A home away from home

With the big move to university and for many students a move to college, residential or shared living, a quick scan of 'freshers checklist' online reveals a giddying list of all the 'must have' essential items to set up 'home away from home'.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/content.php?r=15855-what-to-take-to-university-checklist

I've got the order wrong in that 35 years on from University, just this year I have taken up digs in a University College. As chaplain to a University of Melbourne College, I have moved into a flat which is not only in the college, but within the administration block. And not only in the administration block, but ABOVE the Master's Office!

The minute I step outside my flat door I face a door to a tutorial room which I go through as a short cut along a corridor of student rooms to my chaplaincy office and chapel at the end of a second floor corridor.

Getting used to 'gilded cage' living took some adjustments. As an 18 year old, college living is excitement on steroids. As a 53 year old, well I just wish I was 18!

The year has provided  musings and reflections upon 'home' and what creates home for young people. I have the great privilege of making home amongst young people and sharing in the everydayness of community life.

Home is ham in Old English and has the broader meaning of communal living together with ideas of dwelling, estate, village, hamlet. Some synonyms of the word home are: central, familiar, family, household, local, native, at ease, at rest, in one's element, in the bosom.

It's easy to see from where came the proverb home is where the heart is.

And where the heart is, there is comfort!

The comforts of home, students recreate in their new rooms and that could include any or all of the following:

• teddies and soft toys
• crochetted and knitted rugs
• lots of cushions
• cuttings growing in jars
• LP's and turntables
• tins of milo and packets of BBQ shapes
• film and music posters
• fairy lights
• wall collaged with photos of family and friends
• loved childhood books

Somehow everything has changed in the past 35 years - and nothing has changed - as I see bedrooms looking just like mine did as an 18 year old. 

Chaplaincy can offer easy fun inclusive creative activities for Freshers to help provide a comfy home away from home. As you offer these activities you get to know freshers and become part of the important new family in their home away from home as they transition to University.

This is a nifty link with lots of fab and fun ideas for the student room

http://www.independent.co.uk/student/student-life/accommodation/student-accommodation-10-cheap-ways-to-decorate-your-room-at-university-a6677151.html

 or...

Here's an idea - make cosy cushions!

All you need is a sewing machine, some fabrics, thread, scissors and either a cushion insert or stuffing.

Adrian makes a Cushion!

The JOY of a new academic year

Summer is abuzz with bumble bees and happy plans as we prepare for the new academic year!

But not all is bright and sunny for the young people of our nation. Over lunch today I was reading some seriously  deflating data from the Good Childhood Report.

https://www.childrenssociety.org.uk/sites/default/files/TheGoodChildhoodReport2015.pdf

The headline was 'School is sad for English Children'. I immediately became glum on reading that headline but it got worse.

The report carried out in collaboration wtih the University of York found:
1.  Children in England were more dissatisfied with their school experience than those in 11 other countries including Uganda, Ethiopia and Algeria.
2. The report suggested 33% of children in England have been bullied in the past month
3. 50% of children felt excluded felt excluded.

And then closer to home for the university sector the study finds children become unhappier as they reach their teenage years.

Saint Francis Xavier and the Jesuits gave us the proverbial truism  “Give me the child until he is seven and I'll give you the man” which we know time and time again to be true through the wisdom of years spent with children growing into adults.

Life, habit and character formation happens in those precious early years and for those of us who work with young people we meet humans nearly fully formed to be the person they are going to be.

Chaplaincy along with a range of services within universities and together with those inspirational educators (who take raw diamonds and polish them to help them shine) offer all sorts of TLC (Tender Loving Care) on campus.

Offering a sense of meaning, purpose, valuing the lives and interests of young people, sharing humour and jokes, relaxing and having fun together over games and food, faith and spirituality formation all feed young people's well of happiness and their God given right to feel good about themselves and others.

Joy is an underused word in English but many cultures naturally ooze joy. For our young people coming to University this year may JOY and a deep abiding happiness of heart and spirit be abuzz in all we do and say as we welcome them on campus.

JOY and Bible quotes

"So that I may come to you with joy, by God’s will, and in your company be refreshed." Romans 15:32

 

See:  http://dailyverses.net/joy

Some ideas to share JOY on campus!!

What I LOVE about these simple 'JOY makers' are that even if a few people are doing them, others see it and they smile and that is automatically a joy filled moment for a person.

1. start a 'BIG SING' group that can be pop up -any time any where on campus. You can start with that simple gospel song: 'I've got the joy, joy, joy, joy down in my heart.. WHERE? down in my heart WHERE? down in my heart...'

2. Charity shops sell really cheap good quality board games and toys that can be so much fun for students and staff to play with on campus. Pop up in cafes and places around campus that are easy and visable. I've got a bunch of yo-yo's, frisbees, bubble mix, balloons that create happy fun moments and they're cheap cheap cheap!

3. A.R.K. Acts of Random Kindness always works a treat to create joy filled moments. Same mantra 'any time any where with anyone' and we all know free sweets goes a long way creating a happy moment :)

De-stress

Chaplains and chaplaincy are beautifully placed within the structures of University life to offer a multiplicity of de-stress ideas and activities for students and staff during this period of study, revision and exams

1. Pitch a 'pop up' chaplaincy in a suitable space around campus.

It could be in a green space, in the S.U. building (if you are lucky enough to have one!), in an accessible room or the library.

 

2. Create an eyecatching poster

Student and well being services will love you for offering to help de-stress students. Send your poster to one and all across campus and have a poster campaign.

 

3. offer simple and easy games, activities and freebies

I'm a hunter and gatherer from way back - always on the hunt for a bargain, freebies, something I can make from nothing and so in my chaplaincy bag of tricks when it comes to this time of the year I have lots of things to give away.

Charity shops are great for games and bits and bobs.

Us crafty types can have a field day making simple give aways - like these sweet study aid lavender bags.

4. Enjoy the fun and have a laugh with students!

Since pitching the pop up chaplaincy in Drill Hall Library (Europe's longest library!) I have had more fun than I have had for a long time, and the students too have been laughing, bantering, meeting new people, giving a yoyo a go, playing games and simply relaxing and de-stressing for a minute or two.

It has been one of the best things I have offered on campus, give it a go!

 

 

 

 

Creating community

After nearly 2 decades in educational chaplaincy I am convinced that at the heart of chaplaincy is the creation of community.

Community simply means 'with' 'unity'.

Our post-secular post-modern university contexts can be colourful yet confusing places of incohesive diversity.  Diversity is what life is all about. Yet in the heady mix of otherness we need to find 'our tribe', people we can share some meaningful union with. Clusters and gatherings of folks we can have some shared mutuality of interests, beliefs, passions, hopes, dreams and spirituality.

Isolated students are away from family, home, pets, cultures, rituals, food, places and their customs of meaning and purpose. They are thrown together in an academic environment at a significant time of their lives in terms of human formation and are meant to make 'some sort of meaning' out of their undergraduate years.

Who are the wise elders to help form and shape this significant time of students lives and how do students do this as they are a part of a community of learning?

Chaplains and chaplaincy have unique freedoms and indeed I would say are vocationally called to literally create meaningful community and communities for our students.

Robert Banks in "Paul's idea of Community"  (https://www.ivpress.com/cgi-ivpress/author.pl/author_id=457) has a simple recipe for creating community.

The ingredients are: a place, some time, sharing stories and good food.

This simple recipe can be stirred, mixed and dolloped with lashings of love around our university campuses.

Here are a few ways community has and is being created at the Medway campus of the universities of Greenwich, Kent and Canterbury Christ Church.

free lunch exploring ideas of food and Harvest

free lunch exploring Christianity

free lunch exploring the Human Universe

students from the 3 universities sharing lunch, personal experiences, ideas, wisdom, humour!

A.R.K. Act of Random Kindness ~ Pancake Tuesday (note the student spelling of 'chaplain')

Pancake Tuesday

Freshers free picnic

Freshers free picnic one campus, 3 universities and students getting to know each other

How do you set up a new University Chaplaincy service?

In September 2013 I was appointed to set up a new Chaplaincy service for three UK universities on one campus. And 'impossible task' was the chorus I heard most often by those in the sector.

The Universities of Canterbury Christ Church, Greenwich and Kent have schools or faculties on the Medway Campus Chatham Maritime Kent. A historic and significant ex naval base this site was acquired about 2 decades ago to establish H.E. presence in this underrepresented region of the UK. Apart from Drill Hall library there is no shared service, apart from chaplaincy.

Canterbury Christ Church at Medway Campus Touchdown cafe with Katie Dine, activities officer

Kent University at Medway Campus

Pembroke Buildings, Greenwich University's Engineering faculty at Medway Campus

Funded by the unique partnership of 3 universities and Rochester cathedral how do you go about setting up a chaplaincy?

You take a trusted and tried Trinitarian theology...
You trust the capacity you have as a mother to love equally 3 very different children...
You take the skills learnt in establishing 4 educational chaplaincies in Australia...
And best of all!
Being an ordained vocational deacon and not a priest in the Anglican church you embody 'go in peace to love and serve the Lord'.

Loving and serving - this is how you set up a new University Chaplaincy service.

Chaplaincy at Freshers Fayre 2013