Our vision for Viney Hill
On the 9th March this year, staff from Viney Hill joined together for a day at Lindors Country House Hotel. The purpose of the day was to share thoughts and discuss the vision for the Centre over the coming year.
We split into smaller groups and discussed the Centre, what it represents to us and to the groups that visit, and what we can offer groups from a Christian perspective. Then we came back together and shared our thoughts. As we discussed together our ideas we divided them between four main headings, they were: spiritual, personal, business and educational. This helped give us an overall picture of the Centre’s ‘vision’.
The thoughts that came out in our discussion were:-
Spiritual
The main thought that permeated the rest of the discussion and gave a distinct feeling to the life of the Centre, was the idea that we are a ‘community’; a feeling that goes beyond just being part of a team, to being an alive and committed community of honest Christians enabling the groups that visit us to:
• Encounter God at their own pace
• Provide the opportunity for challenge and growth in a safe environment
• Provide acceptance and an atmosphere for confidence building
• To provide support and encouragement for the leaders of groups
To enable the first point on the list we felt it important to be open to opportunities to share God, and that it was also important to be able to pray together and with groups when the opportunity arose. Part of the spiritual side of the Centre is worked out through the way we work and communicate with people and the focus we have. One description that was put forward was our ‘ethos’ and ‘being’. The idea was that the atmosphere at the Centre and its ethos is driven by what and who we are in God; that this ‘being’ what we are can provide a God influence in itself.
This shows itself in the way we treat people, before during and after their visits here, the way we expect groups to treat each other and generally providing a place and atmosphere that would facilitate a group’s spiritual programme or even provide a different atmosphere than the norm for those non-Christian groups that visit.
Educational
From an educational point of view we are able to provide the facilities for groups to be challenged and to develop confidence in themselves and their abilities. This also helps to raise their self-esteem. We also talked about the possibility of tasks with consequences to reinforce the idea that all actions or decisions come with a consequence!
Personal
The life of the Centre from the point of view of individual staff members was also thought about. The idea of community seemed to overlap all the areas talked about and all staff have an input into creating that atmosphere. We have the opportunity to create ‘history’ and good memories for the children and young people that visit us; memories of a positive time and maybe even a landmark experience in their spiritual journey.
Business
As staff we feel that we have a responsibility to look after our groups as efficiently and effectively as possible from the time they first contact the Centre to after their visit is over. We hope that your group has found that to be the case, or if you are contemplating a visit, rest assured that this is our goal!
We wanted to share with you the thoughts and ideas, 'vision' if you like, from our staff day so that you can see the committment of the staff and the atmosphere that we endeavour to create for your group to enjoy. If you are a church based group we hope that this atmosphere will help to facilitate your spiritual programme, if you are a school or other organisation we hope that it will lend that little something 'extra' to your stay; maybe in the way we relate to your group, or the way we expect the individuals in groups to relate to and treat eachother.
Whatever type of group you wish to bring to the site, as staff we really believe that The Christian Adventure Centre has something unique and special to offer you in your residential activity experience!
This article was posted at 09:04 on 5th April 2006
