The story of Greenbelt 2007...
This summer the Youth Group traveled to Cheltenham Racecourse for the Greenbelt Christian Arts Festival thanks to a grant from Huntingdonshire youth bank, Godmanchester Town Council last year and fundraising done by the group. The members and leaders of the youth group have all written their thoughts a bit about Greenbelt to share in the magazine.
Judith Ekblom, Jennie Parker, Jennifer Small, David Moger, Jon Mills, Anissia Abbott and Alisha-Mary Abbott all attended Greenbelt, accompanied by Janie and Simon Prince, Jen and Mike Weedon and four other Youth Group Leaders from other parishes. After a three hour journey to the Racecourse we then queued for two hours in the car park, sitting there doing not much and roasting in the hot sun! At last we got in and then had to queue for about another 15 minutes to get on to the field where we were camping. After a couple of tight squeezes in the firebreaks, we found the perfect camping spot. We unloaded the cars and then Janie, Judith and Jennifer jumped in the car and went for (one) highlight of the whole weekend! …For a shopping trip to Tesco, leaving the rest to struggle putting up the tents in the heat. The festival started later that Friday evening and went on until midnight on the Monday and the sun shone throughout.
(Judith age 14)
Greenbelt was OK, I enjoyed putting grass down peoples t-shirts while we were waiting to get on to the campsite J I also enjoyed playing around the tents on Monday with Jon, David and Anissia. I hated walking everywhere as after we’d walked down to the festival from the campsite and back a couple of times it got really tiring. I spent ages going around the shops looking for presents to take home. I gave my Mum the T-shirt I decorated in the Christian Aid marquee with a 'Cut the carbon' logo and I gave my sisters a necklace each that I made. This is a warning to anybody who thinks of going on holiday or camping with Joan and David as they snore and always make every tent they go in smell!!!!!! Beware!!!!
(Alisha-Mary age 11)
Greenbelt for me was full of weird and wonderful people from all walks of life, from the man who fell asleep after getting his car stuck in the mud (he had the shock of his life the he woke up to see me and some others taking a picture of his car...) to the Polish ice cream man. Every one was so friendly you could make friends even while lining up at the portaloos (which smelled funny after a couple of days). Every day we had a healthy dose of “Shaun the sheep” cartoons on the big screen in the arena.
(Jon age 14)
Me and Greenbelt…….as it was my first time I didn't know what it would be like.......the best bit was when there was a car stuck in some mud near some Andy Loos and we started taking photos of the man sleeping in the car. I had a go singing with the scratch youth choir and made a cool kite. Shaun the sheep was good to watch and Jon went really hyper when they put the Shaun the sheep song on, but most of all Jon and David were the worst and most annoying people there.....when they were snoring. z z z night night.... z z z
(Anissia age 12)
I didn't know what Greenbelt would be like either but I heard that it was really good from people who went the year before. I ended up going a day late as I was still on holiday in Yorkshire. When I got there it was really busy but I was lucky as I met up with Judith and Jenni almost straight away. Over the weekend we met loads of people and made friends with some of them too. We watched lots of Shaun the sheep and apparently me and John were snoring very loudly.
(David age 14)
Yay! I went to Greenbelt for the second time this summer with most of the youth group. We all had a wicked time, the first night we went to the arena, and saw some weird films…one of them was quite scary, the other one had a horse walking around a house, that was even scarier. When we were heading back we found a boy with a “FREE HUGZ” T-shirt. Me and Jennie gave him hugs. The next day we went to the arena and watched Shaun the sheep (everyone was a bit silly 'coz they liked it). We made friends called Mark and James, but unfortunately they a bit of a bad taste in music. They liked the band ‘My Chemical Romance’. (It disgusts me). We then played football, which hurt my toes. I also saw a friend from school called Annie, we went around together for a bit but then I had to go for tea. While we were together we saw the “FREE HUGZ” boy and I hugged him again. The next day we went out again, and did lots of activities, but then that night I got sick and it was a bit horrible. I was shivery and burning up inside. Blerrgghh! I had to go to the medical thingy and it was scary. Janie took me back to the tent on a Greenbelt taxi [a golf buggy]. We got to jump the taxi queue because I was sick! The next day Istayed at the tent for a bit while Jennie and Judith went out and David, Anissia, Alisha-Mary and Jon played at the tents. During the week we also visited the big tent where lots of people are trying the make the world a better place by raising awareness for lots of different causes, we also designed T-shirts to take home to raise awareness of Christian Aid's ‘cut the carbon’ campaign. I saw one of my favourite bands 'dweeb' who had signed a record deal that very day! The weekend was an amazing experience and I will never forget it!
(Jenni age 14)
Highlights of Greenbelt 07 for me was having a much needed cup of coffee in the Tiny Tea Tent; enjoying the company of the group and meeting with friends as we sat around enjoying food and conversation back at the tents; joining in with the Surefish Top 10 hymns (‘Thine be the glory’ was number one) and the Iona Big Sing. I missed many of the talks I would have liked to have gone to (Including Peter Moger's panel “Am I bovvered” about the future of worship) but luckily a lot are now available to listen to at home. Would I do it again? Yes I would.
(Janie)
I particularly enjoyed the “Get Up, Stand Up” comedy evening, making quite sure that I was not on the front row, as I was last year – the front row are usually the subject of the jokes. I was able to use my engineering skills to help Alisha-Mary, Anissia, Mike and Jen with flying their kites. Jen, Mike and I went to the “Jesus Arms” public “tent” to taste the local beers, although I wasn't so sure about “Absolution”. Janie was the undisputed champion of the Chess tournament we held amongst our group around the tents on Monday lunchtime, seeing off such august opposition as David and Mike.
(Simon)
The fact that it wasn’t raining when we arrived in Cheltenham (or for the rest of the weekend!) was a real answer to prayer. Although we seemed to arrive at the same time as everybody else (hence the queues) we were able to get out of the cars and lie around on grassy verges, eating our lunch and buying and looking through the excellent festival programmes. With every souvenir programme came two helpful handbag-sized summary programmes and everyone started planning what they would like to do and see over the weekend. The great thing about camping (particularly if the weather is good) is that you get to slow down to a completely different pace of life. There are no televisions or computers so you get to make your own fun – playing is good for you at any age! We went with Anissia and Alisha-Mary to a place called the ‘messy space’ and took part in a kite making workshop, quickly transforming some super-thin waxed-paper material, a couple of sticks and some string and ribbons into objects which we were told would actually fly. We were guided to draw pictures of our hopes and dreams on the kites. Surely enough, our kites did fly very well, so we had a good laugh running up and down the campsite flying our hopes and dreams in the sky. We didn’t go to any talks this year but spent a while walking around the charity exhibitions and stalls, listening to live music (Kanda Bongo Man was one highlight) and generally soaking up the atmosphere, as well as chilling out as a group at the tents. We knew we would be able to buy downloads of the talks from the festival website afterwards, so we made the most of the sunshine. On one hot afternoon we headed down with Simon to the “Jesus Arms”, where we tasted the beer specially brewed for Greenbelt called “Absolution” and a cocktail called “The Parable” and listed to lots of 60’s tunes. Greenbelt is a great escape – we’d recommend it to anyone.
(Jen and Mike)
We believe that the Parish Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Godmanchester, exists to build up the individual and corporate spiritual life of our Church and to spread the love of Christ through word and deed, by enabling those who live and work within our town to come into contact with God’s love and come to faith in Christ.