Blyth Central Methodist Messy Church

Blyth Central is a Methodist Church group based in the centre of Blyth in Northumberland. Alongside usual church services, we offer a range of family activities to engage with the local community in particular with families with young children. These additional activities include a ‘Messy Church’ which we deliver on the 1st Thursday of every month. ‘Messy Church’ is a family focused event where parents bring their children after school to participate in a range of hands-on free activities led by a team of volunteers. Last year we received a grant from the Royal Society of Chemistry to deliver Chemistry focused hands-on activities as opposed to our usual craft activities to encourage engagement in STEM with a non-traditional audience in a non-formal environment.

If we were to be awarded a £250 grant from the Bright Ideas Fund, we would like to build on the success of this previous event and deliver another Messy Church STEM focused session, delivering fun activities across all 4 STEM subject areas. Activities would focus on ‘tried and tested’ experiments such as making slime, bath-bombs, planting seeds, vitamin C rockets and construction challenges. The grant would help to support the event in purchasing STEM resources as well as contributing towards the free nutritious meal that we provide to all the children as part of our standard Messy Church. We are passionate about providing the children with skills for their future and during a normal session usually cater for between 30 – 40 children plus adults.