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Volunteer Blogs: Tom Spicer - Term 2

 

 

So, I’ve now been in Burton-on-Trent for 89 days.

That may not seem like a lot, but that’s getting on for 3 months now, which is almost a third of the total time that I will be doing this gap year!

And that, for me, is a big thing.

 

I’m doing a lot of schools work recently, which I am really starting to love. Before I started working in Burton this year, my expectation for this year was to be doing far more church orientated work with slightly older youth (ages 15+). However, I was told just before my arrival that I would be doing a lot of schools work. A large percentage of which would be with kid’s in primary education. This was something that I wasn’t exactly over-the-moon about. I was apprehensive, as I had never really done any work with this age group of children before. But I decided that there was no real need to panic, I decided that I should wait, and see how it went. And I am so glad that I did. I never really expected to be able to connect with anyone as young as the kids I’m working with, but I really feel like I have. I’ve really started to like the work I do in schools, and even miss it (sometimes) when I’m not there.

 

I do also do work outside of schools, with my church. For example, on Sunday evenings, I help my church run a Youth Alpha course in the church with about fifteen guys aged between 15 and 17. I really enjoy this, some of the kids are quite hard to interact with, and seem quite reluctant to listen to what we have to say. But others of them seem really interested and actually seem to be taking a lot of what we’re telling them on board.

 

In the CoPE lessons that we do on a Tuesday, we are currently producing an ‘alternative nativity’ in which Mary and Joseph have been replaced by David and Victoria Beckham. Which leads to some interesting outcomes, and some serious differences. But it’s all fun.

 

Recently, work has become different. It’s got less busy, but at the same time, it’s got slightly more hectic and less predictable. With the approach of Christmas, and the school holidays, clubs at school, and lessons have started to be less organised. Which makes things interesting. Clubs are cancelled, and extra things, like activity days, and Christmas party’s are added in, which somewhat adds to the stress.

 

But never mind. That’s what we’re here for.

Tom.