Soul Action: the noise

getting started...

Organising a single project, let alone a whole weekend of events might seem quite daunting to some of us.

That's why on this page we've got a few useful tips and ideas to get you started. We thought we'd summarise just a few little pointers that might help you as you begin to think about your very own Noise event or weekend of events. If you want some more info you can buy our CD ROM GO:LOCAL... a guide to doing social action in your local area (find out more here: GO>>)

go:local...

If your serious you can get your hands on a copy of our CD ROM, GO:LOCAL, a guide packed full of info on how to do Jesus centred community action.
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Pray

The foundation of everything we do should be based in prayer. Coming to God with our dreams and ideas is a great way of starting off any initiative, submitting it to him and spending time thoughtfully processing the response.

Get people on board

After going to God with the idea for a project, it's good to get people on board too. You might want to write a little project proposal outlining what you'd love to see happen and briefly explain how you intend to get there. It will help you clarify what you intend to do and also act as a reference when you're explaining your plans to your church leaders.

Once they agree you may also want to get a small group of people together to pray and support the idea. Then, as a group, you could host a church service and get your congregation inspired by the idea of serving the community. Hopefully a whole church or youth group can feel as though they 'own' the Noise in their town and therefore want to commit and be involved.

Do some research

Whatever you intend to do, it's a good idea to do a bit of research to highlight that there is a need for the suggested project of weekend of events. There's no use organising a litter pick if a park has a very good set of park rangers who keep the place nice an tidy.

If you're thinking of some gardening projects then why not do a leaflet drop encouraging people to get in touch if they need a hand (check out the resources page for a ready made leaflet). If you're thinking of something more creative like a football tournament then find out if the kids on a local estate play football, where they play, how many of them there are, at what times they play etc... If there's a need it's often quite obvious to see.

Similalrly if you are thinking of gigs or other types of activities then it's good at this stage to think through costs and other issues like whose going to steward the event, who will act as sound man, what bands will play and will they be available.

All this stuff is a great way of preparing your thoughts and coordinating your efforts to be effective. You don't have to be too official and formal, but if you need to raise money for some of the events or convince people to support the idea then having evidence to suggest your project will meet a genuine need will stand you in good stead. 

Get planning

Once you've got a team together and have defined the need you hope to meet then you can start planning. This might be quite a simple part of the process, especially if your project is fairly small. You'll need to consider exactly what you're going to do, how you're going to get people to the project location, what tools you need, how long it will take and all sorts of other questions too.

If you're coordinating a range of projects over a weekend then you might want to delegate responsibility to team leaders and have a specific format for the whole weekend that links in with church services and prayer meetings. The Local Projects Resource Guide offers much more advice than we can put on this page, but you'll need to consider how the weather, finance and other issues will affect the project. It might be that you need to do some fund raising for the events, or have to hire vans or equipment.

It's important to list and identify all your needs and work out how everything will come together. Writing a document that outlines procedures, expectations of team leaders, job descriptions, contingencies in cases of an emergency and much more besides may seem boring and time consuming, but in the end will defintately help to make the weekend or project go smoothley and effectively.

Health and safety

This is all part of the planning process, but has a significant place that demands it's own little section. You'll have to make sure that all projects are safe and are covered by your churches insuarnce. In most cases this isn't a problem, but it's very good to check that everything you do is covered legally.

If you're involved in a few separate initiatives you may want to run a few risk assessments of the projects to make sure everything is safe. Similarly you'll need to make sure that you have parental consent from all under 18's involved in the project (you can use our forms if you like!). Furthermore, you should always consult the child protection policies of your church to ensure that the events are covered by these policies and regulations.

All this may seem a little intense especially if you are only running a small event. However, it's always good to put these principles into action, making sure that your youth and those who are offering to serve are safe and enjoying themselves!

advertise

Depending on what you are doing, you'll need to use some method of publicity, both to recruit volunteers and to let the community know what you're doing so they turn up.

Start by placing adverts in the church notices and go from there. You may want to consider a leaflet drop advertising a community party or put posters up in a local parade of shops. If you're running worskshops like djing or dance it might be good to limit places and get kids to sign up at a local community or youth centre.

Whatever you do you it's great to have a presence and create a bit of a buzz about what's going on. Although we want to bless people simply because they are our neighbours, it's also nice for them to know what we're doing in advance and where we come from. Leaflets with the church details on and a contact will all prove to be a massive help... so go for it.

Pray

Praying is a good principle so that's why we've put it in again. As the project draws nearer it's a great idea to have a team dedicated to praying for the events, that people would be touched, changed and moved by servant hearted actions and that God would reveal himself in the process.

Over the weekend you may want to get some of the older people in the church (especially if it's a youth initiative) to commit to praying for the events as they are happening. This team can then be contacted as the day unfolds, praying into specific situations as they emerge. It's a real way to involve everyone in the church and having a time of sharing after the events often results in stories of God acting and inspiring prayers and meeting needs as they come up.

noisy ideas...

Some ideas to get you thinking about what you could do as a Noise project in your local area.
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helpful stuff...

Some stuff to help you organise and publicise your Noise events from the basic forms through to some leaflets to adapt and use.
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Act

Well, the only thing left is to act! It's a great idea to get the teams of young people to wear identity badges displaying the name of the church your a part of (you can also use one of our logo's if you like!) and having emergency contact details on the reverse. Similalrly it's worth spending some time going through the format of the day to outline to the teams exactly what's expected of them and how long it will take.

You could draw up some 'Project Objective' sheets outlining the location of the project, the general objectives, the tools needed, the number of allocated team members, the team leader, time the project is expected to take etc... All this stuff is a great way of ensuring the teams know what they are doing and feel confident that are doing a good job.

If you have a few projects maybe designate a 'Press team' to travel round grab a few photos and stories and use these to report back at the end of the day/weekend all the great stuff that's been achieved.

The most important thing is to have fun!

Follow up

Now you've done the weekend or the project you can relax. Well not quite. The Noise isn't supposed to be a one off hit and run event where we suddenly bombard the community and disappear, pleased with our own goodness. The point is that as we serve indiscriminately we get to know individual people.

This won't happen with everyone, but it's always great to follow up relationships and continue to invest in them. If you've cleared someone's garden then after a couple of weeks why not give them a call and ask them how it's going? Similalrly if when hosting a sports competition the kids involved wanted more and more opportunities to play then why not see if you can get a team together to organise a aftershool club?

The options and opportunities from one weekend or day of events can prove to be incredible. Hopefully, as we serve we not only meet real practical needs, but can also develop and sustain relationships with those people in our community that we meet as we serve.

register your event...

Fill out our simple regsitration form and add your events to our list of Noise projects from around the UK and world.
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