Bull's Eye!!

Our group of young archers invaded the Monument Beach Sportsman's Club indoor archery range for an evening of lessons and fun.  Gil Silvia, our resident Archer and member of the club guided us through safe and proper shooting techniques.

The evening was a great success and we managed to put more holes in the targets than the walls and the floor.  We even got to shoot at a moving target that features a picture of a dragon.

A big thank you to all who helped out!

Wii Bowling Lots of Fun

Our JWUMC Youth Group News Team was on hand to capture some of the action at Atria Woodbriar last weekend.  In the video, you can see one of our youth bowl a strike and hear the cheers from the crowd.

Besides Wii Bowling, there were plenty of drinks, popcorn, and cookies to go around, compliments of the chefs at Atria Woodbriar.  It was great to see so many people of so many different ages playing, laughing, and cheering together.  It was a great time, and we look forward to a rematch in the spring!

We "Can" do it. And we did!

the youth kneel behind their bounty of food

No amount of cold or slight drizzles could deter the determination of the JWUMC Youth to collect food last Sunday.  After waiting out a torrential downpour by eating chips, hot queso, and popcorn, we hit the streets.

We filled over three large boxes with canned and boxed food that will be donated to the Falmouth Service Center.  If you missed us, please join us this Thursday for Falmouth Eats Together from 4-6pm.  A great event held at our church.  The youth will be staying after to help clean up.

Happy Halloween!

brains...

Our annual tradition continues with yet another spooktacular Halloween Party.  Lots of characters showed up for the festivities and we had a fun time playing games, completing a group mad libs, wrapping each up in toilet paper, eating pizza and mini-marshmallows, and playing a rousing game of zombies versus humans.  Join us next year for all the Halloween fun you can handle, and costume prizes!

But if you can't wait that long, join us this Sunday, November 10, at 3:30 pm for our second food drive of the year.  More info on the events page.

we are a scary group

Chairs and Puppets!

a few youth in front of
some chairs they helped set up

On Thursday, the youth group helped clean up after hundreds of people were served during Falmouth Eats Together.  Thank you to all the youth that helped out, it was very appriciated!

conversations in gibberish

Then, during our regulat meeting on Sunday, we had the pleasure of doing a puppetry workshop with Jacek Zuzanksi of Dream Tale Puppets.  We learned how to make it look like rod puppets were walking, talking and turning around.  We also learned a new language, gibberish.

the youth learn to walk the puppets

This fall and into winter, Jacek will be putting on a puppetry workshop and production of a traditional folk nativity play to be performed around Chirstmas.  You can find more information here or contact Jacek at info@dreamtalepuppets.org of (508) 495-1251.

We Found It!

.

the youth explore a box full of treasures

The youth group had a great time walking through Beebe Woods and finding two of the many geocaches hid there.  Geocaching is a worldwide game that can and is played by people of all ages.  Folks hide "caches" or boxes in the forest, in trees, near ponds, in cities, and anywhere else that might be a cool place to visit.  Then they post the coordinates online for other people (like us) to go and find them.

a group picture before we head into Beebe Woods

Part of the game is taking and leaving prizes.  We found two boxes while we were out and one of them had lots of stuff in it.  In exchange for taking a few plastic rings and such, we left a bunch of colorful plastic coins.  We also left cards with, "Job 12:8" written on them.  The cards were made by us out of recycled paper and the bible verse we are directing people to says, "speak to the earth and it will teach you."

We all had a great time, and managed to find a few pieces of trash to pack out with us along the way.  For more information on geocaching or the youth group, email Jeremy at jwygfalmouth@gmail.com.  Our next event will be helping out with Falmouth Eats Together at 6pm on October 10th.  Check out the events page to learn more.

a screen shot of the geocaching.com website
(the smiley faces are the caches we have already found)

Geo-caching this weekend

Join us this Sunday (4:00 to 5:30) for Geo-caching.  Geo-caching is a worldwide game where people hide boxes in the forests, down towns, and other places all over the world.  Then they post the coordinates for them for others to go and find them.  Usually the boxes are full of little goodies which you can trade out.

So dress for the weather, and get ready for a fun time hiking, we will meet at the church and then drive to Beebe Woods.  Learn more about Geo-caching here.

Food Drive

a goofy pose with our bounty

Youth Group is officially back in action!  It was great to see everyone after such a long and humid summer, and the new year has brought new faces to the group.  This Sunday, we took our members, old and new, on a food drive around the neighborhood.

The people of Hamlin street are wonderful and donated two full wagon-loads to the Falmouth Service Center.  This makes the first food drive of the year a huge success.

We also picked up litter on our way around town to show how much we appreciate everyone's kindness and generosity.  And the youth group would also like to thank the parents that helped pull the wagons and chaperon the event.

Join us next time (Sept 29) for geocaching!

Youth Group Meetings start again on September 15th

As summer (and hopefully the humidity) says farewell to Cape Cod, a new school year has begun.  That also means it's time for Youth Group at JWUMC to start up again too.  Our first meeting will be Sunday September 15th at 4pm until 5:30pm.  We will be kicking off the new year with the first of four food drives planned for the year.

There will also be an informal meeting for new youth and their families following the 10:30 service that same Sunday morning.

Let's get excited for a year of service, fun, and growing in Christ!

Lock In Pics

We had a great Lock-In this year and a big thank you goes out to all those that helped make it happen.  We had a lot of fun!  Here are a few pictures from the night:

Gil from http://mobeach2.intuitwebsites.com/Archery.html showed us how to shoot.

Officer Maguire stopped by to show us his car and other gadgets her uses on the job.

Jacek showed us around his puppet workshop.

Jack and a Giant from http://www.dreamtalepuppets.org/index.html

Lock-In

This Saturday (June 29th) night will be our kick off to celebrating summer with a church lock-in.  From 5 pm until midnight, we will be on the church grounds, having fun and growing in faith.

Activities will include archery, a tour of Yasik's puppet shop, a scripture lesson, flashlight tag, food, and other fun surprises.

Bring a friend, and help kick off summer vacation right!

Another Successful Food Drive

June 9th was a gorgeous day and we enjoyed the lovely weather and the wonderful neighbors around our church with our summer canned food drive.  We chatted with lots of folks and found many of them outside enjoying the sunshine or tending their garden.

counting the food we collected

We even met a family that has a plot in our community garden.  We really are blessed with a group of caring and giving neighbors.

The youth did a wonderful job of representing the church and we managed to collect 32 canned items and 21 boxes and bags of beans, rice and other non-perishable foods.

It was a good thing we had our trusted "unicorn," the name we have given to the wagon we use to carry all that food.  Thanks to all who helped collect, all who gave, and all those who prayed for us from home.

Final Food Drive of the Year

Jeremy is back from his sailing adventure with SEA and just in time for our summer canned food drive.  We will be meeting at the church at 4:00 June 9th, and be done by 5:30.  If you have a wagon, please bring it!

We will also need as many parent volunteers as we can muster in order to cover the most area and collect as much food as we can.

(The canned food drive will be our last meeting of the year.  Over the summer, we will have a late night lock-in on June 29th and a family amusement park trip on July 20th.  Please mark your calendars, more information will be provided at the meeting.)

Bike Fest

Join us this Saturday for Bikefest and Pedal to Parcels.  We will be meeting at Mullen-Hall School with our bikes at 10am.  There we will go through a safety check and practice safe riding techniques.  Then we will pedal to the bike path and go for a short group ride guided by the 300 Committee.  Adults are welcome and encouraged to attend.  It is a great excuse to dust off your bike for the summer.  We will be back at Mullen-Hall around 1pm.

Here is a link to learn more about the events that the town is putting on in honor of bike month: http://www.300committee.org/documents/pedal-to-parcel-final.pdf

Geo-caching Hike

In search of the next cache

Last Sunday was a beautiful day, so we took to the forests of Beebe Woods to try our hand at Geo-caching.  Geo-caching is a game played around the world where people post the coordinates of caches and other people go out and find them.  A cache can be a box full of small toys, or just a log book in a plastic baggy.  Either way, it is a fun way to get outside and go see new places.  Learn more at http://www.geocaching.com/

We found it!

During our hike we found two caches, and earned our very first digital "souvenir," the Massachusetts Sate badge, for finding a cache in Massachusetts.  In all the caches that we found, we left cards of our homemade recycled paper with Job 12:8 and JWUMC Youth written on it.  Whoever finds them can take one and go look up the verse.  But in case you are curious, it is "Speak to the earth, and it will teach you."

Canal Clean Up!

Armed with our "grabbers" the youth picked up lots of trash.

You can rest assured that the bike path along the Cape Cod Canal is a much cleaner place after the Canal Clean-up last Saturday.  JWUMC Youth Group joined forces with a couple dozen other community groups to help Americorp pick up trash and accomplish other service projects throughout the area.

Our group was responsible for about two full bags of trash!  It was a lot of walking, but there were plenty of snacks and we even got pizza for lunch!

But the highlight of the trip was probably finding some crabs beside the canal before we even got started picking up trash.  Thanks to everyone who helped out, and for those of you that weren't able to make it, Americorp will be having this event again next year and we are surely going to participate.  Happy Earth Day everyone!

Great Game Night

"So I recommend having fun, because there is nothing better for people to do in this world than to eat, drink, and enjoy life.  That way they will experience some happiness along with all the hard work God gives them." -Ecclesiastes 8:15

One must carefully consider all possible moves.

The Youth Group took this message to heart last night with our very own Game Night.  We spent the evening eating the tastiest chili around and sampling an array of fruit juices.  A big thank you to all snack providers!  And we played ping pong, Nintendo Monopoly and the famous Giant Jenga set that we have been sanding for the past month.  We all had a great time and only sustained a few minor injuries from the Giant Jenga tower falling over onto us.

Now it is time to get to work for Earth Day.  This Saturday is the annual Canal Clean-Up. Check out the Upcoming Events tab for more information.

GAME NIGHT!

After much preparation, we are ready for game night!  Our giant jenga set is ready to be built and toppled over and rebuilt and retoppled over again.  We will also have ping pong, basketball, frisbee, more board games than you can shake a stick at, and a tasty snack.

Feel free to invite your youth group aged friends for a fun evening of games.  Meeting starts at 4:00 and runs until 5:30, this Sunday April 14th.  Hope to see you all there!

Egg Stuffing Accomplished

the pool table was transformed into an egg stuffing machine

This Saturday will be the annual Easter Egg at JWUMC.  But there wouldn't be much of anything to hunt unless somebody stuffed little plastic eggs full of candy and hid them around the church's yard.

The youth group joined in the egg stuffing fun with our annual pizza eating, movie watching, Easter Egg Stuffing Party.  We had a great time stuffing eggs, eating snacks, and chatting about our lives.

We managed to stuff 545 eggs!  It took a lot of patience and more than a few hours or work.  Special thanks to all of our egg-half-match-finders. Believe it or not, it is pretty hard to find egg halves that match in a sea of mismatched egg halves.

We will see the youth bright and early Saturday morning at 8:30 am to help hide the eggs.  The hunt starts at 10:00 am.  Happy holy week everyone!

Making Giant Jenga

The adults cut the 2x3's

The you did the sanding

This week we tried our hands at making a Giant Jenga set.  We bought a few 2x3's and measured out 7 3/4" segments.  Then we used a hand saw and cut the pieces as straight as we could manage.

Once we had the pieces, we needed to sand them down real well so that they would slide nicely while playing the game.  Over the course of our meeting, we managed to get about 12 rows done.  That is 36 blocks cut and sanded.

After some mathematical calculations, we figured out that if we use all of the wood, we will have 20 rows stacked on top of each other.  That means about 2 1/2 feet tall!

It is a work in progress as of right now, but by our next regular meeting, we should have a functioning Giant Jenga set.

And don't forget about our upcoming Easter Egg Stuffing Pizza Party on Sunday March 24th from 4pm to 8pm or as long as you can stay to help us stuff Easter Eggs with candy.

Giant Jenga and a Mission Trip

This Sunday we will be making a Giant Jenga set to have in the youth room.  We have a few 2x3's and some sand paper, so be ready to sand.  We will need to get the blocks nice and smooth so they aren't too hard to slide out.

We are also going to be talking about our mission trip this summer.  As of right now, the dates we will go are June 30th through July 6th.  And we are headed to Blue Knob, PA.  We will talk a lot about this at the meeting and see if these dates work or if we need to switch them.  In the mean time, you can learn more at www.teameffort.org and check out the video below.

Food Drive a Fun Success

87 items collected!

The youth group completed another successful food drive this past Sunday.  We collected 87 different food items, including beans, soups, veggies, rice, pastas, and a couple of jars of mayonnaise.  We would like to thank the neighborhood for all their support and the parents that helped out as team leaders.

Everybody had a great time, and the Falmouth Service Center was very happy to receive our donation.  Great job everyone!

Food Drive and Reusable Cups

The weather this Sunday looks good and the food drive is a go.  Bring warm clothes and, if you have one, a wagon.  We will be walking around outside from about 4 to 5 pm, so a flashlight or bright clothes might be a good idea since it will be starting to get dark by the time we come back for snack.

Speaking of snack, remember to bring in a reusable cup or two (or three).  As part of our efforts to "go green," we are going to try and do away with disposable cups during snack time.

Also, the ping pong table is ready for ping ponging, come a few minutes early to get in a game before the food drive.

Letting our energy efficient lights shine!

We made light switch stickers to remind people to, "Please
turn off this little light of ours."

Even the youth group members need a reminder on our
light switches.

The youth group is going green, and we are taking the rest of John Wesley United Methodist Church with us.  It was a little too snowy/rainy for us to go on a food drive last Sunday, so we decided to stay in and work inside.

We took a short tour of the church to see all the great ways that we save energy.  The church uses programmable thermostats.  This means that the church is warm when people are using it, and cooler when there is no one here.  And since nobody likes to walk into a cold church, the thermostats can be programmed to kick on before anyone shows up.

But a few things that aren't programmable are our light switches.  So we made some light switch stickers that will remind people to turn them off when they are not in use.  We put them up in most of the Sunday School rooms.

Join us this upcoming Sunday for our food drive.  The weather is looking OK, so pray that it will be nice out!

Food Drive Take Two

As the town of Falmouth recovers from the big storms (including one that canceled our meeting last week), the youth group will be doing our part by helping to restock the Falmouth Service Center's food supply.

This Sunday, February 24th at 4:00pm, we will be walking around the neighborhood to collect nonperishable foods to donate to the service center.

Last time we collected so much food that we had trouble carrying it back to the church, so if you have a wagon that we can borrow, please bring it.  Also, if parents are available, please stay for the meeting to help chaperon.

It might be cold, so wear warm clothes (I think we might even have some hot chocolate).

No Youth Group Tonight

There will be no youth group tonight (Feb 17th) due to the snow.  Please be safe.

We will reschedule this meeting for next Sunday, Feb 24.

Enjoy your school break!

A picture from Peterson Farms the day after last week's snow storm.

Food Drive

As the town of Falmouth recovers from the big storm, the youth group will be doing our part by helping to restock the Falmouth Service Center's food supply.

This Sunday, February 17th at 4:00pm, we will be walking around the neighborhood to collect nonperishable foods to donate to the service center.

Last time we collected so much food that we had trouble carrying it back to the church, so if you have a wagon that we can borrow, please bring it.  Also, if parents are available, please stay for the meeting to help chaperon.

Recycling Paper

Tiffany Van Mooy shows the youth group some of her
paper made art.

The large tub is filled with the slurry and we used sponges
to soak up the extra water.

Sunday, Feb 3rd was all about paper.  After a quick lesson about how paper is made.  Tiffany Van Mooy brought in some of her recycled paper sculptures and showed the youth group some of the cool things that can be made by reusing paper.

Then it was time for us to get our hands dirty and make our own paper out of old paper.  We took the old paper and pureed it in a blender with some water.  This purple oatmeal-like "slurry" was poured into a plastic tub and mixed around using our hands.

Then we took something called a "deckle" and scooped up some of the slurry.  The deckles were made by taking some fiberglass screen and clothes pinning it to aluminum baking trays with holes cut in them.  This let the water drain out and allowed the woods fibers called lignin to bond with each other.

We dabbed the extra water off of the paper with some sponges and set them out to dry.  After a few days, we had paper.  It is kind of heavy, almost like card stock and will work great for sending thank you notes.

Here is a video about how other people make paper.

Making Paper

We can use our paper to write thank you cards to people
like Officer Macguire and other folks that help us out.

We will take old paper, put it in a
blender, and make into new paper.

This Sunday, February 3rd, we will be making recycled paper and talking about things that we can do as a Youth Group to make our church "greener."  We are going to need newspaper to let our paper dry on as well as some old paper to recycle.

Here is what the paper looks
like while it is drying.

I used some of my old homework assignments to make into new paper.  Feel free to bring in any type of paper that you don't want any more.  You can also bring some glitter or bits of flower to through into our paper "slurry" to make our paper more fun.

You can also bring a friend.

Police Department Visit a Success: No Youth Left Behind in Cell

Youth and Parents inside the control room. 

 Last Sunday the Youth Group and a few parents visited the Falmouth Police Department to take a tour of facilities and ask questions to the men and women in blue.

We got to see the control room where all the 911 calls are answered and dealt with.  We were told to be quiet in this room since the dispatcher would be taking calls.  Officer Maguire, our tour guide, told us that we were the quietest group he ever had in there!

Officer Maguire shows us a battering ram

We also got to see the detective division and interrogation rooms.  However, it seemed like the youth were doing most of the interrogating.  Thanks to their questions, we learned things like the most outrageous 911 call ever received, what it feels like to be tazed, and how crimes get solved.

no door is safe 

We got to take a quick peak at the holding cells and booking rooms.  Officer Maguire told us that most of the people he has to deal with are not bad people.  They are probably just having a bad day or a string of not-so-good circumstances.  He became a police officer because he wanted to help out his community.  So even though that means arresting people from time to time, he truly wants to help everyone he comes into contact with.  It is nice to know that we are in such good hands.

The tour ended with a look at some of the vehicles the officers get to drive.  You may see these cars parked in our church parking lot from time to time.  This is because most of an officers job is filling out paper work after something happens.  They use our lot from time to time to sit and fill out these forms on their build-in computers.  And we certainly don't mind having an officer around.


We want to say a big thank you to Officer Maguire for giving us a tour and the entire staff of the Falmouth PD for all the great work they do keeping us safe.

Visiting the Falmouth Police

This Sunday, we will be taking a tour of the Falmouth Police station.  Some of you may know that our Pastor  is a chaplain for the FPD and he has lots of friends over at the station.  They are going to take us around the building and even let us into their brand new high tech cars.  It is sure to be a fun time and a great opportunity to meet the friendly men and women that help keep us safe.

Meet at the church as usual at 4:00 and we will have a snack and leave around 4:15.  Hope to see you there!

Live Nativity and Christmas Party Recap

Saturday, Dec 15 the youth group joined members and families of the church to put on the Live Nativity for the community.  It was a resounding success with plenty of people coming by to enjoy the live animals, eat a candy cane, and get invited to John Wesley's Christmas Eve Service.

When the youth and kids were not playing the roles of angels, shepherds and wise men  they were down in the youth room playing lots of fun games and snacking on delicious food.  However, the most excitement happened after everyone went home.  One of the games we played was called, "snowball launcher" and participants launched a snowball shaped piece of cereal out of their nose.  The longest launch was about six feet until the Rev. Dr. David Calhoun came down and gave it a shot.  He was able to launch his snowball an astonishing 9 and a half feet!  Keep practicing at home folks and maybe you can win next year.

A few of the youth play "thin ice."  Participants must try and navigate an invisible maize .