Posts Tagged ‘Fun Factory’

How Ridiculous

Posted: June 21, 2015 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,
0

I just love it when a plan comes together … and you haven’t even planned it.

Last Sunday night, channel 7’s Sunday Night programme featured the world record attempt by Internet sensations, How Ridiculous, in sinking a basketball a distance of 126.5m from the top of the Gordon Dam in Tasmania. I particularly loved it because Brett, who got the record shot, will be a guest at our Fun Factory in a couple of weeks’ time.

Heroes is the theme of Fun Factory which is Maida Vale Baptist Church’s annual school holiday event for kids from four-year-old kindy right through to year 6. We’re going to have a few guests who will help us with our heroes theme. How Ridiculous have used their ridiculous fame to support Compassion Australia, and that’s part of what we are hoping to get across to kids at Fun Factory.  We can all be heroes when we use what God has given us to help others.

Thanks Brett and the How Ridiculous team.

Check out the video of the Guinness World Record shot:

Fun Factory a Great Success

Posted: July 20, 2014 in Uncategorized
Tags: , ,
2

DSC00608It’s taken a while for me to get to this post, but after a very busy week Robyn and I needed to take a break. Fun Factory was a fantastic week of kids activities at Maida Vale Baptist Church. Featuring the theme of Circus, we had a wide range of activities, crafts, music and fun. One of the highlights was about 30 people from the church who volunteered for the week, even being brave enough to dress up in circus gear. Thanks team.

Joe Bolton from Suitcase Circus came along and taught us all a whole range of circus tricks; we were amazed at the magic tricks of a magician, wowed by the creativity of a balloon artist and learnt some moves from the Fit2Cheer team. It was also good to have Old Macdonald’s Farm there one day.

Thanks to all those who came along for the week, helpers and participants alike.

Now, sit back and take a look at the video.

Fun Factory’s here again

Posted: July 6, 2014 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,
0

circus1

Fun Factory is one of the big events of the year for Maida Vale Baptist Church. It’s taken a lot of planning and preparation, especially by Robyn Douglas who is the Children and Families’ Worker at the church (that’s my wife, of course). This is our seventh year of running Fun Factory. For the first time this year we took online registrations which was a really successful way of preparing for the event.

Our theme this year is circus and I’m looking forward to seeing the variety of dress-ups for our brave helpers. To keep up with what’s happening during the week check out our Facebook page.

Got to go and get my clown gear on ….

There’s More to Circus Than Clowning Around

Posted: June 15, 2014 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , ,
0

circus1

Fun Factory is one of the highlights of the church year at Maida Vale Baptist Church. A lot of preparation is going into this event, and I’ve even been getting together my clown costume in preparation. Yep, that’s right, the green wig that I used during Baptistcare’s 40th anniversary celebrations is coming out of the box again.

The reason for the clown costume is that our theme is circus and we’ve got a heap of great activities during the first week of the school holidays.  You can check out all the information at the church website.

Circus is a fun theme, but there are some principles behind circus that are important to life. Reg Bolton was a pioneer of circus in education in Western Australia and did his PhD thesis on the theme of “Why Circus Works – How the values and structure of circus make it a significant developmental experience for young people”.

In his thesis he said that behavioural abnormalities or psychoses are often linked to developmental stages that have been missed, uncompleted, repressed or associated with trauma, and contended that “caring adults, who may not necessarily be trained counsellors or psychologists, by offering the circus experience to children and teenagers can provide them an opportunity to make good those deficits, by giving them more chance to advance to adulthood without gaping holes in their psycho-social personae”.

Bolton drew on a 19th century jingle as an aide to develop his theory on child development:

Monday’s child is fair of face (self)
Tuesday’s child is full of grace (fun)
Wednesday’s child is full of woe (risk)
Thursday’s child has far to go (dreams)
Friday’s child is loving and giving (trust)
Saturday’s child works hard for a living (work)
But the child that is born on the Sabbath Day
Is bonny and blithe and good and gay.

From this he used the five fingers to expand his thesis on the personal qualities of childhood.

Screen Shot 2014-06-15 at 4.26.38 pmWe’re making use of some of Reg Bolton’s theory as we work our way through the week of Fun Factory, and we’re drawing on some stories in the Bible that say the same things about human development and growth – all wrapped up in fun.

Counting the sleeps till Fun Factory!!

Messy Church Grand Final Challenge

Posted: September 29, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , ,
0

I loved the comment that appeared on my blog this week: Just a story I would like to share following on from the Fun Factory: Adam was saying to me today that when he went to the Fun Factory activities in the holidays that they told him about a man who lives in the sky and stops bad things happening to people and he couldnt remember his name, I told him it would have been Jesus, he said oh yes it was. I said that some people dont believe in Jesus and he said sternly: ‘Well that’s because they didn’t go to the Fun Factory isn’t it!’

If you’ve been to Fun Factory you’ll love Messy Church that is held at MVBC on the fourth Saturday of each month. The difference is that Messy Church is not just for kids. In fact, more and more I’m thinking it’s what church should be like. Kids and parents, brothers and sisters, grandparents, teens and singles, all getting together to work together, play together, worship together and eat together. We do all those things in a pretty informal way and through it all we’re getting to know Jesus better.

In a changing world it’s important that we reimagine the church and look for new and different ways that we can gather together as followers of Jesus, and even as people who are thinking about what following Jesus might look like. Messy Church is one of those options that are available and I suspect we also need to think about other ways we can help people move closer to God.

I’m convinced that the church has served God well over the centuries, but it has changed during that time and needs to continue to change if our world is going to experience the good news of Jesus. I’m loving be a part of that change and looking forward to what may be around the corner.

If you want to get a picture of what Messy Church looks like, take a look at this video from our Grand Final Challenge on Saturday.

Fun Factory a Great Success

Posted: July 14, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,
7

Here’s the video of last week’s amazing Fun Factory at Maida Vale Baptist Church, High Wycombe, Western Australia.

We had an average of 100 children each day and visitors included Akwaaba African drummers, Maori dancers, Operation Christmas Child and children’s entertainer, Sean W. Smith.

For three hours each day the children participated in games, activities, craft, singing, and Bible stories. The theme was Around the World, so each day we focussed on a different country, highlighting Africa, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, and Canada.

Sean W. Smith concluded the week with a concert, bringing us many of his favourite compositions.

Thanks to the many volunteers from the church who contributed to the success of the week’s events.

Enjoy the video.

Kia Ora at Fun Factory

Posted: July 11, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,
1

It was our fourth day at Fun Factory today – still over a hundred kids and having a great time, though the leaders are all getting a little bit tired-er every day.

Our theme was New Zealand today, so in addition to the kiwi-themed stories, crafts and games, we had a visit from some Maori people who taught some new skills. There were some great efforts at Poi spinning and the boys all had us in fear with their rendition of the Haka.

Tomorrow is Canada day, but the highlight of the day will be the concert with Sean W. Smith.

Image

Image

Feeding the Multitudes

Posted: July 10, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: , , ,
0

How do you feed hamburgers to 117 kids? Well, it take a lot of planning, good management, and a very long line. That was our third day at Fun Factory.

Our theme for the day was Mexico and there was no shortage of senoritas, senoras and senors, along with a visit from Yvonne and Robin from Operation Christmas Child, telling us about the annual shoe box appeal, and particularly telling us a story about a boy in Mexico whose life was changed when he received a Christmas box.

It was a great day with a great bunch of kids.  We’re off to New Zealand tomorrow. Image

Fun Factory Day Two

Posted: July 9, 2013 in Uncategorized
Tags: , ,
0

ImageOn Day Two of Fun Factory Around the World we had 103 children turn up for our focus on Japan.

Thanks to Rebekah Hunter who drew caricatures of the children in the Japanese style.

Tomorrow we are off to Mexico.

IMG_3770