Latest news - Page 25 of 76 - Christian Resources Exhibition

Love them or loathe them, rotas are a vital part of church life – and now there’s a solution to help make them hassle free.

Cambron Software’s web-based plan2gether.com, available to try out at CRE South West, is the answer!

‘We have one underlying philosophy – keep it simple!’ explained Cambron’s Colin Cameron. ‘There are some very powerful (and complicated) church management systems out there but we wanted to create something that did one thing well – make life easier for the people who organise church rotas. It had to be accessible from anywhere and easy to make changes and send reminders to people. plan2gether.com keeps all your rotas in one place – worship band, security, welcoming, coffee morning, creche, AV, flowers, cleaning – you name it, you can create a rota for it.

Most importantly, plan2gether.com will automatically notify people by email or SMS text when they are on duty. Users can make themselves unavailable and edit their rota duties to swap with others.

‘As churches open up again, now is the time to start organising your church volunteers and helpers using plan2gether.com,’ said Gordon. ‘We’ll show you how at Westpoint.’

You can even create your first event and team for free. For unlimited use, the cost is only £10 per month with a special 50 per cent discount for those visiting the plan2gether stand.

• plan2gether will be on stand D22 at CRE South West 2022

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Since the pandemic hit, more and more of us have experienced loneliness and anxiety – and looking after our mental health has never been so important.

Ruth Rice (pictured) unexpectedly found herself on a journey of recovery from a breakdown and began to look for ways to renew her own wellbeing. She shares these insights in her new book A-Z of Wellbeing (Authentic Media),in which she encourages readers to live out their own alphabet of peace. The book presents 26 words of wellness to help you discover new practices, connect with God and share wellbeing with others.

Based around the five ways of wellbeing, eachtopic connects the word to a biblical theme and helps you learn a new habit, get activesharing the habit with others, take notice of a personal story and give back with questions and further resources.

‘I hope readers will become fluent speakers, active doers and daily dwellers in wellbeing,’ said Ruth, now a director of Renew Wellbeing, a charity which runs simple café style spaces attached to a quiet room where inner habits of wellbeing are shared. ‘The language of wellbeing starts looking like kindness, love, acceptance and wholeness in our communities.’

By sharing the words that were helpful in her own journey,Ruth Rice encourages us to discover the language of wellbeing so that we can speak it, live it and share it with others.

• Authentic are not on the floor at CRE South West

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When Pilgrims’ Friend Society (PFS) wanted to recruit a chief executive and other key members of staff they knew exactly what they wanted – their problem was finding the right people.

Founded more than 200 years ago, the society operates as an umbrella charity and is the group trustee for a number of Christian charities, enabling older people to flourish through its care homes, residential housing and support for churches and communities. It runs 15 care schemes across England and, like other social care providers, struggles to recruit and retain care assistants and carers in many of its homes. 

PFS called in Action Planning, with its outreach across the Christian sector, to tender for the job of recruiting a new chief executive and also carry out research into the retention of care workers and managers at their homes.

‘We placed a notice for the vacant chief executive role on our website and sent it out on our 46,000 strong mailing list,’ said the company’s associate community co-ordinator, Tracy Madgwick. ‘We also put it out to 170 Action Planning consultants, made direct approaches to suitable individuals and searched LinkedIn for potential candidates. We then put forward a shortlist of five strong candidates. We followed a similar process to find a trustee, with additional research carried out through our church contacts and were able to present PFS with a suitable candidate. 

‘We also investigated the problem of care home staff retention by conducting “secret shopper” style visits, gathering first-hand accounts of the challenges staff faced and the incentives (eg salaries and other benefits) that might encourage them to stay on. A similar but more intensive exercise was carried out to find suitable candidates for care home manager roles.’

From the shortlist, PFS selected their new chief executive, Stephen Hammersley, under whose leadership they have begun to put in place Action Planning’s proposals for recruiting and retaining care home managers and staff.

‘They were equally delighted with their new trustee and have discussed the possibility of recruiting more,’ said Tracy Madgwick.

There is always a much smaller pool of candidates for senior posts in faith-based organisations but Action Planning know where to look. If you need help in finding the right person for your organisation chat to their representatives at CRE South West. Action Planning’s David Saint will lead a seminar at the exhibition, ‘Fundraising for capital projects for churches’ (11am, Wed 12 Feb and 3pm Thu 24 Feb).

• Action Planning are on stand P10 at CRE South West

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Former Blue Peter and Sky Sports presenter Simon Thomas will open CRE South West at Exeter (10am, Wed 23 Feb).

Simon, 49, whose wife Gemma died suddenly from acute myeloid leukaemia (AML) four days after being admitted to hospital, has dedicated himself to increasing awareness of AML.

Gemma visited her local GP three times over six days in 2017 and on each occasion was told to rest at home from flu-like symptoms. Survival rates for this aggressive type of blood cancer are dreadfully low. Only about 15 per cent of the 2,500 people who contract AML survive for five years or more.

Following his wife’s demise, Simon launched the Gemma Thomas Fund to raise awareness and money for research. He also became president of Blood Cancer UK, then known as Bloodwise.

‘I want to make sure more people are made aware of the signs and symptoms of all blood cancers so we can improve early diagnosis and give people a fighting chance,’ he said. AML symptoms include persistent and unexplained tiredness, infections, fever, bleeding and weight loss.

He has also written a book, Love Interrupted: Navigating Grief One Day at a Time, and although he has never been to CRE before, told CRE News: ‘I have known about it for some years and will be delighted to see at last the many ways the exhibitors help the Church in its mission.’

The son of a Church of England vicar who sadly died last year, Simon worked on Blue Peter for six years during which time he ran two London Marathons and made more than 40 solo sky dives. On one of his early dives his parachute did not open until two instructors jumping with him bumped it to make it open! 

He joined Sky in 2005 and presented live Premier League football on Sky Sports from 2016 to 2018 and is currently presenting Premier football coverage on Prime Video, streamed by Amazon.

Last year Simon married Derrina Jebb, daughter of a Methodist minister. Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, he said: ‘Right from the early stages, she had this empathy towards me. She’s a Christian as well and that’s important to me as a man of faith.’

Simon’s son Ethan was one of the best men at their wedding in Norwich Cathedral.

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With young people struggling with poor mental health through the pandemic, the Ugly Duckling Company has launched an innovative resource to help them. 

10:10 shows the difference living well can have on their mental, emotional, physical and spiritual wellbeing. Designed for use in churches, schools, youth clubs and community groups, the initiative has been supported by a £60,000 grant over two years from Allchurches Trust. Providing at least 30 hours of adaptable material, the recource can be used in small groups, lessons, assemblies and lunch time clubs.

Ten themes, built on spirituality and positive psychology, help 11 to 17-year-olds explore different ideas around happiness and the art of living life well. It covers themes such as thankfulness, kindness, forgiveness, healthy relationships, coping strategies and how to look after mind, body and soul. The resource features a series of films, group discussions, creative exercises, experiments and additional downloadable resources.

Book your tickets to CRE South West! – and save up to £5

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Our next exhibitions

A sudden surge of interest from companies and individuals wishing to exhibit has meant organisers of CRE South West have increased the number of stands available at the exhibition.

Bookings in the new year include World Vision, Ecclesiastical Insurance, Countdown Creative, Snug Architects, Crosslink Transformation Network (CTN), Cambron Software, Creative Solutions and StageEngage.

‘Most people are optimistic we are at the beginning of the end of the pandemic,’ said CRE event director Brett Pitchfork. ‘They are keen to get back where it really counts – face to face with customers, clients and supporters. Safety is still paramount for all, so we are instigating similar precautions to those we introduced at Sandown Park in October, including wider aisles, and remain hopeful that churches throughout the south west will support our first  exhibition in the region for seven years.’

Expert advice will be on hand in 40 seminars with several speakers from the region including the Bishop of Crediton, Rt Rev Jackie Searle; the Archdeacon of Exeter, Venerable Andrew Deane; Canon Sarah Yardley of Creation Fest, Paul Friend of South-West Youth Ministries and Tim Moyler of Agapé UK. The exhibition will be opened by former Blue Peter and Sky Sports presenter Simon Thomas.

The Bishop of Exeter, Rt Rev Robert Atwell, said: ‘CRE was last at Westpoint in 2015 and much has happened at local church level since then,’ he said. ‘It is a great opportunity to access new resources, ideas and practical tools to meet the many challenges of local ministry.’ 

A short introductory video to CRE SW can be viewed here.

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Seminar Guide – See the complete guide to seminars at CRE South West 2022

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A family firm has become a one-stop shop for churches wanting to produce a parish magazine on a budget.

As a local councillor in Holsworthy in Devon, Phil Tucker (pictured left) produced a leaflet to highlight some local problems. Such was the quality of the leaflet that he got requests to produce material for other people. In a two-week period he will now print about a million sides of A4 for a series of parish magazines and other publications.

‘We only handle community and church magazines, and understand that editors may need help with certain issues,’ said Phil. ‘Our production team has an in-depth knowledge of the problems experienced in producing a community magazine and are willing to help in any way they can. We build extremely long-term relationships with our clients.’

The printers used are efficient at smaller print runs, especially those under 1,000,’ said Phil. 

‘We take a PDF, usually by email, and print the publication as soon as possible. We are very aware that the editor probably has their own job. We are therefore as flexible as possible in the turn-around time often printing on the day of receipt and getting the newsletters back next day.’

• Parish Magazine Printing are on stand C34 at CRE South West

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Whole church groups are booking weekends, families are taking half terms and summer holidays – Lee Abbey is back as a place of rest and renewal.

‘There is definitely light in the darkness of Covid!’ said Marianne Needham-Bennett, Lee Abbey’s PA to the warden. ‘We had a wonderful time over Christmas and new year with the house full of joyful guests. With a varied programme in 2022 we are ready and able to welcome guests – as individuals, families or groups.’

Lee Abbey has been hosting guests since 1946. A community of British and international volunteers lives at the house to serve guests in such a way that they can encounter Jesus.

‘Over the years and perhaps especially over the past two years, there have been many incidences of God’s faithful and sometimes miraculous provision in terms of community members, guests, finances, resources and protection,’ said Marianne.

The Beacon Activity Centre provides accommodation and opportunities to learn about God through adventurous activities, for families and young people. Most guests, whether individuals or groups, stay in the beautiful Lee Abbey house in spacious rooms, many en suite, and there are a range of self-catering options. Set within a 280-acre estate on the North Devon coast and with the south west coastal path running past the house, Lee Abbey is an ideal location to get away from it all, an opportunity to take a deep breath and step back into creation.

‘Come and stay with us in this “thin” place for a Monday to Friday of worship, prayer, teaching and activities, or for a weekend of renewal and refreshment, said Marianne. ‘We are offering a full programme throughout 2022 with a wide range of speakers, and you are welcome to come and join in as much or as little as you like.’

• Lee Abbey are on stand B10 at CRE South West

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The 6th National Big Church Read begins on 24 January and focuses on The Bible: A Story That Makes Sense of Life.

‘Many churches are telling us that doing a Big Church Read brings people together again,’ said Steve Barnett of St Andrew’s Bookshop. ‘If the whole church joins in, the positive effects of a shared experience are especially good and a great antidote to the apartness created by the pandemic.’

Andrew Ollerton invites you to join in the Big Church Read here.

With many church leaders concerned about biblical illiteracy in their congregations, this is also an accessible way for groups and individuals to understand the overarching storyline of the Bible and what it means for our daily lives. 

‘It can also be used as a stepping stone to doing The Bible Course,’ said Steve.

There is also a new Big Church Read with Terry Virgo, who has created 30 videos for each chapter in his latest book God’s Treasured Possession.

‘You could get your church to read a chapter a day as a 30-day challenge!’ said Steve.

• St Andrew’s Bookshop are on Stand F29 at CRE South West

Book your tickets to CRE South West! – and save up to £5

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