We are now less than a week away from the start of CU!2018 – it’s very exciting!!

Once again our awesome Crew are putting the final preparations in place for what is looking like being another awesome year at CU!

It is “All Change” this year as we are moving “up north” to Lancaster – but it’s still the same awesome holiday – just with a different view!

We will be updating our website during the week – so if you do want to keep up to date with how things are going or to support us through prayer do watch this space! These updates will also automatically get published to our Facebook and Twitter feeds.

We are really forward to CU!2018!! We can’t wait to meet the CU!2018 Cast and see what God has in store for us this year.

Brief point for prayer

1. Final Preparations – A LOT of detailed planning goes into CU! – Please pray for the Crew completing those tasks this week to make sure all of the right details are in place
2. Coordination – We work with lots of other people and organisations to make sure CU! happens – prayer for all of those relationships would be great. As time runs short and people with “normal” jobs go on holiday things can get a bit stressful!
3. Travel – For some of the Cast and Crew getting to and from Lancaster presents more of a challenge than previous years in Rendcomb! Protection and safety for those traveling to CU! would be great. Extra prayers for those traveling by train as the rail network seems to be slightly suffering at the moment !!
4. Hearts and Minds – Most importantly we want people to meet with God during the week. Please pray for the Cast and Crew heading to CU! that God will prepare our hearts and minds to be ready and open for whatever he needs us to hear and do during the week.

Thanks for your support.

Every year at CU! we put on a final show. The show is a collection of things that we have been working on during the week that we would like to share with the family and friends that come to collect the Cast on the last day.

We do a tech and dress rehearsal on the last full day which is a great experience for the Cast who might not have experienced that process before.

It is a (sometime slightly random !) collection of what we have been doing – it’s all based around our theme for the week. Obviously for some of the workshops it’s easier to fit to the theme!

Plan A was to get this video up 1 week after we did it for real in Rendcomb. Sadly my tech was against me so we didn’t quite hit that point!

But we hope you enjoy it anyway!

We can’t quite believe that nearly a week has passed since the end of CU!2017…

As I write the final evening meeting was just starting. In fact we were probably all sitting down watching this rather legendary drama!!

We have now had a bit of time to edit our pictures and we have been sent some more in by the wonderful Cast and Crew of CU!2017. So we thought we would do a special edition of the pictures video that we do each year on site to end the final performance.

We hope that this you enjoy it!

Well here it is – we have managed to drag the files from the computer where we left them and get them uploaded!

For those that haven’t seen one of these before… This video was planned and filmed in under an hour!

There are also no edits in it!

This year had the additional pressure of the weather RAPIDLY closing in. We also made the decision to try and cover as much of the site as possible during the video!

Normally we will rehearse the various sections a couple of times and then do 2-3 takes. This year we didn’t have that luxury – the cast devised this whole video, had one rehearsal of each section and then did this take. We did manage a second take before the clouds closed in but that one wasn’t as good as this one.

We think they did a fantastic job! From start to finish in about 45 minutes – thats a new CU! record I think!

Enjoy!

We have just published our “Official” pictures from CU!17 to our Flickr stream. Its been great to see your pictures all appearing on Facebook as well! As we mentioned previously we are currently working on a new version of the CU!2017 video that will include some of those pictures as well – we might even be able to get some the of the video we have shot as well!

But for the time being have a wander over to our Flicker page and check out the some of the pictures that Saira, Iggy and myself took at CU!2017

Well CU! 2017 has come to a close. To help you with the post-CU! blues here is the traditional video that we showed at the end of this years performance!

We are working on a new video as well – it will include some of the pictures from this video, some of your great pictures that are appearing of Facebook and some of the video we shot during the week. We also have a video of the Panto, The Final Performance and we may even be able to dig out the Happy Valley 2 video …. But to clear up some confusion this will be without the soundtrack as that was done live!

Anyway – If you didn’t come to CU!2017 we hope that this video gives you a little glimpse into the fun we had! If you did come we hope this helps to ward of the Post-CU! blues for a bit! We are working to get the other videos up as soon as possible!!

“Winter The Videos Are Coming”

Well the end of CU!17 is RAPIDLY approaching 🙁

But it has been another fantastic day. In between the showers we have had great sunshine! The Cast enjoyed the outdoor swimming pool again today – obviously it doesn’t matter if it rains when you are swimming! It does make the cold dash back to the dorms slightly more … interesting!!

Its has been our last “normal” day here – not that days at CU! are very normal! Tomorrow we have our tech and dress rehearsals for the final performance. We also have the final theme night of CU!17 – Spy Night …..

But before that – as I type this we have the final preparations for tonight’s evening meeting coming to a close. Alex and his team will be looking at “Jesus Falls and Rises”

Some of the team have now been on site for a week so are starting need quite a lot of coffee! That said quite a few also managed to enjoy a good Christmas tradition yesterday: the Christmas Nap 😉

As we head rapidly towards the end of the week we have a few prayer requests:

1. God will continue to work even amidst the emotion and business of the last few days on site.
2. Cast and Crew will make time to listen to what He is trying to say.
3. That energy levels will be great all the way through to arriving safely back at home at some point on Saturday!
4. That God will really speak through the last two evening meetings and the study group sessions

Thanks as always for you support

Matt + The CU!17 Cast and Crew

This post was written on Wednesday evening but we didn’t get internet access till Thursday morning!

IT’S CHRISTMAS!!!!!!

Yep that’s right ! Day 5 at CU!17 is CHRISTMAS DAY!!

What a day it’s been!!

The morning started with the cast discovering what treats had been left for them in their stockings/socks .. amazingly even those that chose to leave dirty socks still got presents – I think there might be a sermon point there somewhere …

Anyway the rest of today has been PACKED with crazy amounts of Christmas fun! We had Christmas music at mealtimes, Christmas themed workshops even a Christmas carol service in the afternoon! The fun continued with Christmas team games and then the much hyped CU!2017 Christmas PANTO! OH yes we did !!! We even had an awesome full Christmas dinner with crackers and table decorations served up by the awesome catering team here at Rendcomb.

The evening meeting was looking at the story of the lost son. After an introduction of videos and drama from our crack in-house production team we broke off into groups to explore the story more using our gifts in creative arts.

It’s been another fantastic day here at CU!17 – the weather has been a bit damp but it isn’t spoiling things ! Yesterday we did our legendary one shot music video – with the added pressure of a massive black cloud approaching !! Nothing like a bit of pressure added on top of one of the most manic hour of CU!

Points for prayer:

1. The great conversations and relationships will continue to develop.
2. The Cast and Crew will continue to have enough energy not to just “survive” to the end of the week but to really get 100% out of the time we have left.
3. That God will continue to work and guide us all on a path closer to Him.

Thanks for your continued support

Matt + the CU!17 Cast and Crew.

Well the internet access and the general crazy-ness of CU!2017 has meant that there has been a slightly longer delay between updates! Sorry about that !

Things are going really well here at CU!17. The weather has been a bit .. wet .. But it only affects us when we are moving in between blocks and has mainly just been short showers followed by sunshine.

We had our 1st theme night last night “London Underground Night” there were some fantastically creative costumes and some very entertaining Underground themed games!

The evening meetings have been going really well. The Crew leading them are coming up with some really creative ways to explore the topics.

The Cast are having a great time in the beautiful surrounding’s of Rendcomb!

We cant quite believe that we are already at Day  4 !! It seems to be going past so quickly – and also we seem to have been here forever! In a good way!

Points for prayer:

• That the weather will not spoil the rest of the week here
• That the Cast and Crew continue to have the energy to enjoy everything CU! has to offer
• That God continues to work and meet with everyone on site and we give Him the time we need to spend with him.
• That te crew wl have the wisdom to know when to reach for that extra cup of coffee or head for a snooze!

Thanks for your support – Sorry about the delays between updates

Matt (and the CU! Team)