Spring Harvest 2024

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Every year around Eastertime, we gather together with several thousand (!) Christians at Butlins for a week of worship, teaching, and fun. I have a long history with Spring Harvest, having attended there as Marketing Manager of Prospects for People with Learning Disabilities way back before I was married and had kids - manning a stand at the exhibition, to talk to people about how to fully include people with learning disabilities - but over the past few years, I've attended as captioner. Which means I work all morning and in the evening (the main celebrations); Mr. and the kids get to attend the festival meanwhile, and they love it. The kids have their own sessions which are high energy and great fun, and in between those they have the Butlins facilities to enjoy - fun fair and an amazing pool with action slides!

So, a brilliant holiday for all.

This year we attended Minehead, which is only two hours' drive from home, as opposed to Skegness which we usually go to (6 hours' drive!). This isn't by my choice, but we go to where Spring Harvest needs me; looks like it'll be Skegness again next year, and Minehead was the exception.

While there was a bit of struggle over the captions a few years ago, when they had captions at Skegness for the first time and it took ages to set it up and then got turned off the main screens because one person complained captions were distracting (a day later, they'd been deluged by people asking for them back!), they have really understood the value of having lectures captioned and this year, as last year, I did feel valued and supported.

All set up on the first night

In fact, when the main tent was unusable on the second morning due to stormy conditions and they had to shift everyone to a smaller venue (a nightmare for all involved), ensuring I was able to caption in the new venue was quick and easy because the tech team made it a priority. 

In the other venue, following the storm

We all had lots of fun - I do love doing this job, and many people do comment on how useful they find the captions; and not just hard of hearing people, but anyone who sometimes misses words or has their concentration lapse. I love being part of the accessibility team (the BSL interpreters are awesome) and being able to play a part in making sure everyone is able to access the event fully.

And the kids - well...

They enjoyed the Butlins fare....

D pretended to be an angel...

We bought them a Minecraft Bible (the Bible in Minecraft style)...

They loved the Power Up (kids) sessions!

Theme was Video Games, and my kids were in the Pikachu Team

On the Fun Fair Helter Skelter


There was time for skating on the beach promenade...


... as well as for ice cream, of course.

It was a very full on week that we needed the weekend after to recover from, but both kids were sad to leave and cannot wait for next year at Skegness! (Which, according to them, does have the better pool slide so it's all good with the long drive.)


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