Activate Day Away

Whether you are a stay-at-home mum, a business woman, a student, in church leadership or retired, we all know neighbours or friends who don't know Jesus. We believe God has put YOU in a unique position to reach your friends and community and He has a special purpose for you. A day away is for all women who want to become more passionate about reaching their communities.

We partner with you to tailor the event to the needs of your group or church. Restart is designed to be an inspiring day of worship and challenging teaching from our experienced team, practical tips and guidance, discussion, Q&A, testimonies, new friends and lots of coffee!

We are currently offering three different themes for our days away.

"I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ." Philippians 1:3-6

Stuck on Pause? - Ways to reach out when we feel like doing anything but. Press Play - Building and rebuilding links to the community Fast Forward - Building relationships through thoughtful small talk.

Night and Day - Join the team as we explore 1 Peter 2:9-12. Together we’ll examine how Peter gives us a strategy and new perspective on how to live as a Christian: how to function and survive in very difficult circumstances, what it means to be ‘born again into a living hope’ and how this impacts our daily lives in 2024.

"Teach me your ways, Lord that I may rely on your faithfulness; give me and undivided heart, that I may fear your name." Psalm 86:11

With our hearts firmly set on God, how can we direct our individual gifts, talents and passions to help our families, churches and communities to be undivided?

Be inspired and have fun at a day full of biblical and practical teaching, worship and testimonies.

Isaiah recognised that remembering the past can help us springboard into our future with new strength. Equally, the past can become a place we get stuck in or we retreat to when the future becomes too frightening to face. Isaiah prompts us to see the new thing God is doing. Loving difficult people and retaining our joy. Building bridges to help our friends connect to church. When we go through difficult times we can be reluctant to allow others to get close to us. Jesus wants us to be vulnerable and use our times of disappointment and pain as His platform for His message of hope.

In a nutshell

Do you want to bring a taste of the Activate weekend away to your own church? Do you want to run an event but feel over-stretched by the idea of doing it on your own? If so, an Activate Day Away is just what you need!

We inspire women to be at the heart of their communities, creating innovative and natural opportunities to share God's love through authentic friendship.

Let’s partner together and we’ll be with you every step of the way.

Below, you'll find five easy steps. We'll be working together to make your event a success. After browsing through this page, don't forget to fill in your Essential Information Form (in Step 3) then you can sit back and be ready for us to contact you to launch the process. (Steps 4 and 5 are for your information and not essential to start the process.)

Feedback from Activate events:

'Women being together can be such a powerful and positive force.'

The balance between practical advice and spiritual guidance was spot on.'

'I felt the seminars had been prepared just for me.'

Read a review of a recent church and Activate collaboration here

1 - What you need to know

Thank you for your interest in hosting an Activate Day Away! We are really excited to start this journey with you.

This is a short summary of how the collaboration works:

WHEN? - The day is normally held on a Saturday, 10am – 2pm

WHERE? - We will come to you.

ACTIVATE TEAM - What we’re offering:
Full programme
Speakers
Booking system
Social media content and promotion materials
Activate Stand

YOUR TEAM - What we ask of you:
Provide and prepare the venue
Promote the day
Registration team
Worship (if possible)
Provide lunch and refreshments

2 - Start getting a team together

Here are some things to think about as a team. This will help you fill out your form.

Explain the concept to a few friends or your team
Recruit others who are excited by your vision
Pray about the event
Do you want to inspire the women in your own church, or would you like to join with other churches?
Consider the best venue, lunch provision, and anything you would like to do to make it extra-special and welcoming

3 - Fill out and send this Essential Information Form

We now need some more information about you and your church. Don't forget to click 'submit' at the bottom so we have this info. This will come straight to our Inbox and we can arrange a call to find a suitable date and tweak the programme to fit your preferences.

Essential Information

Name(Required)

First Last

Email(Required)

Name of Church

Church Address

Please indicate if the event will be held at the church building or another venue, please provide this address also.

Church website

Social media details

Phone

Date Information

Do you have a date in mind?

If you start with a time or year or month then we can work together to fine the perfect date.

About the Event

How many people do you expect to attend?

This dictates how many team members we send. (We would recommend a minimum of 30 people.)

Pricing for an Activate Day Away

We work very hard to keep costs down so this event is accessible to all. Our volunteers give their time generously to prepare and present the event but we do need to make it viable for our charity. We’re suggesting three possible pricing options for you to consider. Alongside the options you’ll see a breakdown of the costing to help make things clear as you present this to your team. (Any surplus funds, collections, or gifts go to the continued work of Activate)

Option 1: Ticket price is £23 per person - £13 goes towards our expenses (fuel and accommodation); £7 goes towards publicity/admin/booking costs; £3 comes back to you to cover lunch and refreshments.

Option 2: Ticket price is £15 per person - Church pays for travel and delegate lunches (or delegates bring their own)

Option 3: Ticket price to be discussed - We’re open to hearing your ideas, especially if your event will be following a different schedule (i.e. breakfast/evening/part day)

Please indicate whether you can cater for lunch.

It is perfectly fine to buy in sandwiches if you don’t have catering facilities

Yes

If necessary, can you give clear instructions on how to find the venue? We can publish this online.

Is there parking? Please give more information (cost / postcode / availability)

We like to begin the day with worship. Would you be able to provide a worship team at the start of the day (Usually 15 min)?

Will there be access to a projector, screen and mic?

Does the building have wireless broadband available?

The day starts at 9.30am for registration with a 10am start. We will need to arrive at 8.30am to set up and chat to the team. Is this possible?

Would you like a bookstall run by St Andrews Bookshop? (We will need confirmation that you expect to attract over 50 delegates)

Event Promotion

We will design all artwork required for the event free of charge (flyer, poster, PowerPoint template with an advert for your church, social media promo images) We will send you the artwork that you can then get printed or use for advertising and social media. We recommend either Solopress or Vistaprint for printing. If you need a bit of help we’ll be happy to talk this through with you.

Info for flyer

We will require your church logo, parking information, event times and any other information you think would be useful on a flyer.

Please upload your church logo here

Max. file size: 50 MB.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

4 - Timeline

Here's a timeline of what to expect at every stage of the process

- Read through information ( See step 1 - What you need to know)

- Time to share the vision and build a team (See step 2 - Start getting a team together)

- Request a Day Away (Step 3 - Fill out and send the Essential Information Form)

- Await contact from the Activate team to finalise a date (minimum of 2 months in advance)

- See if there are any days away in your area for you to attend to get a good idea of what to expect

- Get your printing sorted out so you have posters and flyers

- Confirm details such as worship team availability, book venue, audio/visual

- Book in team meetings in advance to allocate jobs within your team

- Start to promote your event and direct people to the booking page on our website

- Contact local churches to promote

- Use the personalised promotion materials

- Advertise using whatever means possible to get as many guests as you can (set up a laptop at the back of church and help people sign in)

- Finalise programme with the Activate Team (see step 5)

Month before: We will contact you with early indication of how many have booked in, dietary requirements, etc. (We will be regularly updating you in the month leading up to the event)

Monday before: We will email the delegates that we are looking forward to seeing them and give any last minute details

Wednesday before: We will send you a registration form to use when checking people in, indicating who has dietary requirements. We will also send a final number of attendees, including any of our team members.

Monday after: We will send delegates a feedback email out, with photos and thank them for coming.

5 - Planning

Programme and timings.

We will work with you to provide a bespoke programme to suit your needs and the amount of people coming to your event.

Suggested meeting agenda for your own team

Think about the points checklist so you are confident that you haven’t missed anything (do this alongside filling in your booking form)

How many people do you need on registration team?
How many people do you need on coffee and lunch provision?
Ensure two tables and a space for Activate Info Point
Who can do toilet checks throughout the day?
Where is the best location to serve and eat lunch?
Who will be the named contact person for Activate team?
Have we booked and confirmed the venue?
Who will buy refreshments?
Who will order/make lunches? (see below for ideas)
Who will organise and manage audio/visual equipment?
Who will be the worship team?
Who will be there early to open up and set-up?
Who is happy to post about the event on our social media?
Who is happy to help people book in (with laptop at the back of church)?
What info do we need to pass on about parking at the venue?
Is there anything we need to consider re. accessibility?
Do we want to link with other churches?
How will we promote in other churches?
Who is going to pack down and lock up?
Do we fulfil the criteria to ask St Andrews Bookshop to come?

Set up

You might like to decorate the room. A little something in the middle of each table and on the drinks table makes all the difference.

Welcome

Have a playlist or ask the worship team to play as people enter. Make sure you have people who will 'work the room'. Be ready to chat and mingle.

Gift for the guests?

As mentioned in the booking form, do you require a book for each delegate or do you want to give any other welcome gift?

Refreshments

A nice welcome drink is a way of making people feel pampered and makes it feel like a special occasion. Tea, coffee, cold drinks, or even hot chocolate. (Remember special dietary requirements)

Lunch

Things that have worked well in the past:

- Jacket potatoes with choice of fillings (beans/cheese/coldslaw). This is great for covering lots of dietary issues such as gluten free (Just check the ingredients in the fillings carefully).

- Platters of sandwiches from local supermarket (make sure you cover all dietary needs).

- Soup and a roll– this is a great option if you have people who can make big quantities of soup! You could buy in the soup for people with special requirements.

Build your own sandwiches – Buy in lots of rolls, cold meat, cheese and salad and let people make their own lunch.

Put together lunch bags (sandwich, fruit, packet of crisps, biscuit and drink) if you are short on serving space. This allows people to take their lunch outside or back into the main room if you don’t have a dining area. If you have a food prep team, you could get people to tell you what sandwich filling they would like when they register that morning.

If someone loves making brownies/cupcakes or traybakes you could ask them to make cakes, or buy in multipacks from the supermarket.

Keep in mind what the women who are coming would usually choose for lunch. Several different salads and cold meats might go down well in the summer. You could add one hot element such as a pie, pasty or quiche.

Don’t forget to provide alternatives to regular milk, and some decaf options at your tea and coffee stations.