Catalyst, Tavistock

Catalyst was started several years ago as an interdenominational youth and schools work project after a local community survey revealed a gaping hole in youth work provision. It has gone through various different stages and is directly affiliated with Tavistock Area Christians Together (TACT) with the central aim being for the resources of Church to meet the needs of local young people.

Structure:

Catalyst is a charitable Trust (Charity Number 1118590).
We have 9 Trustees who are nominated by TACT (Tavistock Area Christians Together) Churches and each Trustee represents a different Church.
Catalyst has the full support of TACT, the Tavistock Church of England Deanery and the Tavistock Methodist Circuit.

Vision:

For the resources of Church to meet the needs of local young people. We are passionate about the Church engaging positively with young people, and meeting all of its potential. There is a tremendous wealth of gifts, talents, and passion amongst the Churches and we want to see these harnessed so that the Church in Tavistock can be everything it was meant to be! For us, we find it helps to communicate our vision as three distinct aims:

1.To share the good news of Jesus Christ.
2. To connect the resources of Church with the needs of local young people.
3. To support Christian young people in their school environment, helping them to live out Christ-centred lives.

Catalyst serves the Market Town of Tavistock, as well as the surrounding areas. These include a number of villages, notably Yelverton, Horrabridge, Bere Alston, Bere Ferrers, Buckland Monachorum, Princetown, Mary Tavy, and Peter Tavy. It is a fascinating place to live, insomuch as Tavistock is a rural location on the fringes of Dartmoor and yet within easy reach of the City of Plymouth.

Catalyst works primarily in two Secondary Colleges located within the Tavistock area. These are Tavistock College, a State School consisting of 1,700 students; and Mount Kelly, a Private Boarding School with approximately 350 students.

Catalyst as a project is involved with a wide variety of different youth work practice:

We work in two Colleges in a number of different ways, including assemblies, lessons, community-based events, mentoring, support groups, games club and Christian union.

We are also involved with Church-based youth groups on a regular basis, including a weekly youth club and a termly outreach event. We also lead a weekly evening Christian Youth group and help the various Churches to reach out to their young people. We have had some success in connecting the different youth groups and youth leaders together (Soul Survivor/Wide-games/Christmas Ball), but we want this to grow even more!

We want to develop some 'cafe' style youth groups and help Churches to pioneer innovative youth work programs of their own. One challenge for us is the isolated nature of many surrounding villages and the issue of how we effectively engage and connect with young people living there. This is definitely something we are keen to explore in further detail.