A football Oasis

This is the eventual tournament winners, the guy pointing is the one that i pushed! Read on to find out about my alter ego - Vinny



I'm the one smiling looking like a real swell guy.... however on the football pitch i'm an animal

Last week I had the opportunity to represent Oasis in a charity football tournament. It went well. We got put out from our group by the team that went on to win it. We then got put into the Loser's tournament which we won.... Although the losers cup victory was sweet the tournamnent will be remembered by my teammates for other events surrounding me. In the match with the team that went onto win the tournament i got involved in a bit of scuffle where i was fouled and then the guy complained to the ref so i pushed him in the back. Then straight after i tackled another player and he pushed me and i shouted at him.... we both got sent off for two minutes! I eventually came back on and scored one of the best goals of my life. It was so good that the people watching round the side of the pitch applauded and i became an instant 'fans favourite'.... the way i kicked opponents and scored wonderful goals made for total entertainment. Funny thing was that prior to that game i had lectured one of my fifteen year old team mates on controlling his temper (the guy attends our football programme so technically i'm his youth worker). I've always considered role modelling very important so when i got sent off in front of him i ruined all the stuff i had said to him earlier. It's interesting that they now respect me more for getting sent off than they did before..... figure that out!

Pleased tea see you....

This is the Oasis Tea man... he's very helpful as you can see. Don't ask about the headware, some say it's a tea cosy becuase he's see's himself as a giant kettle!

It's good to walk (like the phone advert "it's good to talk"....) ha ha

I like to think that I’m a good navigator (others who have been victim to my navigation might disagreee). This morning I had to be in a school for 9am to do some mentoring work with an 11 year old boy. In Perth most journeys made can be done on foot so I’m still in this frame of mind where I feel I can walk most places. Slowly I’m learning that in London the distances between places are far greater (that’s why they have such an effective public transport system). At times my reluctance to use public transport proves to be a hindrance but it can also be an advantage. Some colleagues have found my walking approach inspirational - expressing that too often they use the underground for short journeys. On the other hand as I mentioned it can be a hinderence because I find myself walking extreme distances to get places. On foot there is always the chance you’ll take a wrong turn…. For example I found myself walking this morning quite confident I knew where I was going. I knew as soon as I got on the Old Kent Road it was a straight journey. Problem was… couldn’t find the Old Kent Road only the New Kent Road. Turns out that the Old Kent Road is the New Kent road…. This was explained to me by the bemused londoner I stopped to ask!

Fish wive tales

I took a picture of these two London Gypsy's whilst out and about in London. Scary people who use their head scarves as weapons.

Working gap years have the potential to turn education leavers into education leavers with perspective...

I live in what could only be described as a big white building. It has Oasis themed orange shutters on the windows, four floors and two movement censored showers that don’t work when you move about in front of them (when they suddenly stopped working I was lathered up ready for the rinse. Not the nicest experience rinsing your whole self in a basin of tepid water). There are five residents in this big building: Me, Tim, Pete, his wife Becka and our little friend the mouse who lives on the ground floor. We don’t see much of mouse but he leaves his mark on every item of food left vulnerably on the worktops. The building used to be a health centre/ homeless hostel and so it has a institutional feel to it. For example there is a reception area outside my first floor bedroom. There is a large walk-in cupboard where they used to stock spare clothes for homeless people in the winter. Next door to my bedroom (an old treatment room) is a chiropody chair. It still works which makes for excellent entertainment when bored. It’s quite a lonely building and I still don’t feel quite at home in it. The building sits on the Lambeth Road, which means that it’s noisy throughout the night, seriously the noise never stops. I’ve just had to adjust to sleeping through it. Underneath the house runs the Bakerloo underground line, which often keeps me awake late at night….

This environment is far from the tranquil silence of my home in Perth. I’ll be honest and say that there is times I wish I could sleep there and then return to London every morning. However, in this noisy large building I’m learning more about myself than I ever have. I’m adapting to an environment that I’ve never had too. I’m overcoming fears and anxieties that I’ve had for years. It’s the learning curve that drives me on…. The knowledge that after this year I’ll be able to look back and say I stepped out of my comfort zone to have some experience of what it feels like to be uncomfortable. London is amazing. On Sunday I had the best ice cream I’ve ever tasted, occasionally I eat the best doughnuts I’ve ever had (made fresh – melt in the mouth) and sometimes I eat these chips – crispy on the outside and fluffy in the centre. But there are aspects of London that make me uncomfortable. The shooting’s, the stabbings, the general way people just don’t look at each other (who can you trust?). Maybe I’ve not made much sense about why I’m here. If so maybe I can say it better. I reckon that experience is everything when working with people. Although you can get a degree to give you the relevant skills, life experience gives you the confidence to put those skills into practice. I feel the higher up the scale of need I work the more I’ll learn (the kids I work with here have put new demands on my skills, something which can only benefit me in my future work).

Oasis are very keen on the idea of mentorship and so very quickly I’ve been given a personal mentor. His names Ally and he’s trained counsellor (don’t worry I think it’s more chance than my actual need for counselling) originally from Edinburgh. Anyway, I had m first meeting with him, which was great. We ate a meal and then went for a pint. The whole thing was very relaxed and he gave me plenty opportunity to talk about any problems I was having (you know, my hair, my style, girl problems etc etc). Ally dropped me back at the institution (home) around 10pm and I went inside feeling very at peace. I always check the mail when I enter the building because we get a bunch of interesting stuff through the post mainly because it used to be a health centre (free drug samples, new receding hair treatments). Anyway, I was just walking to my room when I heard a door creak and I stopped a little freaked by the noise. I stood for sometime waiting for any follow up noise but none came and so I carried on walking to my room. You can imagine that I was a little anxious and was quite keen to get inside my room and lock the door; I’d be safe in there at least. However, as I walked to my door Tim and Pete jumped out in front of me and I screamed…. Screamed like I’d never screamed before. Holding my heart I collapsed to the floor in total shock at what had just happened…. At first, I’m told they thought they’d killed due to my reaction and then when I spoke the tension dropped and they started laughing. It’s the worst fright I’ve ever had and I still haven’t quite recovered. I think if my heart has ever been close to stopping it was then. No doubt this moment will go down in my Oasis Legacy ‘the time we gave Andrew a fright’. Had I died during the experience then it would have been my legacy….

J and the giant egg drop

In an earlier blog I talked about J an interesting little character. J could well turn out to be the star of this Blog because it’s never a dull day when he’s around…

I’d been asked by Pete the head youth worker to lead the Wednesday club night for 7 – 11 year olds. I was quite happy to do this and so went about thinking up games, activities etc. I decided to do a game called the giant egg drop; some of you may be familiar with it. Basically, you have to design a capsule that will protect an egg when it is dropped from around 8ft using the materials provided (tissue paper, plastic bottles, string, celotape, straws). It sounded like a great plan because it would focus on the teams working together as a group, something the kids who come are not great at.

J arrived at the centre around 3:50pm and started a fight with a boy called F…. After this incident J calmed down and I have to say that he was one of the star performers in the giant egg drop. Instead of dropping the egg capsules from 8ft (me standing on a chair) we decided to drop them from the balcony that overlooks the games hall, it’s roughly about 20ft (whether anything could protect an egg dropping from that distance was something I didn’t even consider, I knew it would be fun!!) The activity went really well. I had been worried about getting their attention to explain everything but that went fine and the kids seemed pretty excited by the whole thing, which created a great atmosphere. All but one of the capsules was unable to protect the egg inside. The suspense between the capsule dropping and me opening it up to see if the egg had survived was excellent. The kids were totally engaged.

After the giant egg drop we played dodge ball, an energetic game enjoyed by most kids…. Most that is but not J. Sigh, it’s this whole issue of him not being involved. He hates it when nobody passes to him. It’s very difficult to deal with an issue like this because all the kids want to be passed the ball. By continually meeting J’s demands we won’t be doing him any favours. He has to come to terms with team games and dynamics, which is going to take a lot of persistence and patience, but I’ve got plenty of that. J became so agitated by the game that he walked out of the hall, out of the hall beside it where some kids were doing t-shirt painting, out of the reception area and out of the front door onto the street.

I clocked him leaving and walked after him, I was relieved to see that Becky one of the other leaders had also see him go. J was walking fast (I’m not sure where he was going) so I had to run to catch up with him and then I walked along beside him not quite sure what my next move should be. I spoke to him calmly and tried to focus his attention on anything but the issue in hand. He wasn’t having it though. I don’t know J very well at all and so did not feel in a position to use any amount physical force to stop him. With a child in tears and a street full of people I didn’t really know what to do. However, I remember watching ‘brat camp’ last week and when two girls decided to walk off from the group the leader just walked with them knowing that eventually they would stop… I hoped this would happen. Thankfully one of the other mum’s was passing and she grabbed J in a hug asking what had happened. I know her quite well and so I explained about the dodge ball and nobody passing to him. With J still in tears a man then stopped and asked what was wrong (he was quite aggressive in asking) and again we explained…. This man was very accusing in his manner and I felt a little defensive because although J was in tears we were just dealing with a dodgeball issue it wasn’t as if I had done something to upset him.

To make matters even worse two policeman suddenly appeared asking me questions “who was I?” and “what had happened?”… I explained who I was and why J was in tears and they told me about their duty of care and how they had to stop. The whole thing just got a bit mad really. Although in hindsight I’m thankful that these people were around to help settle J. Maybe it’s a good example of all the factors are going to have to work together to help J. He’s no doubt difficult but with the right amount of support from youth workers, family and friends and a certain respect for authority (the police) J will be just fine. When we got back to the centre J was sat down by Pete and spoken to about the dangers of leaving the centre. I’d like to think it won’t happen again but with J around you have to be prepared for anything….

Cigarette packets carry a health warning. Should our churches...

On Saturday I had arranged to meet a friend at Camden so that we could visit the famous ‘Camden market’. We had arranged to meet outside Camden underground, as this was the place both of us were familiar with. I arrived bang on 12:30pm as planned and found that most of the people visiting Camden had decided to meet outside the underground. Now it’s not a very big space outside the underground, the width of a pavement to be exact. So you can imagine it was very busy and I wasn’t quite sure I would be able to see my friend when she arrived (for any interested parties! Family, friends etc this was not a date). Within this mass of people there was so much going on… it made for very good people watching. After a couple of minutes of waiting I received a text saying that my friend would be about 15mintes late so I decided to sit back take in what was going on around me. To my left was a man with an advertising board which read ‘reduced prices on Dr Martins! Interested? See this man’ with an arrow pointing downwards towards him. In front of me it was a constant routine of meetings and greetings. Some people greeted one another like they hadn’t seen each other in ages. Others high-fived, some snogged and some jumped up and down with excitement. It made for very interesting observation. At one point I got approached by a guy with an Oxfam petition, with time on my hands I spoke to him about the work Oxfam were doing and also the work of the Oasis Trust. I signed his petition and he gave me two free badges (Yessssss!). During this time the guy with the advertising board went off and returned soon with a bag of chips (they smelt really good). Then something happened…..

A guy (about the same age as me) walked out of the station and sat on the railing beside me. Shortly after his arrival he tapped me on the shoulder and in a London accent said “s’cuse me bruv, don’t mind if I smoke do ya?” Without any hesitation I said, “yes” because I really didn’t mind. Then when I thought about it I was amazed at his willingness to ask in this seemingly selfish city. So, I turned and told him that I really appreciated him asking my permission to which he replied that he felt really bad about smoking close to people. Smoking is quite a big issue in my larger family. I have very clear memories of a family meal at the ‘Wheel Inn’ where my auntie made a massive fuss about the couple who had started to smoke close to our table. Which is fair enough because it’s not a nice smell when your eating but my auntie really did create a very uncomfortable atmosphere for the smokers…. Smoking really affects my eye’s and so I’ve always struggled with people who smoke in public spaces. But here in the midst of a buzzing street where hundreds of people were moving around this young guy asked me if he could smoke….amazing. Yet with that wonderful experience I came across one not so memorable.

I have to say that when my auntie made a fuss about the couple smoking I felt uncomfortable both for them and within myself. This was a similar feeling to when I saw across the road from the underground an outdoor Christian evangelist. No, in fact I didn’t feel uncomfortable I felt angry…. internal anger. I realise that the guy with the microphone has great intentions but does he realise the destruction he’s doing to the state of the church, Britain’s impression of Jesus, the Christian faith…? I watched people walking past so intent on ignoring the speaker. Intent on ignoring what they’re being told because either they’ve heard it all before or they don’t particularly want to be preached at on the one day they can enjoy away from work. I think the big question is how do you evangelise to a busy city like London.
I had a meeting with my manager last week and he talked about the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. He spoke of how Jesus wasn’t just concerned with their spiritual well being but also they’re physical well being. This is shown in the fact that he wanted to feed the people who had come to listen to him. I think the evangelist on the street offers a spiritual message but what is he doing for people’s physical and mental needs. In a city like London people work long hours and as a result their mental well being suffers. At Church.co.uk our aim is to offer a holistic service that meets people’s needs. We aim to offer a counselling service, an advocacy service, alcoholics anonymous meetings, gig nights (for the indie kids), a buzzing coffee shop, sporting events, social events, aerobics classes, mothers and toddlers groups, parenting classes, after/before school clubs, breakfast clubs and homework clubs. And then if people choose too they can learn more about why we offer such a service…. Church.co.uk is just a small part of the larger Oasis vision for establishing community support (google: Oasis academy Enfield). Does anyone really want to be talked at these days (in reference to the outdoor evangelist)…. Would it be more effective to support people with compassion through action…. And words if their interested.

He scored a goal.... and then ran off crying

J is 9, male and from a black African family. He's arrived at football wearing the full brazil strip with 'Ronaldihno' no 7 on the back of his shirt.....I wonder what Ronaldihno was like when he was 9????

J is an interesting young man. He comes along to football on Tuesday nights and also attends youth club on a Wednesday night. In the past he’s been kicked out of every other youth club he’s attended mainly because of his behaviour. Our aim is to be the youth club that keeps him, we want to be the place that he wasn't too bad for... ultimately, we feel this will have a long term positive impact on J. At football last Tuesday he was being particularly difficult, being nasty to the other kids, not listening to instructions and running off if thing’s weren’t going his way. This is difficult to deal with as a leader because it can have a really negative impact on the other kids and also your energy level’s. Towards the end of football we split the kid’s into teams and play matches. Realising that J was struggling I decided to see how he would respond to being made team captain. The result…. J in tears because the rest of the team wouldn’t listen to him (at least now I know not to use the captain thing again because the kids can’t stand the idea of peer authority).

Eventually it all settled down and the games started. It’s total mayhem when these kid’s play and as a referee it’s hard work. You have F who cries when he’s tackled, B who get’s mad when his team begins to lose and so he starts kicking people, E who just stops altogether when the other team scores a goal. The idea of Tuesday night football is that we create a positive peer environment and for a lot of kids it works. However, it demands a huge amount energy from us as leaders to remain encouraging and enthusiastic whilst also handling the conflict that arises on the pitch.

So while this is all going on J is really struggling. He won’t take his turn in goals and he’s not reacting well when his team doesn’t pass to him. In fact if he’s not at the centre of the play and scoring the goals he gets angry. Tim my colleague had been refereeing most of J’s team’s games and it wasn’t until the last round of games that he came onto my pitch. It started out well, both teams playing fairly and having fun. However, when J’s team go on the attack and score he became unhappy that he wasn’t passed too. He later bursts into tears when I disallow a goal for unfair play. With a short one to one chat I managed to restore J’s esteem and he played on (for a short while). J’s team start a wonderful move passing the ball around and he’s screaming for a pass, but they’re not passing to him. Creatively his teammates make their way up the field with the ball. J stands just outside the goal screaming for a pass (becoming more and more agitated). Eventually he gets a pass to where he’s standing and he scores with a wonderful shot but instead of celebrate he runs off the pitch crying, shouting abuse at anyone who gets in his way…. I still haven’t quite worked the whole thing out. Anyway, I gave him a red card for being over elaborate (joke).

It's challenging work. I left football last tuesday feeling totally knackered and de-motivated. These boys had taken everything out of me. But in reflection i realise that's why i'm here. To be pushed to my limits so that in response i will grow as a person. I wrote that Blog a week ago and today myself and Tim (colleague) are preparing for another night of Football. How am i feeling?? The same way i felt before last Tuesday's session.... I canny wait!!

Praise... sometimes hard to give but very effective

This is something that I’ve been thinking about since I came to work in London. Although my role covers other things than youth work it is within this part of the job that I’ve had to learn most quickly. I mentioned previously in my Blog that the young people were very much affected by a gang like culture that surrounds some of London’s suburbs. Just the other day a 51yr old woman was stabbed in the back of the neck by a sixteen year old male. Steve and Helen a young couple who work at church.co.uk were mugged on Monday night whilst walking home. Luckily, neither of them was injured but Helen had her bag stolen and with it her phone, mp3 player and wallet. Although they were shaken they were more saddened by the fact that within the group males that circled around them there were 11 and 12 year olds…. Very often it’s the younger members in gangs that commit the offences because they are trying to establish themselves.

I think I’ve benefited from being able to approach work with some of the young people here without any background knowledge. Although at university I was taught about the importance of background information as protection, in this situation it might have been a negative thing. Had I known that I was going to be working with young people who were in gangs and had been involved in serious violence my approach would have definitely changed (I probably would have been more reserved and slightly fearful). However, instead I’ve met some terrific young people who show all sorts of potential. The fact that I later hear they were involved in serious gang crime doesn’t distort my picture of them as a great person. It was discussed at uni last year that sometimes focusing too much on people’s past stops us seeing their future potential…. I’ve developed a real heart for these young people. I’ve found that they respond so positively to praise, more so than I’ve experienced in the past. Could this be that they’ve lacked encouragement in the different area’s of their lives….

One of the youngsters mum’s is a really good cook, she brought these samosas for us one week and they were amazing. I told the lad last night that his mum’s cooking was amazing…. he grew the biggest grin on his face. I’ve always found that praising people is one of the most effective methods of relationship building but I realise that it’s not something everyone finds easy to do. From a young age I’ve always responded to praise so I figure that some other young people will also respond well to praise. Everyone has or does something that offers the opportunity for constructive praise…. Do it and potentially change someone’s life.

The challenge of offering a listening ear

I took this picture when I was out walking along the thames (well not on the thames but beside it, jesus walked on water not me!). Having worked with the Salvation Army in Perth i'm aware of some of the challenges facing homeless people. However, it seems to me that homeless people in London are much lonelier, in fact i think becuase of London's size it is very easy for anyone to feel lonely . Many of the homeless people I have come across so far are really keen to tell they’re story or to have somone to talk to. One example is when I was leaving the centre on Sunday night I was approached by this bearded fellow. He asked if I knew where he could find a hostel for the night. I replied that I was new to the area and wasn’t quite sure. He picked up on my accent very quickly and explained that he was born on Skye. From there he went on to chat about his life and how he ended up in London. Then Dan, one of my colleagues came out of the building and he told the man where the local hostel was (the original thing he wanted to know) but he explained that it was fine and he would leave it for another day. Then there’s this other guy goes by the name of ‘the penniless poet’ and all he does all day is go around reciting his poetry to people. On hot day’s he sits outside the centre and speaks to the people coming in and out. On wet day’s he comes into the café and goes round the customers telling his work. He’s tremendous entertainment and it’s funny because you’d think customers would consider him a pest but everyone responds well to him. On some occasions he comes into the café drunk and he has to be asked to leave. But he’s always welcome, that’s the key theme of Church.co.uk that everyone is welcome and should be made to feel welcome.

Anyway, I started out this blog entry with a picture I took. It shows a homeless person at the end of a tunnel sitting with his dog. I want you to look at where the wet footprints are. You’ll notice that around the man there is a huge dry patch where hundreds upon hundred’s of London’s people have walked past him. It clarifies for me how unwelcome homeless people are within society (therefore also clarifying the need for a place where these people are welcome not just to mix with each other but with “normal” people). What the picture also shows is how impacting it would be for just one person to approach that man and take some time out to listen. I’ve heard it a lot recently that sometimes the best service we can offer people is a listening ear but often it’s the last thing we think of…

Being Blessed to be a blessing to others not some spiritual elite....

I remember sitting at the Train Station in Perth the morning I left for London thinking about the huge task ahead of me. Now two weeks into London i'm confornted with a set of new tasks that seem equally nerve racking.

It rained today which was nice... It was that kind of rain that gets you drenched so quickly that you don't have time to react by putting on a raincoat or putting up an umbrella. So becuase i got soaked i just decided to enjoy it, The London air can be so humid and thick so it was refreshing to feel the cold rain dripping off the end of my nose. Also i had just attended a 'meet the funder's event' where we were given a free Lunch so i decided to fill my pockets full of mini naan breads before i left to keep me going for the rest of the day. They were real good!

As i mentioned above, I attended a fundraising event today (lunch being the main highlight). It's really exciting to be at the brink of a project, to be one of the people who is going to take it forward and see it grow. We're pretty confident it will work because of the number's of people who come into the centre voluntarily looking for support. This we feel is our unique selling point to funders 'becuase we're a church open everyday people will come to us'. Other centre's offering advocacy perhaps don't have that.....Alongside the advocacy project the centre will boast a buzzing cafe, and youth centre and services for mother's and toddlers... Steve Chalke even mentioned building a football team as a form of developing community spirit.... The other wonderful thing about Oasis is the no fear to try something approach, if someone's got an idea and they can prove there's a need then it'll be given the opportunity to work!....

11 year old Mike Tyson's

So yesterday me and three of my team mates stand attempting to engage a group of fifteen 7 - 11 year old boys in a game of basketball.... The result two fights and a mis-understanding of the term non-contact. In fact a non-contact sport just doesn't exist with these kids becuase everything they do is about peer dominance, more so than i've ever experienced before. So when they play sport, they really go for it arms flying everywhere, kicking, shouting.... It's like a battle field. To introduce them to basketball was therefore an interesting experiement which resulted in one kid recieving two punches to the face and another in tears becuase of the constant abuse he was recieving. I think it's perhaps the most difficult peice of youth work i've ever done becuase i really struggled to bring the situation under control. Despite their being four leaders we had to fight for control becuase the boy's were just kicking off all over the basketball court.... as soon as one situation was resolved another began.

I ended yesterday feeling very tired but a 'good' tired. By good i mean i had worked hard, i had expereinced a new level of youth work.... urban youth work where kid's are probably going to go on and join gangs. We always try to have a discussion with the kids about a constructive issue with a film clip as a tool (finding nemo as an example). Yesterday we were watching the lion the witch and the wardrobe and one of the kids just came out with "did you see that kid that got shot outside Macdonalds?" the rest of the group responded as if they had heard of it. Then the kid said "well, that's what you get for snitching man!". The story goes that a young man was shot outside Macdonalds, he was in a gang and basically had helped the Police in an enquiry and becuase of this he got shot. The boy (11 years old) in the youth club was well aware of this story and was well aware of the fact that if you tell on people you get shot for it..... it's a culture so unknown to me. But i'm having to learn quickly, the language the raised level of aggression as examples....

Despite the culture all the young people are great, similar to every young person i've ever come across... full of potential. It's so great to be part of an organisation that believes in encouraging all people to fufil their potential. That means often we work with people who are least likely to be included by society. The Church.co.uk centre aims to have an advocacy service up and running by christmas and i've been given the reigns to get it going. A wonderful opportunity which at times scares me. But the other day i was asked to help a man that wandered into the centre to write a letter. He was from Turkey and could speak little english. We sat down and using the few words he knew put together a letter to the council. We then had a cup of tea and he left with Letter and envelope in hand. Prior to that meeting i had struggled to see how our advocacy service would look. After meeing this man it was so clear that if we could just create a well advertised space for people to come it would be used.

The opportunities here are endless.... and so are the talent's. By turning a church into an organisation there is a wealth of skilled people who can meet the needs of all people. On our team we have builders, computer technicians, musicians who have sold hundreds of records, skilled coffee makers, designers, trained counsellors, nurses, doctors, professional speakers and so many more.