To celebrate the year of the child in 2009 Lisa Shaw, our children and young families worker, organised a Festival of Childhood in church in July.  A number of groups came into church to show us what they could do.  The festival started on Friday afternoon with a fabulous performance from our school choir who sang beautifully and had obviously worked very hard.  On Saturday the Beavers brought in a number of things they had been working on for various badges and took us on a lion hunt, very exciting but quite scary!  Then we had story time with the Nursery Praise team, which was enjoyed by all ages, and this was followed by Blackpool Schools Youth Work doing the story of the feeding of the 5000.  We were also joined by the Elizabeth Marsden School of Dance & Hot Foot Dance Academy, who wowed us with their energetic dance moves and the festival closed with our first Messy Church session.

Alongside the group activities and presentations was an exhibition of memorabilia ranging from the 1900s to the present day.  It was wonderful to see people's faces as they looked at displays and remembered things from their own childhood.  The festival was a wonderful event and it was great to welcome so many new children and families to our church.

Thank you to everyone who helped make it a success and especially congratulations to Lisa.