Skaters using church grounds to practice their tricks were being thrown off since they were seen as a nuisance. However Jo believed that the church should be embracing the fact that young people wanted to use the church, that they were actually on the site rather than sending them away with a negative impression. Within a couple of years, still only in her late teens, Jo realised that if no one else was going to act on her dream of the church providing skating facilities for young people, she would have to do it herself.

Trialling the service
Having written to some of the centres in the Youth for Christ network, two came back impressed by the idea, “the leader of Bath Youth for Christ had been noticing the large numbers of skaters hanging out in local park just the week before they received my letter, it all fell into place.” Bath took on the project and Jo as a project leader. An investment of £20,000 was needed to buy the portable skating ramps. The leadership of Bath Youth for Christ suggested a test event, using borrowed equipment to check that the need was real. If 100 skaters came they would view it as a success and the project would begin.

Prior to the test event Jo had a vision of 2 doors with long queues of skaters at each. This exact picture occurred and the day saw over 400 skaters use the facilities.

Various grants and funds quickly brought in the £20,000 needed. Although the weekly skate sessions were attracting skaters, Jo reflected that things weren’t right “lots of things went wrong in the first year, we got kicked out of the venue we were using, there were problems between kids, we were offering more of a babysitting service and I really questioned whether we should just shut it down as other people suggested.”

Having God at the centre
Jo was running One Eighty on her 2 day a week placement whilst she completed her youth worker training. As part of this training she visited 2 huge skate projects in America and it was here that she realised what was missing from the work in Bath. “God was clearly the reason that they were there and we had somehow lost that. God challenged me that its not about skating and youth provision, it’s about him.”

This visit to the USA helped One Eighty refocus its vision back on God and it has grown and developed ever since. 

One Eighty now hosts weekly skate sessions in a local youth centre. It is £1 to attend for the 2 hours and there is the choice of skating, ‘finger board’ skating, a tuck shop, skating DVD’s or just space to chat. “There are kids that come from all different backgrounds, some from private schools and others from local estates. They would never usually get the opportunity to mix but it really works here.” Each session also contains a 10 minute think slot. The kids pick the topic by putting ideas into a designated box, and each week one will be addressed by a member of the team. This also gives the opportunity for them to share something of their own faith experience. Topics have included drugs, hell and “Why are some Christians weird and scary.”

Answering deep questions
Through these talk times and individual conversations between volunteers and young people, some have asked more questions about faith. Initially Jo looked at doing an Alpha course with those who were interested but found it wasn’t culturally relevant to the young people. So Jo set about writing her own course, ‘Switch’ that is relevant to skaters and addresses all the key issues.

	Switch has been so successful that other organisations are looking to use it and the Bath Youth for Christ team are currently developing downloadable versions of the course. “I just want to get it out there for other people to use. One guy has come forward asking to translate it into Swedish.”

Last time the course was completed with young people from Bath Youth for Christ nine made a commitment to Jesus. The effect of the course on one boy, Jamie, started to have a wider effect on his family. The One Eighty team started chatting to his Mum about faith when she was having a particularly difficult time with rent arrears and personal problems. One week she got into a conversation with a volunteer who said they would pray for her and invited her along to church. The first time she said no but the next time she accepted, “but only because Jamie is going.” And after a number of times at the church she too made a commitment. Jo said “it’s a parent but we try and bring Jesus into every situation and families are getting restored.”

One Eighty is currently at capacity with about 25-30 turning up each week, a majority being the same faces each time which gives an excellent opportunity to build relationships and also to feed the young people into other projects they run if appropriate.

Curbing illegal graffitti
One project that has evolved is the Graff project. The skating and graffiti culture are closely linked and some of the guys attending One Eighty were beginning to get into trouble with the Police for illegal graffiti. “We knew older skaters were getting arrested, but there was no legal place in the city for graffiti artists to channel their skills. Since Graff was set up there has been a huge reduction in illegal graffiti across Bath.” Each week the artists use sketch pads to create their design and then graffiti the design onto boards that surround the area used for the skate park. “We have the proper equipment for them, good quality spray cans. They may go through a few, each week but we believe in providing the best for them, to value them.” Providing a high quality service with high quality equipment, does of course come at a high monetary cost. 

The council, whom Bath Youth for Christ have an excellent working relationship with, were really encouraged to see some provision for graffiti artists even though they only have the funds to cover the provision of the youth centre  for the weekly Thursday Graff session. All other costs for Graff, One Eighty, and the other projects in the scheme are grant funded with some donations from people in local churches. Since the work is not connected to any one church and has volunteers from congregations across the city, a much wider network of Christians now take an active interest in the work.

One Eighty continues to be open to develop and meet the needs of the young people they serve. They soon hope to move to a larger venue for their skate nights so they can allow more skaters to access the facilities. However the humble attitude of those running the work was very powerful. As Jo put it “God loves to use people who don’t think they are good enough – where you are tiny, God can be massive.”

To find out more about One Eighty, Graff, Switch or the wider work of Bath Youth for Christ visit www.bathyfc.co.uk.