Activate Team Member

May 14th is the perfect day to celebrate fairtrade. Host a coffee morning using all Fairly traded drinks, cakes and chocolate. Take the chance to check if your workplace or church buys Fairtrade goods.
You can buy many Fairtrade products on our webshop. Check out Nomad for fashion, which is created in India with no middle-men to take money and workshops that are regularly inspected. There is homeware by Shared Earth, with some lovely goods. And, of course, we have beautiful Achkiy jewellery available.

Long light summer evenings and sunny weather are the perfect setting for outreach events. Get together with a couple of friends over a glass of elderflower cordial or pimms and plan a couple of get togethers between now and the school summer holidays.
How about a Cup Cake decorating night? Cheap to run, with only cake mixture and icing as your overheads, you are tapping in to something trendy at the moment. We are trialing a Cup Cake event in two weeks. As a team we will be baking the cupcakes ourselves beforehand, planning on making three for every guest from a basic fairy cake recipe. Then we have asked a friend from another church to come and decorate the icing techniques. Then ‘generation game’ style, we will all have a go with a piping bag. The evening will finish with a brief interview of the ‘expert’, asking her about her experiences in setting up her ‘Yummy Mummy’ business as well as her faith. We will be playing soft music in the background and serving fruit cocktails as people arrive.The price will be £3.50 per head or £6 if you buy two tickets.

A Summer Nights’ Walk is the easiest idea – meet up at a car park location, walk together along any non-hilly route for an hour and finish up somewhere for a simple barbecue, fish and chips or marshmallow toasting session.

If you have a large garden and a blank wall, maybe you can have an Outdoor Film Show Night. Borrow a projector and show the film against a sheet pinned on the wall. Lay out some rugs or bean bags and relax together as you watch. Mamma Mia is still a really popular film choice(singalong or without), but The Blind Side is fun too, as is The King’s Speech (just released onto dvd).

If the cupcakes sound too ‘girly’ perhaps you could balance it with your next meeting being a GoKarting event. Expense in organising events is always a tricky issue but the power of collective charming bargaining is worth exploring. If you go to a local track and promise a full booking on a night that they are otherwise quiet, you might be surprised at the deal you can arrange. Perhaps you could offer to share karts or drive for a shorter period than normal. Quad biking is another idea that we have had requested, and one girl asked that we go zorbing in baked beans. I promise I will let you know if we ever actually manage that one!

It may be that not all of your regulars will like all of these ideas – don’t be afraid to be a little brave! Go for a different idea once in a while – you may interest someone who would never consider coming to a ‘church-linked’ event. And if some of your regulars choose not to come occasionally then that is okay too.

Don’t forget that summer nights are a great opportunity to be out in your garden or walking in your local streets. Don’t get so busy with church events that you miss the chance to chat to your neighbours over the garden gate. If you met someone for the first time at a Royal Wedding Street party, next week is a good time to build on the friendship with a cup of coffee. Some of the best ‘events’ are a dialogue between two friends, chatting naturally and letting faith and Jesus come into the conversation.

Later this month London will be filled with crowds of excited people celebrating the wedding of our future king and his elegant fiance. Much has been written about the characters and prospects of the young couple. Whatever your feelings about royalty, this is a unique opportunity to be involved in your community with your neighbours. Street parties, village celebrations,town hall get togethers are springing up for the first time in a generation. What are you planning? Where will you be? Email in your ideas and inspire others in our network.
If you need inspiration – perhaps you would enjoy the latest T mobile advert with an interesting wedding party dancing up the aisle…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kav0FEhtLug&feature=youtube_gdata_player

In December we are bombarded with Christmas messages of celebration, cards, texts, songs and presents. I happen to love all the fuss and celebration but I know that others believe it all to be too commercial and over-the-top. We can respond by shying away, keeping it simple and feeling negative about the Christmas rush?
Or maybe we should just celebrate Easter too, pulling out all the stops to show that Easter, and the amazing story of love and sacrifice that it represents, is real and important to us.
Sometimes Christians retreat at Easter, concentrating on abstaining Lent practices, extra services and a time of spiritual introspection. This can be a beautiful time to draw closer to God but it could also be a time of reaching out and sharing the stunning news of Jesus’s death and resurrection.
It is a great time to invite your neighbours and their children round to make some Easter crafts. Decorate cup cakes with mini eggs and little chicks. Make Easter cards with lots of yellow feathers(there are great kits available if you need some inspiration). Fill paper cases with chocolate covered crispies. Growing up in Scotland we used to hard boil eggs, paint them, then roll them down a hill on Easter Sunday morning. A great visual reminder of the rolling stone, and a lot of fun too!
For your adult friends maybe you could invite them round for coffee and simnel cake. If you can’t bake, then try a chocolate egg tasting session. Perhaps you could just bring in a selection to the office canteen and celebrate together at coffee time.
Or if time is pressing and you can’t organise a get together, this might be the year to send a message out in a new way. Send an easter card to someone you know who might be interested in finding out more about Jesus. Send a text message to lots of your contacts on Easter Sunday morning – Happy Easter, He is Risen! and see who responds with what! Or this might be the time to post an Easter message on your Facebook status – put your faith out there as a declaration that you are celebrating Easter.
However you choose to mark Easter this year, don’t miss the opportunity of sharing Jesus with someone who might need to hear about Him in 2011.

Simnel Cake Recipe (with thanks to the BBC)
Ingredients:
•560g ready made almond paste (***marzipan)
•450g dried mixed fruits (currants, raisins, sultanas, glace cherries)
•80g candied chopped peel
•225g all purpose/plain flour
•Pinch salt
•1 tsp ground cinnamon
•1 tsp freshly grated nutmeg
•175g butter
•175g fine/caster sugar
•3 large eggs, beaten
•Milk to mix
•2 tbsp apricot jam
Preparation:
Heat the oven to 325°F/170°C/Gas 3

•Line a 7 inch cake tin with parchment or greaseproof paper.
•Divide the almond paste into 3 and take one portion and roll it to a round the size of the cake tin.
•In a large bowl mix the mixed dried fruits, peel with the flour, salt and spices.
•In another large bowl cream the butter with the sugar until light and fluffy. Add the beaten egg to the butter mixture a little bit at a time, beating well after each addition.
•Carefully fold in half the flour and half the fruit into the egg and butter mixture, once incorporated repeat with the remaining flour and fruit.
•Put half of the cake mixture into the tin, smooth and cover with the round of almond paste. Put the remaining cake mixture into the tin and smooth the surface carefully. Bake in the center of the oven for 1 hour.
•Lower the heat to 300°F/150°C/Gas 2 and bake for 3 hours until the cake is golden brown. Remove from the oven and leave to cool in the tin.
•Roll another third of almond paste, again to the size of the tin. Make the remaining almond paste equally into 11 tiny balls.
•Once the cake is completely cool, remove from the tin and brush the top of the cake with apricot jam and cover with the disc of almond paste. Place the 11 tiny balls of paste evenly around the edge. Brush the paste all over with a little apricot jam and place under a hot grill until lightly browned.
•The cake can then be decorated as you wish with tiny Easter eggs or any other Easter theme.