From the 10 - 12 March 2017, 28 people headed to Ballinaleck, near Enniskillen. The Cleenish Centre was our destination, and the DRY Weekend was our purpose. Kirsty Lynch, the diocesan children's officer and youth worker in Clooney was our star speaker. She was excellent, taking us through the book of Ruth, sprinkling in some Kid President, and Baz Luhrmann's Suncreen hit from the late 90's. Kirsty made many points over the weekend, but reminded us that good advice is hard to beat. Asking every young person to write out some good advice they had been given, they then stuck them to the window and were subsequently asked to take one over the rest of the weekend, which caught their attention.
We also had some fun activities planned for the young people, from heading into Enniskillen for a bit of shopping, to getting into small inflatable balls and bouncing into each other, all the way to shooting each other with arrows (panic not, they had foam!!). The Saturday was packed with things to do. We finished up on Saturday night round a camp fire sharing our favourite moments of the weekend with each other. Was a special moment, which was made all the better for smores, donuts and marshmallows for supper!
The beds were voted comfiest ever, and no one could question the quality of the catering, so all in all it was a pretty full on fun weekend. With 7 parishes represented we were delighted with the uptake from the diocese. Hopefully more will come next time, but regardless if you have 2 or 20 in your church who you think would love to come, then feel free to send them, or come along yourselfto experience the #dryfam!
Martin