. Let's not idealise the concept of 'relationships over duty' until we've sat in a boat in the middle of a stormy sea as your well-enough-paid driver explains that he gave the rest of the boat's fuel to his brother, or talk in high tones of 'simplicity' until you've tried to read a book or play cards in the fine balance between candlelight and the disease-bearing insects the candles attract. Don't dream of getting away from technology until you've tried to stay in touch with friends who don't have email, working post, or access to phones other than by making friends at the local (power-hungry) army house, or value slowness until you've waited four months for the water to start running in your newly installed kitchen. No, don't get me wrong, vibrancy, simplicity, relationships are no less than what life in its fullness brings, and I am pursuing them in earnest, but let us not forget the drain of living surrounded by everything broken, inefficient and incompetent - even if only so perceived through certain unaccustomed eyes: I feel like I am living in a broken world.
So I was walking down Rye Lane, mulling on the similarities between working cross-culturally in Peckham and working in Indo: there is an acceptance of chaos that Western order hasn't self-imposed itself on yet, you can be promised something and not see it for weeks to come, slowness is a way of life, and yet it's always everyone else's fault, people call in sick and don't turn up to work for a month with no explanation and no sense of doing anything wrong or expecting any consequence, and for every thing you fix, three things break (and not just physically).
It's hard at the Bradfield Centre. Since I started working there in January, we have not had internet. We have been pursuing internet (troubleshooting lines, reuters, the account, the password, ADSL somethingorother, microfilters...) in earnest for about six weeks yet, to no avail. The roof leaks. The floors doesn't meet health and safety standards. The ceiling is broken. The upstairs fire exits aren't legal, meaning we can't use the top two floors at all. About 50% of the lightbulbs work. None of them have covers. The hot water doesn't work. The heating doesn't work (apart from in one room). One gate needs a padlock; the other needs a padlock bolt-cutted off. For about three weeks the phone line didn't work. My mobile was stolen. My new mobile keys stopped working (although they are fine now). One member of staff hasn't turned up for over a month due to various ailments. We don't have a debit card. We don't have a credit card. Some of the furniture is broken. Only one computer works. Of the six core staff only one has not been unwell in the last month. In the last two weeks four have been ill enough to not be able to carry on working that day (some longer). The interminable knotweed is eating away at the foundations of the building. Oh, and of course we don't have enough money to fix it all. The broken-ness just goes on and on and on! A physical manifestation of the spiritual, emotional and mental damage we see around us day-to-day.
For an office of three people and a team of over 15 trying to do some intense work with some very damaged young people in one of the most notorious places in the country, this is not an easy context. We are so easily very tired and too quickly frustrated.
Still, it probably makes it worth it all to see what I saw tonight: two young teenagers have emotion break across their face before they hid it as they came in after months away from the club and we met face-to-face again after nearly 6 months. One of them called me, "Miss, man" which I like a lot.

Sept 05, 2007

2007-11-28T00:33:00.001Z

[Just back from Indonesia]
...I'm better now (from malaria), although still on various drugs to try to clear my system, and am unpacking endless boxes and sorting through all my stuff from the last 6 years as I move house and start a new job, or rather a new phase of my old job at the Bradfield Youth and Community Centre.
...At the club, finances are a big issue, so that's something I am...aware of. There is a lot coming up, and I need some space to dream, think and process (tomorrow, hopefully), and to unpack my room so I have somewhere to retreat to, and then get down to the nitty gritty. We are not ready to open yet, and that's hard, because at the end of the day, the young people and their families are what it's all about.

July 07, 2007

2007-11-28T00:30:00.001Z

Peckham is a place of contrasts, for sure, on every level. Perhaps most strikingly, whilst it is notorious for violence and degradation, I have also found it to be one of the friendliest and open places I have lived in Britain. There is a rawness (no, I am still struggling for the right word...an honesty?) that I warm to - a complete stranger laughs with me at how I've ended up walking straight past the shop I was looking for, the shop round the corner offers their help with anything they can within minutes of meeting me, and a plumber, a cleaner and I meet outside a locked centre we all want in to, and end up with coffee and conversation in a local café. There's something local yet international (which means "familiar" to me), and a certain acceptance of difference in which I feel totally free to be myself. Of course, this doesn't detract from the violence, fear and sense of isolation that does exist here.

The Club:
At the moment we only have enough resources to run two drop-in sessions a week, with sports, music, tuck shop and the like, run primarily by the local youth workers and overseen by myself or Aaron (who was the caretaker and is now acting manager and doing an excellent job of it by all accounts). The Club is also used by various community groups such a saturday school, Scouts, and a Carribean Dominoes group.
There is definately demand for more work at the centre, and we have been given loads of brilliant ideas for ways the club can facilitate change in the local area. Proposals are being approved at the moment for further funding for staff (a part-time administrator, a part-time caretaker, and at least enough funding to cover one full-time managerial post, as well as volunteer expenses for further youth workers) and resources (minimal, but necessary). We hope to focus on developing youth and children's work through the use of football, rap/DJ, and a homework club with arts and crafts as well. We would also like to start a parents' morning of some kind - oh there are so many things we have plans for, but we need to take it a step at a time. I think of our vision as being threefold:
1. Firstly to provide a safe, fun and neutral space where young people can meet and build relationships with each other and with trustworthy adults, rather than hanging out on the streets or being cooped up indoors.
2. Secondly to facilitate the development of skills and opportunities that will give young people and children hope for a purpose beyond the confines of the estate. Many of these young people are extraordinarily talented, despite stereotypes, but that energy and talent needs channelled well for it to bring good. One exciting potential development that we have had a couple of conversations about is doing short vocational courses in plumbing, electrics etc. which would be brilliant.
3. Finally, and interrelatedly, standing by, encouraging and supporting people to become more "whole," for lack of a better word, [spiritually, emotinoally, physically, mentally.] It also includes learning to look after our bodies (it is no wonder these kids are wound up - you should see what they eat!), dealing with emotional trauma, working with the whole family, and fighting for spiritual freedom. You don't have to be long in North Peckham to realise that there is a spiritual dimension the problems there, and my experience is that local people don't find this assertion very controversial at all. This might include anything from mentoring, to exploring spirituality through a course, to changing your diet, to referring some people to professionals who can help with trauma counselling etc.
The drop-in sessions focus primarily on the first of these three; hopefully we will be able to develop the second two of the coming year. We are very much learning as we go along, and there is a lot yet to learn!

April 25, 2007

2007-11-28T00:28:00.002Z

I do like seeing results in people's lives. I like seeing change. That's one of the things that is hard about working with people - change is not always forthcoming. It's a long hard slog. In myself too.

April 23, 2007

2007-11-28T00:26:00.001Z

Conversing with Peckham

At the table tennis tournament on Saturday:

Peckham boy: miss, he thinks he’s from the ‘Wandsworth massif!”
I turn to Wandsworth boy, look down at my book, and say: “We don’t have gangs in Peckham”
Peckham boy bursts into laughter and shares the joke with me.

Wandworth boy and Peckham boy found out I went to university. This information is priceless to Wandsworth boy.
Wandsworth boy: You went to university and you’re working at a youth club in Peckham?????? (he might as well have added, “I spit on your choices, I spit on your useless club”)
I smile.
Wandsworth boy: “WHY, WHY? WHY???”
Peckham boy is listening. I falter.
Wandsworth boy: “you could be rich!”
Realise I am not, in their minds, a good motivating example as the only reason Wandsworth boy can see to work at school is to enable him to get rich in the future.
Me: “I don’t care about money – it doesn’t motivate me. I think Peckham is a really important place, and I believe God is doing something there, and I want to be involved.”
Boys laugh hysterically.
Me, still faltering, wishing I could think quicker and communicate better: “Money doesn’t make you happy – it’s not all about money – what about friends and family and…”
Peckham boy: You can BUY friends!
I protest.
Peckham boy: “You can’t buy love, but you can buy friends.”
I try to say that they are not really friends, what happens if you lose your money, and anyway that’s not happiness. I’ve lost their attention though, and they’re still laughing.
I break in, “Isn’t it about more than that? About being happy and other people being happy?”
They look at me but it doesn’t sink in and, still giggling, they turn their attention back to the games.
I wonder if they will remember what I said.

Peckham boy: “Miss, why are you reeaading?”
Wandsworth boy: “She’s reading because she went to univeeersity”
Peckham boy: giggles
Wandsworth boy: “She wouldn’t be reading if she hadn’t gone to university” (and then the jesting tone left his voice and in all seriousness he said) “I honestly don’t know why people read nowadays, when you know it will come out on TV soon.”

I said nothing. What was there to say?

Again:
Wandsworth boy: “he takes drugs”
I said nothing but smiled slightly – Wandsworth boy was goading me, taunting me, trying to get me to rise to their ‘shocking’ revelations, maybe trying to get me to try to say something to ‘fix it’ so they could laugh at me…Peckham boy isn’t quite as immature, a bit more hardened by life, just playing along because he couldn’t be bothered to do anything else I think, and I think because he likes the glory (‘hard”) he gets from being from Peckham…
Wandsworth boy: “don’t you CARE?”
Me: “of course I care”
Wandworth boy: “ you’re supposed to be helping him, ‘getting him off the streets’…”
Me – uncomofortable with his sneer at my naivety and also with the projection of me being there to “help him” in that patronising way – bumbling – “it’s not quite like that…”
Peckham boy, with a laugh: “they only open on Tuesdays and Wednesdays so…” (facial expression revealing that Monday, Thursday and Friday, he is, therefore, still on the streets)

He’s right of course.

Wandsworth boy: “you seem like you’re from somewhere posh, where were you from before?”
Me: “high Wycombe”
Wandsworth boy: “where’s that?”
Me: Buckinghamshire – and now we ALL laughed because honestly, say “Buckinghamshire” in a Southern accent and you just don’t get any posher than that!
Me: what makes you say that?
Wandsworth boy: “look at your clothes” (ripped jeans and hoody)
Me: What about them?
Wandsworth boy: just…just…[points to my hoody]…just is

He’s right too, but I’m comfortable with my quirky identity, increasingly so.

Me (to Peckham boy): “how many of the people who come to club are in gangs do you think?”
Peckham boy looks at me…confused…
Me: “I’m new to Peckham, so…”
Peckham boy: “really? You’re new?”
Me (pleased that he is surprised): Yeah, so how many?
Peckham boy: “What do you mean how many?”
Silence
Peckham boy: “EVERYONE is in a gang…”
Silence
Peckham boy: “except….” He names two boys out of about 50 young people.
Silence
Peckham boy: “and the youngers…[points to 11 and 12 year old boys on the court]…nah actually they are too…”
Me: “How do you get into a gang?”
Wandsworth boy trying to impress Peckham boy: “You get beaten up!”
Peckham boy, looking like Wandsworth boy is clueless and already humoured that Wandsworth boy thinks he’s from the ‘Wandsworth massif’ – this information Peckham boy relayed to me as a good joke for us all to share: “no”
Me: “How then?”
Peckham boy vaguely describes organising a fight and not getting beaten up but going to beat up someone else.

Peckham boy moaning about his girlfriend who is – admittedly – being very annoying and calling him and texting him incessantly even though they’ve only been together a week. It’s even annoying me and I’m only with his phone about half of the day.
Me: “why are you going out with her when you don’t even like her?”
Peckham boy doesn’t miss a beat. I don’t miss the look on his face, which alerts me to the stupidity of the question.
The inevitable, flat, emotionless answer is delivered: “for sex.”
I read his text messages as he watches. It takes a couple readings to decipher the language (again, I feel naïve and old fashioned and ‘posh’), but the words stand out all-too-clearly soon: a girl from school: “you know I don’t use condoms and don’t worry about getting pregnant…” “tomorrow if you’re speaking to me can I touch your
****” and more explicit requests to give him…anyway…
Me: “what did you say?”
Peckham boy: “I said no” – and I believe him, because he looks down on the girls for being too easy.

Wandsworth boy talks too much. He couldn’t hide his respect for the gang culture of Peckham; he was impressed that girls were begging Peckham boy for sex. Peckham boy laughs about how he can have any girl he wants, how irresistible he is. I look at him and know him from club, quite sweet actually, laughs a lot, doesn’t cause any trouble except when he gets over-excited…really committed to table tennis, and good too…a fifteen year old child, younger than my brother. My stomach knotted in on itself with some sort of helpless pain and the most I had to offer was a wry smile, but I pray for more.

Later, back at the club, another younger boy who hadn’t heard our conversation came and played me a song that Bradfield boy had written – rap – “my father died when I was two, it’s always been just my mother and me…” – the rest of the song was about standing up for himself and choosing not to make the kinds of choices we had just talked about. I have a mixed respect for that boy, and an aching compassion that is hurt by the depth of his experience. To say we are scratching the surface feels like an understatement sometimes, and yet at least relationships are being built and I hope, in time, trust.

Did anyone see the Times magazine on Peckham this weekend?
http://women.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/women/families/article1665795.ece

March 20, 2007

2007-11-28T00:19:00.002Z

Today
In January I became the centre manager/club leader/other varying titles - 'on the ground' in charge, basically - of the Bradfield Club in Peckham - a youth and community centre on the corner of two significant roads in North Peckham and opposite Southampton Way estate. I'm only doing it part-time and as a volunteer which is a bit of a joke, but it's a short-term, self-inflicted joke and I still stand by my decision, it was definitely the right thing and I wouldn't swap it for an early night, a healthy throat or sprightly muscles any day of the week.

Well, not today, anyway.

In short, what we have been working towards since the middle of January has basically been this week - open week. The last two weeks we have been going out with flyers and questionnaires to talk to local people about what kinds of things they want to see happening through the club, and broader questions such as what the needs of their community are in their minds, and what they think needs to be done locally to meet those needs. We have had some really interesting conversations and also heard some harrowing things from some wonderful people, but all of it has so far been geared towards this week in which for three evenings in a row we have had the club open with food, music (having a DJ on staff is a wonderful gift but MAN he's too good for my own ears' good), games - general party - and lots and lots and lots of questionnaires, which are good conversation starters too.

In some ways the last two days haven't been as well attended as I had hoped and expected, although there was a still small voice saying that there would be something significant starting small and growing, so in some ways I wasn't surprised. In other ways the evenings have blown away my expectations - for a start far more young people than other community members (who showed a lot more interest on the streets) have attended, and the atmosphere and involvement has been fantastic. It's a long, long hard road ahead though, and I really don't mean that in a pessimistic sense at all, but in a real sense. We can put on a great evening of fun and laughter and get on really well with some local kids, and they can come back and bring their friends and that really is no small feat. We can have a level of discipline that allows the guys to blow off steam, and that still keeps it safe, and that is certainly no small feat. We can make a good impression with parents and residents, and break down some of the preconceptions and stereotypes that have been there - there is a lot that we have done - but to begin to bring change, deep, long-lasting change...that is not something that we cannot do with entertainment, with a fantastic week of open evenings, or with pouring ourselves out till we're flat on our backs with exhaustion. In fact, it's not something we can do on our own. I can't even change myself on my own! We need each other, we need people to want to change themselves, we need a group of people who want to see their area and their community changed and who are willing to pay a cost of that, and I absolutely believe we need Jesus. I do follow Jesus because I believe he is utterly compelling on every level that I have ever challenged or met him on, and I really do believe that he is God.

I do sense a spiritual stirring going on (I had another really interesting conversation today), and a spiritual awareness, and I just want to be real with people, real with myself and real with Jesus in a place like that, where the conversation at the side of the table tennis table is "I'm lucky I ain't got permanent for that cuz I smashed all the tables and chairs and hit the teacher" (I can't remember the exact details actually but that was the gist) and "yeah, my dad's in prison, innit" is an aside in a different story. Things come up that are huge - an eleven year old (I think, again details aren't my strong point) was telling me first time I met him (in a little park on the side of the road) about his friend's older sister who was a prostitute, raped and murdered, pointing to the flowers on the side of the road that my friend and I had just seen - he had to spell the words because 'we're not allowed to talk about it' and because he said it was too much for him to say out loud - the little sister lives just around the corner from him and unsurprisingly doesn't come out to play any more. He came again tonight.

And yet they're just normal guys who have grown up together joking at themselves as they experience life in a locality that most of the rest of their country either looks down at, pities, or laughs at, so they laugh at themselves (and learn to defend themselves, not just with words) - there are definitely some deep-rooted problems - but overall this week they have just been great kids being kids, play fighting, painting, competing, playing sport, dancing, messing around on their mobile phones, sharing food, and chatting, even if they don't know the boundaries quite as instinctively as some other kids I've worked with, and even if what they chat about is deeply defined by "Pecknarm."

I'm not tired of any of that, although I'm sure it has its effect on me. I'm not undesirous of being there, I want with all my heart to be there. I already care about the young people I've spoken to, and I'm so grateful for the incredible privelege to be part of their lives. I am so grateful for the privilege of being where I am. I think though I am longing for time - like a free month - to give my heart to this place fully without the pressures of everything else, and to get somewhere, because the goal is so multi-faceted. It would be crazy not to listen to others who are already involved and who are already trying to do things, and it would be crazy not to work with those who have experience and are committed. It would be crazy to double up and crazy to do youth work that peters out becuase it goes no deeper than superficial entertainment put on by adults. It would also be crazy not to form links with the police, with the council, with the residents association... and it would be crazy not to implement the fantastic ideas that we've already been given. It would be crazy not to support my amazing team properly and crazy not to apply for funding. It would also be pretty darn crazy to run youth work in a building that is not up-to-ideal-scratch even health and safety wise...so how do you choose...with 18 hours a week, which bit of sanity to keep?

Well, we have another grand day tomorrow and then staff meeting next Monday at Bradfield, and certainly plenty to talk about. All in all it has been going really really well and I am so thankful for what is going on and for the real buzz as the young people have been coming in, have been chatting to youth workers, and have been having such a good time that it's quite an effort to get them to leave when it's closing time, so that's fantastic.

I'll end with a couple of highlights:

- a young person who is disabled is interested in starting up something to help disabled (his word, not mine, so don't jump down my throat about being pc and all that) young people get out of the house and mix with others. he said he has been talking about it for a while but feels really ignored, and he gave me some ideas and seems to be quite a leader so i think he could be fantastic. I also know his mum and his uncle who are both absolute stars. I really really want him and everyone else to know that we will listen, and particularly about things like that which are about inclusion and releasing people from what he was describing as a kind of house-bound-ness due to social reasons
- i had a really intersting conversation with one of my colleagues about how he was brought up in a "God-fearing" household and some of his journey with that so far. It was a privilege to listen and I hope to hear more and share some of my story soon too.
- two young(ish, probably age about 20) people came in with a guy who is supporting them to do some work reaching out to other young people from their local area. They held a youth forum by youth for youth on guns and gangs a couple weeks ago and had about 100 young people apparently come. They are interested in getting involved in Bradfield and seeing if they can meet young people that way and facilitate young people getting their voice heard. I need to speak to them more but it was great to hear their ideas.
- sport: I really am spectacularly poor at pool but whooped some butt in basketball. Yeeaaayaaa.
- one of the young people as he was leaving saying "this is the best youth club i've ever been to" I know next week it might be something else and I think it was mostly to do with the fact that he got to eat free food (ha!) but he did come back, did come with friends, and at the end of the day it was still amazing that he actually came and said that
All in all not a bad day's work.
Now to check that annual review...

The Beginning

2007-11-28T00:12:00.001Z

This blog is to write about the bits and pieces at Bradfield. Not the "news" that goes into newsletters or emails. Not the things to publish with the Bradfield logo on...but my thoughts as someone working at Bradfield, living in Peckham and struggling to make a difference in a community that is wonderful and notorious. This way people can keep updated with the week-to-week feel of the Club. The things that are too wordy for newsletters; the experiences as they happen, on the ground, personal, messy, high and low, the face you wouldn't always see - the good stuff!

Disclaimer: of course, this very much does not represent in any way the Club as an organisation's views.