We're getting busy in the next few weeks

On Tuesday 17^th July we have our Community Support Group meeting.  This is an important meeting.  In only a few weeks’ time we will have opened the doors on Heathside.  There will be loads of new faces arriving:  new assistants, new people with learning disabilities and new family and friends.  From October our community meetings will start to look very different.  We need to get ready to welcome these new people. 

Come along and join in the discussion on plans for the coming weeks and months.  Where should we hold meetings from now on?  When should we hold them?  Should we start to have two separate meetings:  one for “Friends of L’Arche Manchester” and another for people linked to the Heathside house?  Should we start a separate Fundraising Group?

There are lots of things to consider and getting it right could make a huge difference to the success of the first few months of Heathside’s existence. 

Also we have a Boogie Night on Friday 20^th July.  I know many of you will be leaving for Summer holidays soon so this is our last chance to all get together before we head off.  Come along and boogie and meet some new people.  Pass this on to friends and let’s get a really good turn out!

On Wednesday 1^st August we have our regular Prayer Evening.  I know lots of us are away that week but we decided to leave the date in as it is important to be faithful to our regular attenders so if you are free on that evening why not come along and find out why our prayer evenings have been so well received.

If we don't see you at one of these events, have a great summer anyway.

RETREATS IN L’ARCHE

I have just returned from retreat in France.  Every year I join a L’Arche team providing a “walking retreat” in the French Alps for L’Arche assistants in their first year in a community. One of the things that makes L’Arche more than just a good ‘service provider’ is the importance given to the spiritual life both of people with learning disabilities and assistants.  In October L’Arche UK are running what we call a Friendship Retreat for people with and without learning disabilities.  Adapting the traditional retreat model this retreat is done in pairs where a person with learning disabilities and someone who knows them well do the retreat together; accompanying each other through the retreat.  Developing their relationship with each other and exploring their individual spirituality and relationship with God at the same time.  So often people with learning disabilities are not deemed capable of this kind of reflection or are seen as not having spiritual needs at all.  It is true that we do often approach spirituality as a kind of intellectual exercise like a kind of Religious Cognitive Behavioural Therapy!  But of course there is nothing to say it has to be approached this way and in the Friendship Retreat we explore different ways of thinking, feeling and expressing what we feel and think about our relationship with God and with each other.

The walking retreat is also another way of trying to think/feel/experience a way into reflecting on our own spiritual journey.  Each day we have a talk in the morning and after this we set off on a long walk into the mountains.  We are organised into small groups of about 6 or 8 and we spend a lot of time on the walks in these small groups.  Sometimes talking, sometimes walking in companionable silence.  We take a picnic with us and at lunchtime we stop and eat together and have a time of sharing in our small group.  We can talk about what we have been thinking about and feeling on our walk up the mountain and what the talk in the morning meant to each one of us.  Walking in the mountains is a great medium for exploring who we are.  Your body gets well and truly exercised (we walk for about 4 hours all together each day); you do an awful lot of thinking when you get into a nice rhythm of plodding along; all your senses seem to be stimulated by the smells, colours, sounds, tastes and feel of a mountainside in late Spring; and above all it’s good to talk when you walk.  When two people are walking together you are experiencing so many of the same things from the feel and smell of the alpine flowers to the pain and discomfort of the latest incline – and on retreat where you have also both heard the same talk that morning it gives a complete framework to share what you have in common and what you are thinking, feeling, living differently from each other.  It’s a joy and as a retreat experience it works!

We like to boogie!

What a great night! With the fabulous weather that we had on the evening of the boogie night, I have to say I was a little worried what the turnout would be like. I had images of everyone sitting in their gardens sipping a nice cool Pimms trying and failing to pluck up the enthusiasm to trot off to a hot sweaty church hall for a L'Arche Boogie.

But how wrong was I?

We had a brilliant turnout and based on the impressive moves on the dance floor I think everyone had a great time. We had loads of lovely food, a busy bar and some funky tunes from our resident DJ.

I've had so many people saying what a great night they had, we all can't wait for the next one! Watch this space for the next boogie night ... until then, enjoy some pics from our last event!