Annual Conference 2007
One People - Many Gifts!
The Prospects Annual Conference was held on Saturday, 20 October 2007 at the Renewal Centre, Solihull, Birmingham.
... a reason to celebrate God's goodness!
After months of planning, preparation and anticipation, Prospects’ annual conference finally arrived on 20th October at the Renewal Centre in Solihull.
The 350 people who joined us on the day included our supporters and from a number of Causeway groups in the Midlands area and Prospects services in Aberystwyth, Broadstairs and Westcliffe-on-Sea. A good number were people who wanted to know more about Prospects and our mission to people with learning disabilities. Truly, One People, Many Gifts was a showcase of the gifts that God has blessed people with learning disabilities with and God’s blessings on Prospects.
Main Session and Key note speaker
The conference began with the launch of the brand new Makaton DVD and everyone joined in signing to the song The Father Himself loves you.
Key note speaker, Jonathan Lamb shared.
The Questions and Answer session with Directors and Trustees was a great opportunity for people to interact with Directors and Trustees and it was very well attended by over 100 people.
Seminars
The inclusive ministry seminar was a very practical one! It started with a demonstration of good practice in worship leading and bible teaching together with tips on effective ministry. People then worked in small groups to plan and prepare inclusive ministry followed by an opportunity to put it into practice. All round the room people were giving talks and leading worship. Let’s pray many people with learning disabilities benefit from what was learned.
"I have never heard a presentation before about how much better the biblical model of care is compared to the medical and social models. David laid out the options very clearly and I rejoiced at how good and caring our great God is, to have given us such clear guidelines in his Word."
- 2007 Delegate Norman Green
The Theology, International Prospects and Social Care seminars were well attended and gave an insight on the theological and ethical approaches to learning disability, our partnership with the Mukti Mission in India, our involvement in Romania and how we can use our skills to provide a Christian service in social care.
Workshops
What a thrill it was to have so many people wanting to participate in the workshops at this year’s conference! The response was encouraging and we had 138 people in attendance.
All who participated in the hand chimes were very pleased with their achievements. Even those who initially didn’t think they could do it were able to have fun and join in. “During the sessions we were able to think about how we have to work together as a team and how everyone is important even if they only have one note to play,” says Mary Walton, facilitator of the Music workshop. A reminder of the body of Christ and how we all have a part to play for Christ!
The Makaton workshop looked at what it is like to have a communication difficulty and how it made one feel. “We looked at what Makaton is and how it can help people over come these difficulties. We learnt a few basic signs and were able to put them into short sentences,” explained Scilla Roynane, Makaton workshop facilitator
Using the theme of “God loves us to give”, this late addition to the programme provided an opportunity to explore through signing, discussion, drawing, cutting and sticking what it means to give of our time and talents to be helpful in the places where we live, study, work and worship.
Each group of 6 – 10 people produced a creative, colourful display to illustrate their ideas and they made their mark or signature on the paper to indicate willingness to give to God and to others in a variety of ways.
Celebration
The celebration seemed to draw the whole day together. The worship was ably led by David Mackie with a strong theme of thanksgiving and praise. Each of the 3 workshops fed back some of the gifts people had developed in using chimes, signing and craft. Sarah Redgrove shared her joy at the start of the Lincoln Causeway group after 10 years of prayer.
Jennifer spoke about the gifts we all can use for God, and Chairman, Graham Beckett closed the celebration and the day with a prayer that we all joined in: “It’s been a great day. Thank you God!”
Recordings of this year's conference will be available as mp3 downloads soon!
Audio files from 2007 conference
- Conference 2007 - Keynote - Jonathan Lamb
- Conference 2007 - Christian Social Care - Mervyn
- Conference 2007 - International Pt1
- Conference 2007 - Inclusive Ministry
- Conference 2007 - Theology of Disability
- Conference 2007 - Lunchtime Q+A
- Conference 2007 - Celebration
