Category Archives: Personal
Our Deepest Fear
Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.
Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.
We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,
gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?
Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.
Your playing small does not serve the world.
There is nothing enlightened about shrinking
so that other people won’t feel insecure around you.
We are all meant to shine, as children do.
We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.
It is not just in some; it is in everyone.
And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously give
other people permission to do the same.
As we are liberated from our fear,
our presence automatically liberates others.
Moo Cards
After seeing Andrea’s mini Moo cards at DeveloperDeveloperDeveloper the other week I decided that I needed to get some personal business cards done up and went for Moo’s mini card range.
The idea behind them is that you can have up to six lines of text for your personal details and choose various pictures for the card backs either from a range created by various designers or from a photostream on Flickr. I must admit I had great fun in selecting and cropping various pictures to use on my own cards.
For the personal details side I finally decided on including my name, phone number, email, website and twitter address. Most of the people that I will ever hand them out to will be online and if they ever need my postal address they can easily request it. Twitter name was an interesting one for me to include as I’ve only been using the service for a few months but has already become a keystone in my communications so it was a must to include.
The cards arrived this morning and I’m completely delighted with them. The card quality and print clarity is incredible and I’m really glad that I went with them. They’re already causing a stir to everyone that sees them and lots of people on twitter are already asking to see pictures, and no I haven’t been paid to write this post- just one happy customer.
Portstewart in the sun
I was up at Ballyhome residential centre this weekend with the guys I went to South Africa with and we went for a stroll around Portstewart to clear our heads. It was bitterly cold but the sun was shinning and we got some cracker views around the cliff path looking onto the rocks below. Truly beautiful:
Opportunities
Looking back that fourteen year old doesn’t seem like me, so much has changed in my life and I find it hard to believe that the decision I took eleven years ago- to stay with a youth club, could have played such a major role in forming who I am today.
The leaders in Gateway became role models and mentors to me, encouraging me to try the unknown and to be just a little more daring than I naturally would have been. By doing this they increased my confidence and knowledge more than I will ever know.
My experience at Gateway has opened up many doors for me. Every job interview I have ever taken part in has raised my time at the club, always in a positive sense.
I was able to complete a youth work qualification that allows me to run any youth club in Northern Ireland (OCN lv2 & 3 in Youth Work and Programme Development) and while completing the course became involved in a project that saw me spend three weeks in Johannesburg learning how South African youth leaders work with young people. While there I also ended up on a local radio station talking about youth work and various aspects of Northern Ireland. It was a surreal experience to be talking about our small country to goodness knows how many people at the other end of a radio.
More recently I ended up on the BBC Community Bus website talking about my experiences within Gateway and how it has changed my life, prompting me to write this very post. It’s incredible how one thing can lead to another.
I wonder what opportunities this year will bring?
Beginnings
In November 1997 a shy fourteen year old girl noticed a poster in the corridor of her school advertising volunteer vacancies at a youth club for children with special needs. She was curious about the idea has she had never done anything like that before and with a friend agreed to go to a talk about the club. The day of the talk dawned bright and clear however the girl was too ill to go to school that day and missed the talk entirely. Fortunately her friend had gone and liked the idea of the club so they agreed to visit. The fates conspired on that day as well and the club was closed for Halloween. Not to give up though they agreed to try again the following week.
The next Saturday got off to a better start as the club was in full session when they arrived. They were introduced to the Leader in Charge of the day, Joe Burns, and were given a guided tour of the club. It all seemed like great fun with a social area, art and craft room, pool tables and a sports hall but slightly overwhelming as well as there was a lot of people in the club but everyone seemed really friendly. It was also the first time that anyone had shortened her name, she’d never been called Jackie before and it rang strangely in her ears.
Over the following weeks they settled into the club routine and began enjoying themselves, helping out in the art room but still keeping to themselves. After about a month or so, the girl’s friend decided that Gateway wasn’t for her and decided to leave. The girl found it strange that all of the members continued to ask after her friend even a couple of weeks after she had left, as she hadn’t thought that they had made much of an impact, they had mainly kept to themselves. The girl was in two minds- to stay and try and help out even though she knew no one there, or to leave as well. It seemed a decision was looming…
After a couple of days mulling it over the decision to stay seemed like the right one to make. It seemed daft to leave just because her friend had and being on her own was forcing her to make friends with the other leaders and the members. As time went on her confidence grew and she knew that she had made the right decision to stay.
The years at the club started to pass and the girl, who was nearly always called Jackie now thanks to Gateway/school cross links, developed as a stronger person. She went on first aid courses, volunteer training weekends and spoke about the club almost everywhere she went. Her experience even helped her gain her first part time job as she was able to talk about her time with the club.
Many things changed in Jackie’s life: her education continued to expand as she studied her gcses, a-levels then graduated from university, her part time jobs changed from Eason to Tesco, but Gateway remained a steady constant in her life. Sure leaders and members came and went but it became an escape from the rest of life. To think that all those years ago she was going to leave. Think what she would have missed out on.
Common Cold
Well it looks as if I’ve got the cold again. I seem to be the one person out there that every cold strain going has to pass through. I last had it in September so surely I shouldn’t be catching it again so soon.
The only positive is that I never seem to catch anything stronger. Maybe all the bouts of cold block out anything worse. All I know is that I’m again stocking up on day nurse, vaseline and tissues. Lovely!
