Great time at the Leaders retreat this weekend. All the CST leaders and CO-leaders from around the country gathered together for training and empowerment. We spent a lot of time in the Word and sharing what God has been doing in each of the different areas. So many encouraging stories to hear and learning to be done from each CST. We had a couple of workshops on ‘building your team’ and on promotion and communications both which helped to equip and inspire teams. To top of an amazing weekend shared together we spent some great time praying over each team, being filled with the spirit and gaining God’s empowerment to go back to our towns and cities and continue with the work He is doing through us. Praise God for an amazing time of fellowship, training and empowerment.

The second WSM Newham Golf day was held at Crowlands Heath Golf Club in Dagenham on Sunday 20th September 2010. A dry but windy day, with quite deep semi rough, made play challenging for the 9 participants!
Seyi Oni won the nearest the Pin trophy on the 2nd hole of the day with a great accurate 170 yard tee shot. The Longest drive on the 9th was won by David Bebb with a monster drive!
We attracted mainly new golfers which was great but meant quite slow play! It was close at the top of the Leader Board with defending Champion Dan Grassham losing his title when finishing joint 3rd with Lesley Blythe on 13 points. Mark Blythe with 16 points finished 2nd again, but this time behind new Champion Joel Matthews on an impressive 18 points.
David Bebb presented the prizes and shared that he was moving to All Nations College to study Theology next week. He also shared about the history and work of WSM and specifically about the WSM Newham Community Sports Team and that all the team were Christians. David invited everyone to ask further questions.
Official Results:
Winner Joel Matthews 18 Pts
2nd Mark Blythe 16 Pts
3rd= Dan Grassham & Lesley Blythe 13 Pts
5th Seyi Oni 11 Pts
6th David Bebb 8 Pts
7th= Peter Onireti & Gareth Bebb 5 Pts
9th Dipo Oni 2 Pts

Nearest the Pin Winner Seyi Oni
Longest Drive Winner David Bebb

The first WSM Newham Adult Fives was a great success recently (Mon 2 August). Five teams from various Churches in Newham battled it out in entertaining but hard fought games for the World Sport Ministries Cup.

Two players stood out for their skill, effort and sporting attitudes and received player of the tournament medals. Jason from Cliff Walk Rovers and Nikead from Bonny Down’s Summer Scheme were the two stars. Other players catching the eye were Dipo Oni and Gareth Bebb for Cliff Walk Rovers, Joel Matthews for Cliff Walk City, Richard Marzetti and Pete Laing for Bonny Downs Church.

Despite losing all 4 games the Summer Scheme lads showed great spirit throughout their games. Bonny Downs Church, Cliff Walk City and Cliff Walk Rovers all won 2 and lost 2 games each. Cliff Walk Rovers taking second place on goal difference. The inaugural and comfortable winners with 4 wins from 4 games and a goal difference of plus 12 were the Gateway City team. Leader Dan Grassham’s pretournament quote “I’m quite confident of victory” was quite prophetic!

After the tournament Referee Mark Blythe shared how his thoughts about Suarez of Uruguay went from very high to low during the World Cup. What a shame that a superb player will now be remember just for his cheating, like Maradona, and not his amazing ability.
Mark shared how God had proved himself to him and how his life is now transformed through his belief in what Jesus did for him. Sadly his footballing ability didn’t improve but being able to deal with disappointment has!

The players were challenged to ask their team manager to find out more about what Jesus really did and why.

Results:
Bonny Downs 4 Cliff Walk City 2
Summer Scheme 1 Gateway City 4
Cliff Walk City 5 Summer Scheme 3
Cliff Walk Rovers 2 Bonny Downs 1
Gateway City 3 Cliff Walk Rovers 1
Bonny Downs 4 Summer Scheme 3
Summer Scheme 1 Cliff Walk Rovers 5
Cliff Walk City 1 Gateway City 4
Gateway City 6 Bonny Downs 1
Cliff Walk Rovers 3 Cliff Walk City 5

WSM Newham in partnership with the churches of East Ham, Transform Newham, More Than Gold and the Bonny Downs Community Association helped stage a great day on Saturday 12th June. WSM ran the 2nd year of ‘The Newham Community Fives’ with 14 teams of teenagers and children competing for the trophies in their relevant competitions. It was great fun and fantastic to build further relationships with these 100 players and some of their friends and families. The gospel was shared with all teams at the completion of the tournament and prior to the awards. The football was one feature of a fantastic family festival day which included music, food, play areas for children and the screening of the 2 major Fifa World Cup matches that day. The screen was hired in and was huge. The fun day attracted 2,000 local people and prior to the England v USA game, approximately 400 people watched ‘The Prize’ film where current Christian players give their testimonies. It was a great day full of fun, football, food and faith!