Brian Stitt- a Biography of Involvement in Youth Work
I suppose my earliest memory of youth camps are associated with the Waterman's Bay campsite. The first was a Boys camp where, believe it or not, the first activity was filling a chaff bag with straw, then going to our tent where we slept on boards. The second memory was the
boredom of going every day of Easter Camp to the Annual Conference at the old Lake St Church. It was apparently considered edifying for us "potential leaders" to go and hear our elders argue about the good of the church. At least we looked at the girls. The bitumen of Wanneroo Rd finished then at Dog swamp with a series of deep potholes we "men" rushed to sit in the front seats so that the girls were up the back where the chassis overhung. We waited for the pot hole which shot the girls screaming up into the air. Ah the simple pleasure of the past. Still it cemented life long friendships and many marriages.
I have always been, and remain, fit and athletic. I played cricket, rugby and hockey for Modern School. While studying Theology in Melbourne I played" A" Grade rugby union for the Melbourne Club and we were premiers for four years in a row. On return to WA I played rugby for UWA and was awarded in 1953, a Full Blue, as the sportsman of that Uni year. I was selected in the WA State team 52-53 and played three internationals.
Sport was always a good way to attract youth. Churches were in a near monopoly position for youth work in the 40's,50's. I coached and initiated Basketball in all the towns I lived in as a way to attract youth. "Go where they are", has always been my motto, I even joined the Air force and became a Flying Officer in the Air Training Corps to meet the young guys who then knew me well enough to come to the ISCF Group I ran at the Albany High during lunch times. We did the same thing at Norseman - Started Basketball with the students at lunch, formed after school comp, a Sunday am club with tea and scones at our house and ISCF at school. An encouraging memory of Norseman was running a social for the Students, we tried to get as many as we could into a tea chest. One girls comment sticks, "I didn't think you could have so much fun and nor get drunk."
At Bridgetown we were starting a church with no real outside contacts. Patricia and I ran holiday "Beach missions", started a Boys Brigade and a Basketball team in the local comp, I went to the local high school and taught Junior Scripture. When I came up to Perth I continued with Boys Brigade at Dianella Church of Christ. We had about fifty teens up to 18 and 19 year old Queensmen/ Staff Sergeants. Happy times! We had an annual NCO's dinner at Miss Maude's and it was only years later that I learned the reason for much laughter, the competition of the night - who was to first pinch the young waitresses.
It was through the Brigades that I became involved with Duke of Edinburgh Awards training as a Gold Level Expedition Assessor, of importance later in our Adventure Camp Initiative.
I was in the Churches of Christ Youth Dept by now and we introduced canoeing first through the Brigades and then into the wider youth agencies. We built many canoes on my back veranda and even
entered a team in the Avon Descent with a special down river racing kayak we built ourselves. We tried sailing also, Dianella Boys Brigade built its own 18 footer in my garage. I eventually became a team member at Scripture Union Sailing Camp.
I was Churches of Christ Youth Director 67-72 ( I think) It was an exciting challenging period. Change was in the air everywhere, new paradigms emerging, but not in the church. Being a trained
educationist my mode was to research the field, write papers and activate interest in new models. It seems almost ludicrous today to remember our hassles. Here's a few of them.
I surveyed Christian Endeavor as to whether it was relevant to the time as an attractional model. Research in to trends overseas pointed towards the drop in centre/unstructured/coffee club model which I introduced to and trained those willing to try it. On Scarboro
Beach Rd there is still a premise selling hire gear, a failed nursery centre then it was where Scarboro C of C ran a highly successful drop in centre for years until the minister changed. Applecross C of C averaged about 150 a Friday night there during Lance Austen's ministry. Lee Eaton started a drop in centre in the former YWCA West Perth with great success.
We combined with the other Youth Departments to initiate a drop in centre for the emerging "motor bike" scene. It was down the east end of Adelaide Terrace in an old service station/garage. The Lord Mayor Tom Wardle opened it for us and put into my hand, without comment, a cheque for $5,000 covered our expenses for several years before our workers were exhausted. It was a brave initiative for the time.
Another conversation about church development was initiated with a paper on Groups versus mass programs. Common as grass now but then. ..still relevant.
We initiated Youth Programs in the Christian Centre, monthly Friday nights for specials eg, social issues, studies into youth values. Also an annual dinner dance replete with a dancing singing floor show, even some contortionists one year. As if our use of guitars wasn't enough for some, we also introduced sex education at our youth camps. Another survey revealed our youth had the same mores of sexual behaviour as their secular cohorts.
The Stirling Range Adventure Camp came from reading about American trekking. It was the most enjoyable and enduring legacy of those days. Ron Patterson, one of the first "boys", still [ran it until recently]. A highlight was the year we took a boy each night into Albany Hospital for three nights. Looking at some of my photos of lads sitting on the edge of great spaces I realise how fortunate and how well prepared we were. We moved on to abseiling, I think modern youth workers would be scandalised at our primitive methods of jumping off cliffs.
A bye product of the Stirlings was a Tassie trek. We walked the Cradle Mt to Lake St Clair walk which was magic. I capped it in 1986 when I walked to Base Camp MT Everest.
We were doing youth work which didn't look like youth work as the "tradition" called it .
Schools became the next battle ground for youth work. An increasing secular mood, the explosion of high schools numbers saw the churches unable to keep up with the task of the traditional "Scripture in Schools" model. For about five years 72 - 77 I was an invited member of a SEA sub-committee which wrestled with writing a contemporary program for teaching religion in High Schools. Great thinking but never able to be put into effect, it was
intellectually challenging and gave me space to consider and reflect upon the problems of the emerging secular scene, which reflection eventually became Dayspring. Several years ago I was asked by the Baptist Youth Director's Annual Conf, in a symposium to reflect upon "Why do Baptist Churches attract so many young people and loose so many young adults?" This long term thinking sourced my response. It's an ongoing challenge to all youth workers.
I was the C of C rep at a meeting in 1972 at Archbishops house where it was decided to place a chaplain in each high School, much to the Government of the days disbelief. Because of my
background I became the C of C rep on the newly formed Churches Commission which had the perilous task of steering through this new initiative with all its problems of denomination, conceptual ignorance and no money. It was and continues to be a miracle. I remained a member of the Commission for a creative twelve years.
By this time I was back in the State School system (74). One of the fringe experiments of the time initiated by myself and the Catholic Bishop Quin was the "school seminar". Here a school was invited to suspend it's program for the day, wholly or partially, while a team of Christian staff and helpers ran group seminars on the nature of the religious experience and the relevance of faith. Great fun, but the logistics and system problems saw its end. But we learnt a lot about youth religion. I should have written a book. In this period I wrote a paper called "the Vanishing Adolescent" for the Federal Board of Christian Education exploring the nature of modern secular societies impact upon youth consciousness.
The cultural shifts in society posed many opportunities and painful dilemmas to the school system. I became heavily involved in the emerging pastoral care initiatives being experimented upon and tried in Highs, each school I moved to , and there were tough ones,
involved a process of defining and systemising. It really involved staff in learning a new way of looking at students, which is in itself a spiritual experience. I think this period of dedicated teacher cooperation was a pinnacle period in the WA E D system.
I ended my career as a Senior High Chaplain 92 - 96 at Mirrabooka. At the moment (2008) I still act as a supervisor of Chaplains. Interviewing and assessing the suitability of future chaplains has been a key role for me in this year 2008. In the last several year, beside teaching spiritual practices at chaplains "in service" programs I've been blessed to lead their Retreats at New Norcia and have two more to lead there this October.
John Clapton a, Youth Care Chaplain, was a member of our first Stirling's Camp. On the news of [this] nomination I asked him, "why me and not the others?" John's reply was, "because your still doing it!"
With that honorific I rest content.
Brian Stitt
