Info for Parents

HTB Youth is one youth group that meets in two age groupings, Younger Youth for 11-14 year olds (Years 7-9) and Older Youth for 14-18 year olds (Years 10-13). Each age group also breaks down into the different school year groups for part of their programme.

Younger Youth have regular Friday night socials which are designed to provide a safe environment for our youth and their leaders to get to know each other.

This term on Sunday mornings we will be looking at the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Do ask your children what they have learnt each week.  Younger Youth meets in the Hut at both the 9.30am (after family worship and `The Peace') and 11.30am (go straight to the Hut) services.  We have a lot to fit in each week so please do drop your children off in good time.

Older Youth - SUNDAY EVENINGS AND FRIDAY NIGHTS

Over the past year there has been, as you may have noticed, a real effort to make the 5pm service more accommodating for the youth and students.  We would love to encourage all of the Older Youth to come to this service each week and get involved in hosting and serving.  It is also a great place for the youth to bring their friends.

Following on from the success of last term's fornightly Friday night programme of` Breath In (worship and ministry)/Breathe Out (social action, outreach and evangelism)! theme, we are carrying this on for the Spring term.  This is a result of many of our youth asking if we could be more practical in taking faith outside of the walls of the church to those in need.  We are really excited about this!

Another fruit of this is that we are changing how our small groups operate.  As you know, we invite all of our Older Youth to be part of a small group - usually a group of about 3-4 teenagers plus a leader.  The aim of this group is to provide community, accountability and discipleship.  These have mostly, but not exclusively, met on Friday nights, but we have found this to be impractical for some and therefore a good percentage of our youth are not part of a small group.  This term we are suggesting that these small groups meet fortnightly on a Sunday before the 5pm service.  Our hope is that this makes it more practical for more of our youth to attend these groups, which we think are key to the youth ministry here.  We think this will really help continue to build the youth ministry.  We would love to hear feedback at the end of term.

Older Youth meet on Friday nights during term time for a whole range of different activities. On Sundays, Older Youth are invited to come along to the 5pm service each week where they can also get involved in hosting and the café. Most of the Older Youth will already be members of ‘Facebook’, an internet community site. We have an HTB Youth group on this site and have found it to be one of the main means of communicating with and promoting events to the Older Youth. We would like to invite all of Older Youth to join this site so we can communicate better (and a lot cheaper than post). We will NOT be using this for YY. We wanted you to know that we are doing this as we think it is one of the safest ones around for teenagers to use without exposing themselves to risk online. If you have any questions please ask one of the team.

SOCIAL EVENTS

YY have regular social events, and OY more irregularly, to which they are always welcome to bring friends.  If the cost of these events is ever a difficulty for you or for friends we would far prefer they come than not, and are happy to help with this so please just ask.  Also, if you would ever be happy to offer your home as a venue for a future social event, either a small group social event or all of YY/OY (!), please let us know.

Can we ask for your help on two things - if RSVPs are required for events (usually only for those where we need to buy ticket at external events) please can you be prompt in replying?  It is difficult for the team when we get last-minute calls asking for tickets!  Can we also have an understanding that if your child books a ticket for an event, that these will be paid for even if your child decides to cancel at the last minute?  This has happened a few times over the past year and left the church out of pocket and meant others haven't been able to come when we had spare places.  Thank you!

Important dates:

BAPTISM & CONFIRMATION SERVICES

HTB have regular adult baptism services, usually in the Autumn term - if your children haven't been baptised and would like to, this is a great time to do it - please contact us for further details.  HTB also have a confirmation service, usually in the Autumn term.  Last year's confirmation service was fantastic, hosted by the Bishop of Kensington with over 25 Older Youth and younger people being confimed. If any of your children (we normally suggest only those over the age of 14) have been baptised and would like to be confirmed then they would be welcome to - please let us know.

Parents’ Evening
Every year we hold a Parents’ Evening, hosted by Nicky & Pippa Gumbel, where we share some of the vision for what we are doing in CHTB & HTB Youth, and have a time to hear your feedback on how things are going. The date for next years Parent's evening will be posted on this page soon.  We would really love it if you were able to come.

HTB Youth Weekend Away 2011
We would love every young person who considers themselves a member of HTB Youth to come along.  Next year's Youth weekend will be on March 18 - 20th 2011 - details to follow!

Focus 2010
For those who don’t know, Focus is our church’s annual week away together. Last year's Focus was definitely the best ever! We hope those of you who made it had a great time, and those of you who couldn't come have managed to listen to some talks online.  This year Focus is being held at a brand new venue in Lincolnshire, Haven Holidays' Golden Sands holiday park, about 15 miles north of Skegness on the coast!  The dates are Saturday 24 July to Friday 30 July.  Do this week free in your diary, it promises to be a great week away! More info soon.

Soul Survivor 2010
Last summer we took 50 of our Older Youth to Soul Survivor, a huge Christian youth festival in Somerset. We had a great time camping with thousands of others and the whole group grew in their faith.  We will be taking a group again this year (those currently in years 9-13 only) to week C - 16 -21 August 2010 - and would love it if your teenagers are able to come.  More information will be sent out soon.

CHTB - OPPORTUNITY TO HELP

There is an opportunity for any of the Older Youth to help with the children's work on Sunday mornings.  This may be suitable for those whose families still attend the morning services or those who are doing DofE or want to gain experience in leadership.  They can help either weekly, fortnightly or monthly.  There is also a need for more parents, particularly those of you with "grown-up" children, to help in the crèche on Sunday mornings and share some of your experience with newer parents.  If you would be willing to do this on an occasional basis, please contact Martha Bryant on 020 7052 0312.

EMAIL ADDRESSES PLEASE
We now do the termly mail out entirely electronically – we are reliant on you keeping us up to date with your preferred email addresses. Please do let us know if they change or if any other part of your contact details change.

Thanks for your support!