Stable on the Strand
Thursday, August 4th, 2005 by Nick VerwymerenChristmas may only happen once a year, but the preparation for it has already begun.
Here in Townsville an annual event is held down at the beach (called ‘The Strand’) during the week leading up to Christmas called ‘Stable on the Strand‘ (SOTS). It’s a huge event where 70 churches within Townsville work together to portray the true meaning of christmas to the public. It involves about 1000 volunteers who come from all 
denominations. The city council loves the event so much that they back it financially with $50,000. To many of us it’s unheard of a secular government supporting a chistian event.
This year I have the priviledge to work on the promotional video that will go out to the 70 different churches. The purpose of the video is to get people excited and churches invloved in the event.
I’m learning a lot through this process about what it means to work for others and cater to their needs. Here at RTO (Reef to Outback) they demand a level of excellence in anything that leaves our communicatons department. For example when we finished the video we showed it to our base director Ken Mulligan. Now he could of given us the nice ‘christian’ answer and said ‘wow looks great, you guys really worked hard’. Instead he said ‘I appreciate that you worked really hard, but there’s quite a bit of work to be done’. I had two choices, to take it as a personal attack, or to say ‘what can we do to make this video the best possible’. That’s really what I’ve been learning here lately is that sometimes we just need people to tell us that something we make is just really not that great. It’s the only way we’ll ever improve in areas of our life.
So take a look around my web site and ask yourself ‘what can be done better on Nick’s site’, then email me and let me know. Don’t worry I can handle a little constructive criticism.
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2 Responses to “Stable on the Strand”
About Us
Sara and I (Nick) have been married since June 2007. We volunteer with an organization called YWAM (Youth With A Mission). YWAM has close to 1000 bases around the world. One of those bases is Reef to Outback in Townsville, Australia which is where we are located. Nick currently works in the communications department and Sara works with the music ministry. We believe that we will be in Australia for a few more years to continue volunteering. Neither of us receive a salary from RTO (Reef to Outback) or YWAM for what we do. We must raise all of our own support through church, friends, family, and anyone else who is genuinely interested in helping us (if you’d like to help us please visit our ‘Donate‘ section).
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August 26th, 2005 at 12:17 pm
i think it’s great nick!!! that is coming from one ywam leader even though becuz of the blood i may be a little bias. keep up the good work. when you coming to indonesia?
August 26th, 2005 at 12:27 pm
Still not sure when I’ll come to Indonesia. I’m still trying to figure out when I’ll get a chance to go home, maybe I’ll stop by in Indonesia on my way back to winnipeg!