jGYM - Can you beat the system?

A few weeks ago we had a fantastic session with our younger Friday night group jGYM (school years 6-9). In preparation for the "Tour de Fred" dinner & quiz the next week which was in aid of Cafod's Hungry for Change campaign we played a game that focused on understanding the global food system and the impact it has on small scale farmers. The game was recommended by Cafod but it can be found on the Oxfam website. It's called "Beat the System" and it was great fun.

We split up our group into teams of 5; 3 where were small scale farmers, 1 were traders and 1 was a company. They were based in a fictitious country called Centralia and throughout the game there were updates from Centralia news. The aim of the game was to grow and harvest corn and coffee cherry's and then sell them and make money. The team with the most money at the end won the game. To make it realistic the company where given the most resources (crops, colouring pencils/pens, scissors and international trading license) and the farmers had minimal resources. There were 4 seasons throughout the game, including a drought and company investment which affected the teams quite drastically depending on their situations. You can find the guide here.

Thanks for coming to the "Le Tour de Fred" dinner & quiz!

A big thank you to all those that came/helped/served at "Tour de Fred dinner & quiz". It was a great evening where we managed to raise over £650 to support small-scale farmers in Rajshahi, Bangladesh!

One of Fred's goals isn't just to raise money though. It's also to raise awareness of Cafod's "Hungry for Change" campaign and he certainly did that on Friday. If you would like to sponsor Fred on his journey then please do here.

Tour de Fred

This June, 68-year-old Fred Uttley is cycling more than 1000 miles around all 22 dioceses of England & Wales raising money to support small-scale farmers in Rajshahi, Bangladesh and raising awareness of CAFOD’s Hungry for Change campaign.
On the 21st of June Fred will be coming to Guildford, the only parish Fred is visiting in our Diocese!

The young people from GYM will be hosting Fred for the evening, providing a meal, a quiz, a raffle and so much more.

Tickets cost £8. You can buy tickets online: www.GuildfordCatholicChurches.co.uk/tourdefred

Welcome to the GYM blog

Why did I set up a blog? Because I wanted to share some of things that are happening, inspiring and challenging in Guildford's Youth Ministry. So here we go...