Paul's ROC Angels visit to Fleet Angels, Woking Street Angels and Maidenhead Street Angels9/20/2023
Paul was at the final celebration event for Camberley Street Angels . The evening included stories and memories from volunteers and coordinators from across the 14 years the team has operated. Messages of support were shared from police, councillors and local MP Michael Gove. One speaker spoke how he looked upon Street Angels as manure: helping the community and people grow; spreading widely; impacting and changing the culture. Paul thanked the volunteers and said the stories and memories have shown they have made history in Camberley through the dedication, passion, investment and by loving the person in front of them. Gifts of engraved paperweights were given to the volunteers (one hundred and twelve people over fourteen years). Thanks to all - the legacy of lives changed and community impact will last for generations to come.
Final Call for Leeds Festival Lost Property:
As Leeds Festival 2023 becomes a memory the Festival Angels are putting out a final call for people to claim items that have ended up in Lost Property. Hundreds of items have already been returned to owners and it is hoped the final push will see the majority of items returned to the owners before the 1st October closing date. Along with assorted clothing, bags and jewellery, the Festival Angels Lost Property also has: 52 wallets, 25 mobile phones, 109 full and provisional driving licences, hundreds of bank cards, 3 passports, dozens of sets of keys. Festival goers are invited to visit leedsfestivalangels.org.uk to access the LiffHappens database of unclaimed items. Most of the items are photographed but some deliberately have no image so that we can match descriptions with the item. Unclaimed items will be donated to St George's Crypt, the relevant agencies or destroyed. Festival Angels, who this year had two hundred and five volunteers working at Leeds Festival, have successfully reunited hundreds of items both at and following Leeds Festival.
Two hundred and five Festival Angel volunteers spent a week at Bramham Park, North Leeds as part of the welfare support at Leeds Festival.
The Prayer Cafe, offered unlimited drinks and a Festival Angels mug for £7, and proved to be a god-send to festival goers. Lost Property, which this year encouraged people to pre-register phones, reunited items and owners and will continue to do so for the next few weeks. Detached teams and AIR (Assistance, Information, Response) Hubs offered support on the campsites and helped hundreds of festival-goers over the week. The chariot team offered hot drinks and chat to security based around the massive festival site. ​See pictures here The festival also honoured Kate Dickinson who had the vision and inspiration for a Prayer Cafe at Leeds Festival at the age of 79. Kate passed away earlier this year and we unveiled a plague in her memory:
Apologies for the lack of newsletters from ROC Angels - summer is our full on busy season with several Festival Angels teams alongside supporting Street Angels, etc. This year has seen over 400 volunteers serve at 14 music festivals either as Festival Angels or through teams that ROC Angels support. Between us we have met and engaged with tens of thousands of people - many of them young people - in our heart to show and share that Jesus Loves Festivals! Thank you to all our summer volunteers and those who serve our communities year round. Festival Angels Stories: 205 volunteers at Leeds Festival Remembering Kate Dickinson in the Leeds Prayer Cafe We Are Church @ Creamfields Leeds Festival features on BBC and ITV Local News NME feature Reading Street Pastors and Leeds Festival Angels Kendal Calling Festival Angels Yarty Party, Devon, Festival Angels And with that the 2023 Festival season comes to a close... Street Angels and other News Stories: Maaate (Phase two of the Mayor of London's Violence Against Women and Girls campaign) Guildford Street and Community Angels Summer Newsletter The Sanctuary Seekers of Bradford - an amazing film worth a watch to help gain an insight into asylum seekers and refugees who have fled horrendous situations and are looking to make the UK home. First night for Rhyl Street Angels Guildford Street / Community Angels having a fundraising quiz night with curry on Friday October 13, 7.30 - 10.30pm at St Saviour's Church, Guildford, with a prize draw for a weeks holiday for 6 in Devon. Details can be found at https://gtcc.org.uk/angels-quiz-night/ We'd love to see you there and you'd be supporting all our amazing community projects. Bookings now live. Thank you! New Street Angels are launching in the next few weeks in both Accrington and Chester. Please contact Paul if you would like to be involved in these 2 new teams and pray for the steering groups pulling these new teams together. Paul - the founder of Street Angels - recorded a PodCast with Always Better Than Yesterday - you can find it on Spotify, YouTube, Google Podcasts, etc - go via abty.co.uk/podcast? The Skate Angels, based in Colwyn Bay North Wales, organised a Community Skate Day. This was well attended and is part of the weekly Skate Angels team that support skaters each week in the town. Thanks to funding from North Wales Police and Crime Commissioner and the amazing volunteer team! Walksafe partnered with the Budweiser Brewing Group to run adverts on public transport linked to the summer World Cup promoting the app as a way of everyone getting home safe. Walksafe (download for free at walksafe.io) have made the offer of featuring our Street Angels teams on this app for free - if you as a local project are interested email paul@streetangels.org.uk . Our CEO Paul Blakey continues to work to serve our local projects locally, regionally and nationally. Over the summer he was involved in leading the Festival Angels teams at Kendal Calling, Download and Leeds Festival and gave support to other festival teams. He has visited the new North Wales and Accrington Street Angels; met with several church and project leaders; spoke to various groups about the impact of our work; visited Barnsley College and Blackburn Youth Zone to talk about alcohol and safety; spoken to police that has led to several projects receiving funding; spoken to various media including live radio interviews, online magazines and podcasts; and has is planning project visits, school visits, talks and meetings in the Autumn. To support ROC Angels and Paul as he supports our local projects please visit streetangels.org.uk/donate . Thank you to all those who partner with us. Our local projects and those interested in community transformation are invited to the 2023 ROC (Redeeming Our Communities) National Conference, November 7th - 9th in Staffordshire. ROC Angels will be hosting a seminar. For more details and to book - roc.uk.com/event/go-deeper-roc-national-conference-2023 ![]() Third Space Ministries, who head up Club Angels and Illuminate Soho, recently held a celebration reception in Lambeth Palace. Pictured is Carolyn Skinner, the founder, with Archbishop Justin Welby. Third Space also ran 'Love All Serve All' in the famous Wimbledon Tennis Queue. A team from Bristol University joined the Street Angels Spain in Magaluf over the summer. Volunteers from several projects were part of a Street Angels team at Royal Ascot keeping the race-goers safe and supplied in flip-flops after they left the races. Eighteen local projects benefited from flip-flops donated to ROC Angels by Street Pastors. Maidenhead Street Angels and Thames Valley Heartbeat have joined together to donate a new defibrillator at St Mary’s Church in Maidenhead town centre. Thanks also to Windsor and Maidenhead Christian Trust for their support. Sadly a lot of our towns and cities have seen a massive increase in homelessness over the years. We are supporting this new initiative The Homeless Pastors to help offer pastoral support and care to those within the homeless community. If this is your heart, or as a local project you want to do more to pastoral support locally, please follow The Homeless Pastors Facebook page. Aylesbury Street Angels were donated sleeping bags by the Salvation Army charity shop to hand out to rough sleepers they come across in the town. To keep up to date with ROC Angels news and that of our local projects follow us on socials - rocstreetangels (Facebook, Insta, TikTok, X and Threads).
Blog written for ROC website Angels have appeared at music festivals across the UK over the last few months! Festival Angels started life as a Prayer Cafe, the inspiration of the late Kate Dickinson. Aged 79 she had a vision to run a Prayer Cafe at Leeds Festival which was held every August Bank Holiday weekend in the neighbouring village. The first year, 2011, proved so successful that in year two it was rebranded Festival Angels with volunteer teams beginning to take on more roles across the Leeds Festival site. Kate, who passed away earlier this year, will be honoured by Festival Angels and Festival Republic with a special celebration and plaque unveiling on the Wednesday afternoon of Leeds Festival 2023. The ministry and work of Festival Angels has grown at Leeds Festival and several other music festivals across the UK. The 2023 season started with a team at Porthleven Food Festival in April and has included Tunes in the Dunes, several festivals in Upton-upon-Severn, Download at Castle Donington, Parklife in Manchester, Yarty Party in East Devon, Kendal Calling, a DJ Back to Back Relay in Manchester, Creamfields North and, the biggest team of over two hundred volunteers, at Leeds. Festival Angels also supported the work of The Church at Glastonbury and Street Pastors at Reading Festival. Paul Blakey MBE, the CEO of ROC Angels, who oversee Festival Angels, comments, "Music festivals are one of the biggest mission opportunities in the UK with tens of thousands of people taking time out, relaxing, enjoying great music, trying new experiences and meeting new people. Our Jesus Loves Festivals tattoos and selfie banners are a big hit with many asking questions or sharing thoughts on Jesus and faith. It is an amazing privilege when festival goers approach you to say that the reason they had the confidence to attend the festival was that with the Festival Angels on site they knew they would be safe and looked after. My thanks to all the amazing volunteers who make Festival Angels happen." Temporary tattoos, proclaiming that Jesus Loves Festivals, have proved a must have festival accessory with many requests from people to 'give me Jesus!' The offer of a tattoo has sometimes led to in-depth conversations around Jesus, faith and life. The 2023 festival season has seen over four hundred Festival Angel volunteers of all ages invest thousands of hours to be part of welfare support. Some of the Kendal Calling team posed for a selfie with musician Example, after his main stage performance, which became the lead photo on his Insta and Facebook profile reaching thousands of people. For more details visit festivalangels.org.uk or search festivalangels on Facebook and TikTok or festivalangels1 on Instagram.
Festival Angels ask Leeds Festival goers to pre-register phones
An app to assist Leeds Festival goers if they lose their phone is in place for this year’s festival which takes place over the August Bank Holiday weekend. Liff Happens is working in partnership with Festival Angels, who run the Lost Property tent, to encourage people to register their phone before they arrive on the festival site. Jo Lynch, the coordinator of Festival Angels Lost Property explains, "By registering a phone and giving details of a friend, who is also at the festival, means that if your phone is lost and finds its way to our Lost Property tent we can easily reunite phone and owner." The 2022 Leeds Festival saw 2568 people register their phones of which 390 of these were lost and successfully reunited with the owner, an incredible 89% return rate. The total number of items logged by Lost Property in 2022 was 1260. Each year hundreds of items are found on the festival site and handed to Lost Property. Festival Angel volunteers manage to reunite around 70% of the items at the festival and in the weeks following. Festival goers are encouraged to register via leedsfestivalangels.org.uk/lost and Festival Angels volunteers will also be encouraging festival goers to scan a QR code as they travel into the festival. Over 200 Festival Angels volunteers will be on hand throughout the event, helping people navigate the site, put up tents and stay safe, and, over the course of the long weekend, will serve at least 50,000 hot drinks through a £7 unlimited refills mug deal. For more information visit leedsfestivalangels.org.uk Forty six Festival Angels were in the fields for our fourth year at Kendal Calling. Set in scenic Lowther Deer Park the team were on hand running a Safe Hub in the campsites and detached patrols across the whole site. Festival Angels were part of the welfare offer to festival-goers.
Over the six days we engaged and supported festival-goers in a variety of ways including: helping people find space and set up camp; handing out essential items such as sanitary products and plasters; giving out Jesus Loves Festivals tattoos; filling pot noodles so people could have food; supporting welfare and security with a wide range of incidents; making time for people to ensure that they had a safe and enjoyable Kendal Calling experience. Several festival-goers said to us that they would be safe at Kendal Calling because the Festival Angels were on site and security thanked us for sorting out several issues before they became a major problem. A Festival Angels team selfie with musician Example was shared on his social media with over half a million followers on his Instagram alone. Thanks to the amazing team who went and beyond time and again. Phase two of the Mayor of London's Violence Against Women and Girls (VAWG) campaign launched this morning. Last year’s ‘Have a Word’ campaign influenced men to change their behaviour and call out misogyny. It was viewed more than 15 million times, and 85% of men who saw the campaign said they would call out misogyny if they witnessed it.
So today, the Mayor’s launched phase two, which provides men with a simple everyday intervention to adopt – ‘Say maaate to a mate’ when their behaviour towards women crosses the line. New research we’ve commissioned shows that though many men still don’t know how to call out misogyny when they see it. ‘Say maaate to a mate’ is created based on insights from a behavioral science study commissioned by the Mayor and shows how this one word can prevent low-level misogyny in male groups of friends, without damaging relationships. This morning, the Mayor launched an interactive film that will help men test and understand when and how to intervene in instances of misogyny. Directed by Koby Adom (Top Boy), the film demonstrates multiple scenarios of casual misogyny that are too often left uninterrupted and gives viewers the opportunity to intervene. For more information, please visit the website - www.london.gov.uk/maaate |
ROC Angels NewsThis blog is a place for stories and news updates from within the ROC Angels family. |
ROC Angels - an initiative of ROC (Redeeming Our Communities)
Charity - 1139817 / Registered Company - 7327258 Postal Address: ROC Angels, c/o The King's Centre, Park Rd, Halifax, HX1 2TS E-Mail: paul@rocangels.org (founder / CEO) / Phone: 07725501465 |