Past Battalion Events

Report of the Liverpool Battalion Captains and Chaplaind breakfast

This second breakfast event took place at Bethel Church Tuebrook (16th HQ) on Saturday January 19th 2008, having been postponed from the original October 2007 date by the moving of the Swimming gala and the postal strike. Although not as well attended as previous breakfast (3 Chaplains [including the Battalion Chaplain], 5 Captains and the Battalion president) the time was well spent with some interesting discussions.

The focus for discussion was a topical one – recruitment of BB staff

• Who drives (or should drive) the staff recruitment, Company or Church ?
• What criteria are set or worked to when recruiting BB staff ?
• How can we better promote the BB to potential new staff ?

 
This time we stayed as one group for the discussion which lasted for about 40 minutes and yielded some interesting points (see the table below). One key thought was shared by a member of the Church Army based at Christchurch Anfield (10th Coy) who stated that these days most theological and Bible colleges consider that uniformed youth organisations are irrelevant to today’s youth and therefore by default not useful to the work of churches. Whilst we argued that this wasn’t our experience it does explain the indifference or at best indifference of some Vicars/ Pastors to BB. Sadly, the BB nationally must take some responsibility for this as its “spiritual” profile is very low and there seems to be little active engagement between the Brigade and the leaders of major denominations. There was clearly a variety of approaches to recruiting staff, ranging form the traditional “from the ranks” position through seeking help within the church to taking “outsiders” in including parents in an instructor or part-time basis. I believe that it would be good to repeat this discussion with more chaplains/ ministers and focusing more on how we can change poor perceptions. Perhaps a subject for a future Battalion meeting ?
 
In summary, this proved to be a beneficial event for those who attended and another is planned for the Autumn.
 
Derek Swanson, Battalion Chaplain.

The 2007 Liverpool Big History Show

The Battalion obtained a two-table stand in the exhibition with the purposes of celebrating the BB's history within Liverpool since 1891, and promoting the BB to today's boys. Our stand was in the outer circle and easily seen by the public as they passed by. As well as a number of recognisable BB images we had a range of archive material, including a DVD of BB events old and very old that ran continuously through each day, some Battalion magazines from the 1920s, a 1914 Gazette noting the death of Sir William Alexander Smith and a personal collection of membership cards that had belonged to the late Norman Clare. Mrs Sonia Locke kindly lent us some Life Boy memorabilia to supplement the more numerous images of the traditional BB anchor.   Many people stopped to look and chat over the three days. Some were "Old Boys" from a number of companies, many of which closed many years ago. They all happily recounted fond memories of parade nights, camps, bugle (and pipe) bands that were a part of their childhood and were pleased to see that the BB was still in existence. We made a point of asking these past members to sign the visitors' book as a memento of their visit. We also had wives, mums and Grans who recounted their happy memories of BB connections. Some visitors had never heard of the BB and others expressed astonishment we were there, thinking that the BB was "long gone"!! Perhaps the best part of the exhibition was being able to promote the BB to today's boys and we had at least half a dozen very hopeful conversations with boys and their parents about where they could find a company local to them. As well as the official BB promotional leaflets we had our own flyer specially prepared for the event and this lists all of the current companies with their church address and meeting times.

I’d like to thank those who loaned us items to exhibit – they were all useful and together made a well rounded display. I’d also like to say a very big thank-you on behalf of the Battalion to those who gave of their time to look after the stall over the three days.

Liverpool Battalion Mission – 9th – 11th April 2008

Our three night mission was a success in at least three ways – it brought boys, girls and officers together from all over the city, it delivered the good new about Jesus Christ and it was the first activity in our celebration of the BB 125th anniversary. Numbers aren’t everything but on Wednesday we had almost 60 Anchor boys plus officers and a few parents, the same number of Juniors on Thursday and on Friday we had 70 teenagers from six companies – a great turnout. I apologise that I only have pictures of the Junior night – forgot my camera on the other two!!
	The Anchor and Junior nights were very lively affairs ably run by a team from Bethel Church made up of BB & GB officers and workers in the Sunday School. The theme was You're Invited to a Party which was played out in several ways. All the songs were good lively praise ones – My God is so Big, Jesus' Love is very wonderful, Our God is so Big – which had all the boys (and officers) singing out and doing actions, sometimes competing to be the loudest !! We also sang a quieter song adapted from John ch 3 v 16 which had a section that goes "L is for the love that He has for me, I am the reason He died on the tree, F is for forgiveness and now I am free, E is to enjoy being in His company (LIFE).
	Any good party has games and one we played was very messy. Three boys were invited to the front and had to choose an officer to be their partner. The officers sat on a chair with the boys behind them who were then blindfolded and had to "wash" the officers' faces and clean their teeth. The boys were assisted (and abetted) by some of the mission team and the boy who had the officer with the "cleanest" face (= covered with shaving foam and toothpaste) was the winner. The boy's prize was to give the officer a foam "custard pie". It must be noted that Andrew Sefton was so popular with his Anchor and Junior boys that he was selected for a "clean-up" on both nights !!
The quiz followed a similar pattern. The boys were asked simple Bible story questions and prize for the right answer gave was to play the Burst the Bubble game. An officer was selected (again !!) and the boy chose a balloon which was filled either with water, shaving foam, talc or glitter, held it over the head of the unfortunate officer then burst the balloon. All the officers were great sports, going to their fate with good heart, especially Sheila Holmes whose red hair was turned electric blue by the glitter….
	For me, one of the best parts of the night was the memory verse time. Hearing nearly 60 boys chanting Romans ch 6 v 23 repeatedly – the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus – was quite something. Their enthusiasm and volume was good but better was the knowledge that perhaps many years in the future, the Holy Spirit can revive the memory of this verse to lead these boys to know Jesus Christ for themselves.
The theme of the night was played out in the sketch at the end. Simon (the main character) received an invitation from the King to a party at the palace. In his enthusiasm Simon didn't read the invitation properly and missed the bit about having to wear a clean white shirt, so when he turned up at the palace gates, the guards refused him entry saying that he "wasn't fit to enter". Simon's shirt was filthy and covered with words like sin, stealing, lies, murder. Simon repeatedly tried to clean up his shirt with various cleaners – Gododseed (good deeds), Liebb (Bible), Sprayer (prayers), Urchch (church) but to no avail. Each time he came to the palace gates he was refused. Finally, he read the invitation again and realised that he had to put on the clean white shirt provided by the King in the envelope and this got him into the party. The message was simply explained – our sinful lives separate us from God – we can’t come into his presence or the great party in Heaven as we are. Good deeds, Bible reading, going to church (or BB) or prayers cannot help us. The only solution is the removal of our sin by God's gift of Jesus' sinless death on the cross and to be clothed with His pure righteousness.
A team from Christians in Sport looked after the Company & Senior sections on Friday night with a Night of Champions. The 70 boys were divided into teams of 10 and rotated through a set of three games, with one team having a rest period during each game. Points were awarded for performance in each game and these accumulated towards a winning team at the end of the night.
One game was a bit like basketball but with a quoit instead of a ball and a hockey stick instead of a basket. Each team had to try and get their quoit to their catcher at the other end of the pitch, with the catchers having to use the straight part of the hockey stick as a lance to "spear" the quoit as it flew towards them. The quoit had to be passed by throwing it as you couldn’t run with it. The teams came up with some inventive ways of throwing and intercepting the quoit and the game was often end-to end stuff.
In another game, both teams lay down facing each other at opposite ends of the pitch and were numbered 1-10. The referee stood in the centre, held out a red handkerchief and called a number. When your number was called the aim was to take the handkerchief and get back to your team without being caught by the opposition. A variant later in the game was for the referee to have a red and blue handkerchief and call out two numbers, one for each colour. The tactics deployed by the teams in trying to catch and escape became more and more devious and cunning as the night wore on.
They also played 5-a-side football, which needs no explanation….
At the and of the first hour there was a 15 minute drinks break when one of the Christians in Sport team gave a brief talk about Jesus. His theme was (fittingly) a football one – many teams share a common crowd chant along the lines of "XXX FC is the greatest team around", but they can’t all be right – they can’t all be the best. He told us that Jesus claimed to be the only way to God "I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except by me" (John ch 14 v 6) and that our responses to that claim are that Jesus is either a madman, a liar, or He is telling the truth. If we think that Jesus is a madman or a liar then we can just ignore Him, but if we think He might be telling the truth them we must face a bigger challenge about all his claims, that He calls us to trust and follow Him in our lives.
The games resumed and just before the close of the night the scores were read out and each member of the winning team was presented with Christians in Sport T shirt.
	During all three nights it was great to see so many young people enjoying themselves without alcohol, drugs and mindless behaviour, but even greater to see the Boys' Brigade Object – The advancement of Christ's Kingdom amongst boys being fulfilled before our eyes. If William Smith could see this fruit 125 years after he started the BB, I think he would smile with satisfaction.   Derek Swanson Battalion Chaplain