St Silas men's weekend: way to go

Taking a break from discussion with atheist friends, a little reflection on a recent event of note: the St Silas Church men's weekend away, 23-25 November. Seventeen of us descended on a hostel in the picturesque village of Comrie in Perthshire. Now I've been to all four of these weekends since the indomitable Will initiated them in 2004. With Will and family's departure 3 months ago to France for a posting in his career as a particle physicist (a job title I reckon's always worth mentioning), the jovial Greg DM coordinated the occasion. Numbers were a bit down on previous years, but this helped create an unthreatening, family kind of atmosphere. Quite a contrast with the more macho, competitive, image-conscious feel - perhaps tinged with slight mutual suspicion - that can sometimes pervade get-togethers of men who don't know each other well. It was recognised that the very concept of a 'men's weekend' is dubious in the eyes of a lot of guys, and raises questions in the minds of our womenfolk too (eg. 'What do you actually do?'). It's a given - and a generalisation - that blokes are often more comfortable in a situation where they're actually doing something together, be it watching football or building a hut. So what did we do? Well, we took our pick of playing pool, ping pong and cards (of which at least one game was rather chaotic and not a little fraught). On the Saturday afternoon a bunch of us tramped with Scott-like fortitude round a reservoir - ask Michael which one - in deteriorating conditions (driving wind and rain) and with unfortunately patchy levels of waterproofing; and counted ourselves pretty lucky to get back to Comrie with no suspected cases of pneumonia. Ian Hopkins, a minister from Edinburgh, led thought-provoking studies from 1 Thessalonians. We sparked some ideas about how men in the church can better fellowship and engage in useful ministry. And perhaps most importantly, we had the chance to spend enough time together - as one of the group memorably put it - 'to get past the grunting'. A good start.