The Senior Ladies’ Social Committee

The Senior Ladies had decided that they must be seen to be doing something to encourage the youth of the local area. With this in mind they had devised a scheme involving a Youth Assembly, but not having any idea of what anyone under 40 actually enjoys doing, they had asked me to attend a meeting to offer some ideas.

The senior Senior Lady sat opposite me and eyed me with some suspicion and not a little fear for the future.

“If you could just give us some ideas we can take them away and work on them.” she said without any hint of a smile.

“Well, what about getting in the African Drummers. I’ve always fancied trying that out myself and I’m sure the youngsters would love them.”

Senior Senior Lady’s eyebrows arched away from her pearly blue eyeshadow as she pulled her lips in towards her teeth. “No, I’m not sure about drumming. Can you imagine the complaints about noise we would get. No, most definitely not.”

I wasn’t giving up that easily so I smiled sweetly and continued. “OK, well I’ve got a contact for a girl who does massage. That shouldn’t be too loud and I’m sure it would be enjoyable.”

“Oh no. That’s all that Reiki stuff isn’t it. That’s the invocation of evil spirits so we couldn’t have that.

At this point she may have heard the mini explosion as I attempted to stifle a laugh. “Erm I don’t think it’s got anything to do with evil spirits. I think its simply…”

“No dear, It’s just not what we were looking for”.

By this point the Youth Activities Section of my Mental Filing Cabinet was beginning to take on a rather sinister hue that I had never previously contemplated. “Well I do have a contact for a magician.”

By this point I could hear a few sharp intakes of breath. The more charitable amongst them were probably considering praying for my tainted soul. “A Magician!” Most certainly not. What have we just been saying about evil spirits?”

“But magic’s not evil. It’s just sleight of hand really.”

“Most certainly not. You really are not understanding our point. Look perhaps we will just leave our discussion of what we are going to do and think about how we are going to get sponsorship.

Now I should have been aware of the way the conversation was heading but the next words just seemed to slip out of my mouth without warning (It’ll be those pesky evil spirits I suppose).

“Well the Fox and Hounds has been good to us in the past.”

“THE PUB!” Oh my goodness well that certainly will not do. You don’t think that we would have anything to do with pubs do you. Oh dear oh dear.”

At this point my attempt to suppress my laughter was failing miserably and I felt that it was time to leave. To be fair I think that it was the only thing that we all agreed on all night.

“Oh all right I’ll admit it, I am in league with the Devil. Why don’t you just do crochet then. You’ll get a huge uptake of youngsters for that one”. *



*Of course I didn’t actually say this but the temptation was very strong.

It’s Only a Victoria Sponge

It was a Monday night and at the Youth Group we were attempting to make a Victoria Sponge. Not an onerous task you might think and not worthy of starting World War III over. Sadly ten teenagers begged to differ.

The trouble started almost at once when they decided that they would rather make Chocolate Cake. I tried to reason with them that the Victoria Sponge decision had been taken with their full support many weeks ago. “I wasn’t there that day” one whined “P. must have made that decision. Why does she always get her own way? It’s just so unfair.”

“Because life’s unfair.” I almost spat but then stopped myself. “We only have ingredients for Victoria Sponge and if you are going to keep on arguing you may as well all go home because I don’t have the patience for it.” was what I actually said. At this there were a few nervous laughs as they hoped that I was only joking. I assured them that I was not joking and, after some persuasion they finally helped in the cake making effort. When I say helped, I have never seen eggs broken and added to the mixture through a small hole in the bottom of the shell and have also never seen such a lacklustre effort made to cream a mixture. All this went on under the malevolent glare of a few of the girls, still unhappy, standing at the door of the kitchen with their arms crossed defiantly. If they were hoping to see some sorrow in my face they were disappointed.

Soon the cake was ready for the oven and in it went, with cries of “It doesn’t look right”. “You’ve ruined it.” and many more I have erased from my memory.

Despite all the valiant hopes of the youngsters that the Victoria Sponge that was not a Chocolate Cake would be ruined thereby giving them some small measure of vindication, it popped out of the oven 20 minutes later no less than perfect. You might think that that would be the end of our woes, but sadly it was not to be.

The traditional method of filling and topping of a Victoria Sponge is jam in the middle and icing sugar on top. Generations will testify to the unblemished nature of this method and the exquisite taste therein. However, for the sake of my teenagers I was prepared to use whatever filling and topping they desired. Somewhat naively I considered this to be a good ploy. Of course I didn’t count on the fact that 10 teenage girls are not readily going to come to a unanimous decision. Not knowing the meaning of the word unanimous probably also doesn’t help.

“We can fill it with jam” I started “ but I’ve also got skooshy cream and chocolate spread so we….”

“Eurgh it’s not Nutella” said one “I’m not eating that.”

“OK, I’ll put it away so what will we do then?”

“We should use jam” said another starting to enthusiastically dump dollops of jam all over the cake and spread it in.

“That’s not fair” a small voice wailed “I’m allergic to jam and she always gets what she wants and I never do”.

This may of course have been “It’s just so unfair” from earlier on but I forget.

“But it’s got to be jam” said the enthusiastic spreader of the sticky stuff.

“Well I don’t like it, and I also don’t like Chocolate spread or cream so that means I can’t have any. It’s just (you will now be able to fill in the blanks).

Her cries were then taken up by all ten girls each arguing with one another about what should or should not go on the cake and the reasons for each thing meaning the ruination of the cake for each individual. Eventually I cut through their cries, but not with the jammy knife because that would just have been messy.

“Right, that’s enough” I said. “I’ve had it up to here with you lot. I’m going to take the cake into work tomorrow and give it to people who will appreciate it since you certainly don’t. Out of my way”. As I bore down on the cake the opinions of the girls remarkably gelled as one as if exposed to extra strong jam making pectin.

“OK” they said, and I could see real fear in their eyes “we’ll eat it ourselves”. At that all thoughts of allergies and personal dislikes were miraculously lost and the cake was reduced to a few paltry crumbs in less than five minutes. It was a truly remarkable transformation.

After that they went home and I thank singledom that I don’t have to take one home myself.

The best quote of the night came at the end from one of the girls in the older group who had been watching their antics and stuck her head round the door as they were leaving and said “You guys suck”!

On the basis of Monday night’s performance I was very inclined to agree.

Fresh Faces and Sticky Paws

Sometimes I just love the synchronicity. I’m working at the moment with two quite different groups of girls within our Youth Group, I’m doing Cookery and, oh joy, they both want to do something involving chicken. This makes my job very much easier when negotiating the aisles at Asda. If these girls had any inkling whatsoever that they had caused my life to be made easier they would at once have changed their minds so I won’t be letting on any time soon.

I have been working in and around Youth Groups since I officially ended my tenure as a youth myself. In my local community there has always been a strong emphasis on promoting activities for teenagers so the natural progression for me was to work as a youth group leader as soon as I was old enough. I have put on plays with youth drama groups, made the most delicious messes in numerous kitchens, eaten myself silly at sleepovers and taken trips to places like Alton Towers. How else could an adult do these things without fear of ridicule.

Of course this is not the only reason that I do it. There are of course some people who would beg to differ but I feel that it is vitally important to support and help the youth of any community. Kids these days (as at any time) face enormous challenges, whether it be something such as their best friend falling out with them or problems with parents. To have someone other than a parent or a teacher who they feel that they can talk to or who simply takes an interest in them can make all the difference.

I admit that sometimes all the good feelings can be forgotten when you have a group of 20 screaming teenagers in a room who cannot master the correct dance moves for the show taking place next week. However the mere fact that they come back week after week gives me some confidence that we must be doing something right and that one day they may look back and admit that they had fun.

And that, my friends, is a brief resume of the life of a Youth Group Worker. If you have any specific questions, please ask and I will do my best to answer them. I think as a last word I would add that, if nothing else, it keeps you young.


P.S. Apologies for the lack of regular blogging in these parts. I am now working for my current boss, my previous boss and doing quite a bit of preparation work for the youth group. It makes life interesting but time melt away. I will try and keep up the blogging but it may be a little less frequent for a while.

Here’s One I Prepared Earlier

Yesterday evening was an evening of trying to appear responsible, sophisticated and mature and failing miserably.

In my capacity as Responsible Youth Group Leader it was my duty to visit and observe another similar group in all their youthful exuberance. Timings dictated that I had to go straight from work thereby ensuring that I was not too sensibly attired in a work suit, as opposed to the more sensible jeans and a T-Shirt, as is my usual wont in those circumstances.

One might think that, so attired, I could have moved around the group holding a clipboard and looking important. Sadly it was not to be. We were playing games and I was to join in. Gamely (sorry) I did so and was soon down on my hands and knees playing a game of snakes and ladders, observing as I did so, dice flying all over the room (we soon put a stop to that) and arguments on whether it might be possible to change the rules to allow players to move up snakes and down ladders (future politicians all).

Our next mission was a craft activity which involved coloured ice lolly sticks, pictures of cute teddy bears and pictures of flowers with, inexplicably, a rather evil looking eye in the centre. These kids might need counselling. In fact, as it turned out, we were making a noughts and crosses game but what we really needed was Rolf Harris on hand to say “Can you tell what it is yet?” I certainly couldn’t even when it was finished and it had to be explained to me.

Have you ever tried to play twister on a business suit? I can now say that I have tried it and it is not a course of action that I would recommend. A business suit strains and stretches with every spin of that twister wheel. And then there are the limitations of your own body to contend with. I thought that I was quite supple, but no, my body just refused to take me to the same places that the bodies of 7 – 12 year olds took them.

Playing twister has another unfortunate side effect. It always gets me humming Man on the Moon by REM due to the line about playing twister and risk (although we didn’t play the latter and to be perfectly honest I have no idea how to play it). Therefore, picture the scene. I’m variously contorting my body in all sorts of positions, falling over, trying to maintain my composure and humming Man on the Moon. And this is me trying to appear important and grown up? Perhaps not an unmitigated success but at least the end of the evening was in sight and I was soon able to skulk away to regain my composure.

This is not, you understand, my official report. In that, I will say that I was the undisputed Twister Champion, winner at Snakes and Ladders and made by far the best Noughts and Crosses game ever seen. Well you’ve got to have some positive statistics in a report haven’t you?

Funky Blue with Shocking Pink Circles

Yesterday was P Day for one of our youth club rooms. No more boring white walls - Oh No this room was getting a teenage makeover. Just after lunchtime we arrived bearing bright turquoise and pink paint to give the room the shock of its life. We made an enthusiastic start on the walls, covering them in the bright turquoise before planning our assault with the pink. Then us (allegedly more sensible) older ones went downstairs to let the paint dry, and to get ourselves some drinks. We thought that the girls would follow us but no, they were having too much fun upstairs.

When we returned after raiding the tuck shop, bright pink circles were starting to appear on the walls like some psychedelic dream. I thought that I would join in by painting a couple of circles, but no sooner had I drawn the outline than one of the girls had rushed in, bright pink brush in hand to enthusiastically apply the paint.

By the time we had finished, the room looked very impressive (or scary depending on your preference). The girls were happy, albeit with more paint on them than the walls (how does that happen?) and I was ready for a long hot bath.

The next person to go in will get the fright of their life and will hopefully not have taken any hallucinogenic drugs before they enter.