Bringing Groups

Thank you for being interested in bringing (or sending) a group to one of our holidays at Capernwray Hall. While we are sure your group will love being here we realise that there is a lot to organise to get to that point. We hope that we can make this process a lot easier for you with the ideas and suggestions that follow. We’ll talk below about children and young people coming in a group – but you could well be organising a group for Men’s or Women’s Weekends too.

Advertise – Let People Know!

Advertise the holiday to your young people. This might be an announcement to a big group or personally to individuals. You can direct individuals to our Holidays page on our website.

If you would like flyers, slides or brochures to advertise Capernwray, please contact us.

Invite Someone from Capernwray

If we can, we would be happy to send a staff member or some of our Bible School students or volunteers to come to your group to meet your young people. We could come and join your programme at a youth group and add as much or as little as you like to that event (e.g. organising games or activities that night). As well as talking a little about the holidays we could give a devotional thought or take a church service with a message/sermon as well as sharing how we became Christians if that is something you would like.

Forward Planning is Helpful!

If we can get your group in for the holiday that starts in a week’s time we will be glad to see you – but realistically most groups start planning many months before their visit.

Most Group Leaders we know have been planning their trip at least 6 months before the holiday. We can hold a provisional booking while you are gathering information but cannot hold these indefinitely, at some point bookings need to be confirmed!

Information for Parents (IYW’s & Connect)

Dates, costs and ‘why is it worth it’ information is vital for parents and needs to be given in plenty of time. Hopefully the slides we have provided will help you with that.

Talk to Capernwray Staff

Confirm Bookings with Parents/Individuals

There could be a bit of back and forth in this process. You need confirmation from parents or group members that they want a name added to your list. You will need some information about each person to fill in our on-line booking form. In order to complete your booking form, you will require the following information for each guest:

• Name
• Date of Birth
• Address
• Email
• Phone number
• Dietary/Medical Requirements
• Photo/video consent (except if you are not the parent/guardian of a child you are booking in for International Youth Weeks/Connect. This will be included in a separate parental consent form.)
• International Youth Weeks/Connect bookings only – Parent/Guardian details (their name, address, email and phone number) for each child, so we can forward a Parental Consent Form to them. 

Photos and Video Permission 

We love to record memories for our holiday programmes. People love to get the group photos sent to them after their visit. Please encourage individuals to give their permission for photos to be taken by us. However, we completely understand and want to support those who, for various reasons, do not want images used, and will therefore not give permission.

Parental Consent Forms (IYW’s AND Connect)

Parental Consent forms need to be filled in by a parent/guardian and returned to us at Capernwray. Once you send us your booking form with names and individual parent/guardian email addresses, we will contact each parent/guardian with a link to our Parental Consent Form asking them to fill it in ASAP and return it to us.  Parents/guardians will be advised that we will send that information on to you (their Group Leader) since you may have the ‘loco parentis’ responsibility of transporting the children to and from Capernwray. We will also include you, as the group leader, with any on-site problems / medical needs we need to address with the child. You or we can liaise with the parent/guardian.

How to Book and Pay

As a Group Leader we will email you, and generally only you, to ask for more information and payments. This will avoid confusion over things like room allocation, parental consent forms and dietary needs being collected in too many different ways.

There are a couple of general ways a group leader could decide to pay for their group holiday: 

1. Guests pay everything to the Group Leader (deposit, holiday balance and transport costs). Group Leader then pays holiday costs to Capernwray and arranges group transport.

2. Guests pay holiday costs to Capernwray and transport costs to Group Leaders.

When you fill in our online Booking Form your booking details will come to Marie, our Holidays Administrator. She will check we have space to accommodate your group (using boys and girls areas for bedrooms etc) and will email you back confirming that the booking has been accepted. Payment methods/options are explained in that email. 

Deposits are now due to be paid at this point. Our booking deposit is £75 per person. Deposits can be paid to Capernwray by the group leader/church/organisation OR by each individual. If you want each individual to pay Capernwray directly you need to direct the individuals to Capernwray’s website or forward on the email you receive outlining the various ‘ways to pay’ for the holiday. 

As the Group Leader you will receive back confirmation of their payment and forward this to the relevant individual. This will allow you to know who needs a reminder to make a payment. 

If you are collecting the deposits and making one payment to us you might also want to include the price of the holiday plus the transport charges you are arranging so that your group has the total cost of the trip. This is your choice in making those arrangements.

Final payment is due 6 weeks before the start of your holiday. You can make this payment earlier if you wish. Again, it can be paid by individuals or by one payment from yourself/your organization.

Transport Arrangements – Car/Train/Bus/Coach

ARRIVALS: 

By Train: We can collect you and your group from Carnforth Train Station with our drivers and minibuses. Please arrange to arrive in Carnforth between 4-5.30pm. We realise this is a narrow window, but our team will be ready to welcome guests from 4pm on the arrival day and our evening meal will be at 6pm. Please contact us to discuss arrangements if arrivals will be earlier or later than this.

By Private Coach: We have good coach access and ample free parking on-site for minibuses and coaches. 

By Car: There is plenty of free parking at Capernwray.

DEPARTURES:

Our programme ends after breakfast on the departure day (except when Men’s & Women’s Weekends finish on a Sunday after lunch).

Please arrange your transport to collect and depart with your group before 10.30am which will give us all time for sad farewells! Our minibuses will transport you to Carnforth Train Station if required.

Health Issues

We appreciate the knowledge and input of group leaders when there is an accident or illness with one of your young people. Where medication needs to be given to a guest a trained staff member will be the best person to administer this.

Group Booking form

There are no separate booking forms for groups. Please use the main booking form. A group leader can include up to 10 people on the form, including themselves. If there are more than 10 guests in the group, a new booking will need to be started. If a second booking form is being filled in then the group leader can tick “No” to the box that asks “Are you coming yourself” as we will count you in the first booking. You will still need to repeat giving us your details but you can carry on with booking in more of your group.

Come and Enjoy the holiday!

While at Capernwray we hope that you will enjoy time with your groups while we deliver the programme. We would appreciate help in different ways from leaders with some activities – we will not ask you to take on more than you are happy with and are not expecting you to run activities on your own!

If there are any accidents or incidents with anyone from your group our aim is to inform and include you with any medical incidents.

After the holiday

We hope that your group members return home with great memories of friendship and fun, but also (more importantly) having learned more of who Jesus is and how the bible tells us that He is actively pursuing all of us in a loving and caring relationship. It is often the case that after a time away together there can be a feeling of loss after the community and refreshment of a holiday at Capernwray.  If we can, it would be great to come and visit your group sometime after your holiday for an evening at their Youth Group or we could come and take a service at your church. This would not just be a trip down memory lane of our holiday since we realise there may be other group members who were not with your group at Capernwray. Similar to the suggestion above of visiting you before the holiday – we can maybe bring some of our current Bible School students during term time as well as have a familiar face of a staff member from the holiday.

If you have any questions or need some more information please get in touch with us – we look forward to hearing from you, helping you and welcoming you to Capernwray!

God bless

Marie Gildea – Holiday Bookings Administrator

Pascal Otto – Holiday Programme Coordinator

Dougie Roy – Holiday Programme Manager

Planning and organising your trip throughout the year

This ‘To Do’ list might be of some help…..(we hope so!)

OCTOBER

Email Capernwray for next year’s holidays, dates and prices and pass on that information to youth and parents/guardians.

Invite Capernwray staff to your youth group / church as a reunion for the past summer and/or looking ahead to next year.

Consider fundraising for the trip – young people may well appreciate the trip more if they have worked towards the costs. Probably every family will appreciate a reduction in costs. 

NOVEMBER AND DECEMBER

Confirm bookings with individuals, book online with Capernwray and arrange deposits. Book return transport for your group.

JANUARY AND FEBRUARY

Final payment due 6 weeks before CONNECT

MARCH AND APRIL

CONNECT for 11-13 year olds at Capernwray!

MAY

Final payment due 6 weeks before International Youth Weeks

JULY

International Youth Weeks at Capernwray

SEPTEMBER

Arrange a ‘How Was Your Summer’ slot for those who contributed to the fundraising to hear what impacted the young people from their time away.

SEPTEMBER/OCTOBER

Start again – with the help of some older teens who can start coming as leaders to CONNECT or International Youth Weeks.