Looking into becoming a SOUND Holidays leader? You’re in the right place. Here we hope to paint a picture of what it looks like to be a leader on one of our holidays so that you can sign up with confidence knowing what’s expected.
We provide Christian residential holidays for children and young people. All of our leaders are Christians, and most come from churches who partner directly with SOUND holidays or our umbrella organisation the North West Gospel Partnership. The theology behind our holidays and our planning aligns with that of the NWGP: see the ‘doctrinal basis’.
On each of our holidays we have a mixture of people volunteering as leaders – some are busy working alongside children or young people in their own churches week in week out, where others perhaps only engage with youth whilst they’re with us for a week. We are grateful for both types of people – we need teams of people, and that means we can’t rely only on church children’s and youth workers.
On each of our holidays we have a leadership structure which gives our leaders confidence and clarity:
Leaders
Most of our volunteers come as regular leaders. You are the bread and butter – absolutely essential to the running of our holidays. We need 3-4 leaders per dorm group to make the holiday work well. Most of the time you will be able to spend time with your dorm group members, enjoying their company, helping them with anything they need and looking for opportunities to chat about what you’re hearing together from the Bible teaching. You will be given one or two responsibilities as well – more on that coming up.
Assistant & Young Leaders
Some of our holidays also take a team of ‘young leaders’ or ‘assistant leaders’. These are young people who are not yet of an age to take full responsibility as a leader, but who we’re delighted to bring along to do a ‘mixture of jobs’ some alongside dorm groups with other leaders, and some behind the scenes getting practical jobs done such as washing up, refreshments, clearing up after messy tasks, setting up ahead of activities. This is a great role to serve as well as be trained ‘on the go’ and extra Bible teaching and a lot of fun. This would be those post GCSE – 18 for the Buzz; ages 18-21 for our 11-18 residentials.
Kitchen Team
Each holiday needs a kitchen team. First there will be a main caterer – he or she will take charge planning the menu, budgeting for meals, ordering produce, and coordinating the kitchen team. We then need a few other cooks to help with the food prep, cooking, serving, washing and cleaning throughout the day. This is a busy behind the scenes task, but can be great fun when mucking in with a few others! Caterers and cooks complete the same application form as leaders for each of our holidays.
Overall Dorm / Room Group Leaders (ODLs)
One of the ways we look after the young people who attend is that the whole residential is divided into ‘dorm groups’. What this means is that each young person and each leader belongs to a small group (perhaps between 7 and 12 youngsters; 3 to 4 leaders, depending on the age of the camp) . Lots of activities are done together in dorm groups. Each of these groups has a designated ‘overall dorm leader’ or ODL who takes charge of the group. This will be somebody who is experienced in youth or children’s work either on our holidays, or in their local church. Someone will have been asked to be an ODL ahead of time, so if you’re new to this, don’t worry that it might land on you.
Overall Leaders (OLs)
Each holiday has a small team of overall leaders. These are people who’ve been serving in residential Christian holidays for many years. They are the ones who do the planning and preparation year-round, and are involved in recruiting the team; so will likely be your first point of contact. Then on the holiday itself, Overall Leaders take responsibility to lead everybody else by directing the programme, taking responsibility for the teaching, overseeing different aspects such as liasing with the kitchen team, health and first aid, safeguarding etc. They’ll run the holiday day to day so that you as a leader never need to feel unsure about what’s happening or what’s expected. They’ll be about before, during and after the camp if you ever want to chat or ask questions.
Delegated responsibilities
We run almost all of the activities and teaching on our holidays ourselves. The way to make this work well is to divide the list of jobs between all the leaders coming along. This means that you will be given a few things to prepare ahead of the holiday.
Some of these things will be practical: safeguarding, 1st aid, bookstall, money, health and safety. These tasks will likely be given to someone who’s been on the holiday before, as they know how we run, or we’ll speak to someone particularly apt for the role ahead of time.
Some of these will be activity based: we might ask you to run a craft activity, water games, entertainment, sports, chillout activities etc. You’ll be given guidance on this, and you’ll also either be put down to run it with another leader, or have a go-to leader to ask about it.
Some of this will be Bible teaching: We run a mixture of Bible talks, studies, and sometimes seminars through each holiday. Experienced leaders will be asked to take on talks and seminars. Within each dorm group normally most leaders will have the opportunity to plan and lead one or two Bible studies with their dorm group. This might be something you may not have had experience of doing – don’t worry! We know this is often a new skill to learn. We will give training on how to get started, and you’ll be able to work on your study with your ODL before the start of the holiday. When it comes to leading it, your ODL will be on hand in the room to support you, to jump in if you need help, or to answer any questions.
Financial Contributions
There are no central funds for our holidays – each year we start afresh, and need to cover all of our costs from those attending. We’re keen to be able to offer parents an affordable price to send their kids to have a great time whilst soaking in God’s truth through the week. This is where you come in –
We ask each of our leaders to consider making a donation in line with the cost of the holiday. This is in part because each leader adds the costs of board and food, plus by leaders’ generosity we can continue to keep the cost of our holidays low. If you’re also able to GiftAid, this goes into our bursary fund to support families who would struggle to pay the whole cost. If you are thinking ‘I would struggle with the whole cost’, here are a few things to consider:
- A donation of any amount is gratefully received
- We can’t run the holidays without you, so if cost is the only barrier, please chat to us before thinking this means you’re unable to come
- Lots of ministries ask their workers to find some of their funding from personal contacts. If you yourself are unable to find the money to make a significant contribution, could you seek some Christian friends or family to ‘sponsor’ you coming along?
Leaders’ Training Day
Each camp will have a Saturday set aside to meet together, learn and prepare for the camp. It will normally be between 4-7 weeks before camp and is an invaluable day to bond as team and make sure everyone knows what is happening and what they need to do before, during and after the camp.
Please do make every effort to attend the day.
We hope this has been helpful and given you a good idea of what being a leader will be like. Most of the team finding it tiring and fairly full-on but so energising and encouraging!
If you’d like to register to be a leader please use the links below or if you have any more questions, please use the form below.