Dear Friends & Supporters,
Greetings once more from all of us here at Gospel Rocky Theatre Co.
Thank you for allowing us this opportunity to share our news with you...
The Bridge Centre
You’ll be pleased to know that we are quite settled at the Bridge Centre.
It’s a great base from which to work, and we also feel well supported by the Church here, “The Potter’s House”, which began originally as a Methodist Church Plant over 14 years ago. We rent office space along with 20 or so other organisations, and also use rooms for rehearsals. We have been rehearsing for an event in the main auditorium at the Bridge Centre this July. It’s a special week of outreach to the local community. The Saturday has Bobby Ball of Cannon and Ball fame coming to share his humour and testimony. The Sunday sees Gospel Rocky & the Rocky Kids doing a show for families. I hope to get a good photo of Bobby Ball with Rocky….it will be entitled “Rock-on Tommy”. |
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Schools
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Internet Club Launch
Carl, Mary and Rocky began their 5th year visiting 16 schools. In the Spring term we did a special assembly based around the theme of using the internet to spread God’s Word.
Carl set up a large satelite dish that somehow got confused with a large black and white fish! More confusing – the fish was bright orange! The fish was a prize offered to the winner of a draw we held which children entered by joining our internet club. |
We gave out over 4000 postcards to all the children with our internet club address and inviting them to join. 120 children signed up and throughout the year received a weekly message from Rocky and a monthly Bible Story. Inspire Magazine were interested in this story too, and asked me to write an article.
The Summer term theme was “going out of our way to help others”. In the story, Carl was given a special award for helping Rocky who was bandaged up, and Mary who had broken her leg in a skateboarding accident. Mary sat in a wheelchair for the whole assembly, until a “miraculous” healing took place during the final song. With great hilarity it was revealed that she had so enjoyed being looked after by Carl that she decided to stay in the chair even though her leg had healed weeks ago! |
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In the Autumn term we did a Christmas Nativity as you can see on the DVD. We were able to use puppet sheep too, as we had some extra hands this term. We were joined by a Church Army student evangelist Kate Hatton who had lots of puppet experience (that’s her in the picture helping make angel trumpets) and so were able to mount a slightly more extravagant production to the delight of everyone who saw it. One of the Headteachers was so impressed with the Okey-Dokey song we sang she thought it would make a great Christmas No.1. The idea has inspired me to see what we can do to make it so for Christmas 08. We have a year to make it happen!!
On a financial note, though many of the schools were already making generous donations to our work, we decided that it was time to charge all our schools for our visits. We’re pleased to say that all the schools were very happy to do this. |
Theatre Shows and Events
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We did one show this year at the NEWI Theatre in Wrexham. 890 people were in the audience for Rocky Kids in Space. 15 local children also took part as the aliens.
We provided the entertainment for the children’s party at the special VIP event in the Hope Centre in Stoke-on-Trent. These are the children of parents who are living in hostel accommodation. They had a great time while their parents were given a sit down meal with guest entertainer and speaker. |
Rocky Kids
Laura, Rebecca and Danielle have all moved on at the end of the year. So many children have now been with Rocky over the years. It was great to be invited to Victoria’s 18th Birthday party a few weeks ago. Victoria was one of our first Rocky Kids in 1999. She is now in London at a performing arts academy. She’s also going on strong with her faith and is a member of Hillsongs London Church. She told me it was working with Rocky that gave her the desire to have a career in Musical Theatre.
(picture of Margaret, Victoria & Frank at the do) |
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Gospel Rocky Review
Gospel Rocky was originally set up in 1999 as a Church Army Millennium Celebration Project. After our tour in 2000 we all felt the work needed to carry on and develop, and so it has. Church Army decided it was now time to do a full review our work at the end of the year. Two independent reviewers spent a couple of mornings with us in October and November, including seeing an assembly. Church Army has received their report and will be discussing the recommendations with us at the end of this month. We will let you know the outcome.
Psalm CD
As you know I produced a CD a couple of years ago. I intend to perform the songs this year! A friend put together some video footage of the lake district, Carl added lyrics and put the Psalm 121 on Youtube and My space. You can see it by visiting http://www.youtube.com/GospelRocky
http://www.myspace.com/gospel_rocky
http://www.myspace.com/biblesinger
Thank you
One can never say thank you enough for your support. So here it is again, from Carl, Mary, the Rocky Kids, Church Army and me – Thankyou!
God Bless for the New Year ahead,
Yours on the Rock,
Frank McGregor
Director of the Gospel Rocky Theatre Co.
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December 2007
