Greenwich Youth For Christ

You are warmly invited to join us for our 8th Annual Greenwich YFC Golf Day on Thursday 14th June 2012. We are delighted to be returning to Birchwood Park Golf Centre. The day as before will consist of Coffee and Bacon Rolls from 11.30, 18 holes of golf with various prize challenges along the way, a putting competition and a prize giving dinner. We are inviting the current holders of the Greenwich YFC team trophy to return and defend their title (with the trophy please!) also the holders of the individual awards.

Do come and join us, if you know of others who may be interested please do pass this on. All proceeds from the day will go to the Communities programme of Greenwich YFC. If you or your company would like to sponsor a hole or the prizes, we’d be delighted they range from £50-£150.

To download a booking form, click here

Well done Hinga! Our very own Hinga Amara completed his first half marathon on the 25th of March down in sunny Hastings. Achieving a great finishing time of 1 hour and 46 minutes, he did really well and has managed to raise quite a respectable sum of cash for GYFC. Hinga had never been to Hastings before let alone run a half marathon there. Hopefully this will be the first of many races that he will tackle. Afterall, someone has to keep up with Hugh! You can still support Hinga by going to his Justgiving website

Standing up in front of a new audience and performing Shakespeare takes real guts. The girls from Girlz Thyme showed how lots of hard work and rehearsals and even more determination and nerve, really paid off, with a fantastic performance in front of a packed crowd at Blackheath Halls last week. The group performed a drama based around Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream, to the music of the Blackheath Halls Orchestra and the JAGS Madrigalists.

This year looks like it will be full of opportunities and challenges. Greenwich YFC is really well placed to be able to impact many more children and young people, the Olympics offer the opportunity to reach out with local churches to children and young people and to create a lasting legacy of change. The possiblity of new premises provided through a joint partnership with St James Church and The Superkidz Trust will be one of the biggest but riskiest ventures GYFC has ever been involved with. The venue called “OneSpace”, will enable us to bring together our projects in one purpose built space, with fabulous facilities. We are greatly excited to be working in such creative partnerships, we do stand at a very exciting point.

Our work contiues to thrive. The work of the drop in and Boys to Men goes on from strength to strength. The Violence Intervention Project VIP has now rebranded as VIP Family Support and provides help and support in many very difficult situations. Our work in the secondary schools, counselling in Blackheath Bluecoates School and mentoring in Trinity has been very well received.

One major challenge we face is at the time of writing is funding, and we are in need. The work and projects are in many ways in the best shape ever. The current situation is very difficult: while we have applications for Grant Funding in, we are still looking for people to invest in and support our work, it does make a difference and every bit helps. Please support us.

For more than two years, GYFC have been meeting with church leaders from Greenwich to look at the Church’s response to the Olympics and Paralympics next year. It is a once in a lifetime opportunity. Speaking at a “More than Gold” training event held at the Forum, Rev Duncan Green from LOCOG commented that churches are often very good at being in the wrong place: numbers of churches at Vancouver and other Olympic events were caught unaware: ‘We didn’t realise that it would be like this, we’ve missed it!’

We are hosting another Ministers’ Lunch next week on the 22nd of November from 12.30 to 2.30pm at Sunfields Methodist Church. If you are a church leader or know of a church representative who would like to come along to hear about GYFC’s mission to young people and how we can all work together, do contact Pam at our office.

If you are unable to attend but would liek to find out more, do look up the benefits of joining our GYFC Churches and Organisations Affilliation scheme.

Do you own a banger that’s merely gathering dust in the garage? Then you can do your bit for charity!
Giveacar is a UK based fundraising organisation that specialises in donating unwanted and scrap cars to charitable causes throughout the world, including GYFC.
They provide a FREE service which is available throughout the UK, and can work with you hand-in-hand in the following ways:
• They can arrange the collection of the vehicle;
• Depending on its age and condition, they can either send it for environmentally safe disposal and recycling at an Authorised Treatment Facility, or to a salvage auction;
This means that a large portion of the proceeds are donated to us!

We’ve got 2 more sessions to go in our series of special “Heart For Young People” seminars. Coming up are “The Faith of Generation Y” on the 2nd of November and “Through the screen darkly – new media” on the 30th of November. “The Faith of Generation Y” seminar will be led by Sylvia and Bob Mayo who will present both a theological and sociological perspective on young people today and their realationship to Christianity. “Through the screen darkly” will look into the role new media can play in our minstry to young people who are very engaged and active users of new media and technology. To find out more and book your place for either of these sessions, click on HEYP

This summer, we sent 6 young people to join a mission project in Tanzania. The mission was organised in conjunction with a charity called ” Go Mad in Tanzania” who are partners of Tear Fund. They’re back with many stories to tell!

GYFC has been working with children, young people and families in South East London for over 15 years. Every week our projects touch the lives of nearly 200 young people. We have effective drop in sessions on the Ferrier Estate in the day times and in the evenings. To help us to make an immediate difference in our community text 70070 with any of the following messages GYFC02 £2, GYFC05 £5 or GYFC10 £10. Thank you