Page 64 - br-april-2019

April 2019 April 2019
PURBECK TOWN AND PARISH VOLUNTEERS
OF THE YEAR AWARDS

Citation from Bere Regis Parish Council - Pat Wharf

Pat joined the Junior Church in Bere Regis and started to shape it into its current
form in 2005. As numbers had dwindled, Pat started to think about how she could
attract more children and engage them in meaningful activities whilst enjoying
themselves. To that end, she introduced short plays in 2005, action songs in 2007
and, finally, large puppets in 2008.

The puppets have proved remarkably popular and have gone from strength to
strength. The puppeteers perform to recorded music and songs in modern idiom.
There are now over 20 puppets, at times being operated by up to 10 children. This
may sound simple, but it is quite skillful, and children have to learn to work
together in a combined performance, and it takes much rehearsing to get it right.
Junior Church now attracts up to 20 or 25 children monthly and their parents and
grandparents. The children enjoy some craft activities, a Bible story and
rehearsing for the puppet performances and dance and drama routines for the
subsequent church service. The younger children take part in these activities too
and are given hand puppets to operate.
In 2012, the Junior Church started to make Christmas cakes, firstly for the children

to take home, then to hand out to the elderly members of the church
congregation and, for the last five years, over 100 a year are made by the
children and are given personally to many Seniors in the village as a Christmas
present and as a form of outreach to the wider community. This is incredibly
popular with both the children and the adults!
In 2015 Pat started the ‘Open the Book’ scheme in Bere Regis where adults go
into schools and act out Christian stories which demonstrate values and
behaviours which transcend the Church. This was first held at Bere Regis primary
school but now there are regular performances in Wool and Bovington schools as
well and Pat has a team of over 20 people who reach out to over 500 children a
year.
In 2015 Pat started Puppet Praise where the children go to outside organisations
to show off their skills, often to older people or other children’s groups. These have
taken place in Bere Regis, Bovington, Wool, Milborne St Andrew, Affpuddle and
Moreton.
Pat is also a volunteer unpaid maths teacher, originally at Bere Regis and now
Wool, where she is also a school governor.

64 25