Salesian Cooperators in Great Britain met in Savio House during the weekend of October 8th/10th for their annual Retreat. The theme was the Rector Major's Strenna for this year.

In imitation of Don Rua, as authentic disciples and zealous apostles, let us bring the Gospel to the young.

Fr Parkes aptly summed up our weekend when he said "the Good News cannot be chained up". He said that as Cooperators we must be the good news for our young people.

Our weekend began on the evening of Friday 8th October with people from 9 centres and an outreach: Easterhouse, Huyton, Kendal, Bollington, Streatham, Cowley, Chertsey, Cornwall, Battersea, Alverstoke and Durham (outreach).

The group assembled in the Mews Hall, Jessica began our weekend of prayer focusing on John Henry Newman, and his message that we all have some definite service. We then clenched our fists to represent all the baggage of the previous week and slowly opened them to start our retreat afresh and enable us to be open to God throughout our weekend.

On Saturday we began with morning prayer from Chertsey. Jane presented a display of a variety of young people in various situations. We were challenged to pray for those young people in our parishes and schools who are often 'unlovable' in their behaviour.

After morning prayer we had two excellent inputs from Fr Martin Poulsom and Paul Barnes.

Fr Martin split the strenna into two:

• Authentic Disciples
• Zealous Apostles

As disciples we must learn from the 'Master', that is, the way Don Rua would bring good news to the young, but do things in our own unique way. Fr Martin explained that Don Bosco and Don Rua had a common goal but they were different personalities and thus complemented each other too.

Paul Barnes followed on this theme but focused on how we are living the Strenna in our centres, families, and our own personal lives, whether consciously or not. Both Fr Martin and Paul gave their own examples over the last twelve months of what they have been involved in and how it links in to the Strenna, bringing good news to the young.

Saturday night we had our usual social, with Fr Bob Coupe on the piano, solo singers and a new addition to the social: 'Line Dancing' from our very own Vera Sefton in Huyton.

The Sunday morning prayer was very inspiring. Again Cardinal Newman popped up despite nobody getting together. But Huyton Cooperators main focus was on the message of Pope Benedict during his visit to Britain. He reminded us that we each have a mission to the most vulnerable in our society. The display board showed photographs of the earthquake in Haiti and floods in Pakistan where Salesians are involved in many good works. The recreation of an earthquake and flood by Vera Dring (Huyton) was excellent.

As always the hospitality of Savio House Team was brilliant. Fr Graham and the rest of his team looked after us really well and the food was top-drawer! We departed after lunch re-energised and buzzing to live out our strenna in our parishes and homes.

Next year's Retreat will take place in Kendal on 7th, 8th and 9th October 2011.