22nd February 2008

Firstly, let me start by saying HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and great restful time at home.

It was so lovely to be at home with you all for a month!

*busy* *busy* *busy*

This was me the week leading up to the Apollo…! Thanks to all of you who came to watch, I hope you had a great time. For all of you who weren’t there it went AMAZINGLY!!! The night was such a success, there were well over 2000 people there, with about half of them being from un-churched families! It was a very rushed, and slightly(!) stressful day in the run up, however by the evening everything came together perfectly. With pyros, lights, video backdrops, and an awful lot of free scarves...it ended up being a great night! The Pop Connection schools choir did a great job, and it was so nice having our brother band: thebandwithnoname performing with us on the night. We did 13 songs in our set, including 7...that’s right, 7 costume changes!!! Which proved to be a bit of a rush backstage in between songs, but hilarious at the same time; with beads and shoes flying around all over the place! There will be some photos from the Apollo up on the website shortly, and I have some videos of it on my facebook if you want to check them out!

I’ve been back for only a few weeks and already we’re incredibly busy! We’ve performed at a youth conference in Eastbourne and have just finished a schools week in Burnley. It was our first schools week of 2008 and it was fantastic to be back amongst the kids sharing God’s love with them. It’s an amazing feeling to be standing in front of a few hundred primary school kids explaining how God thinks they’re great and wants a friendship with them. We did 7 assemblies and took quite a few dance workshops. It was an excellent week and we were able to share our faith with around 1,300 kids.

Hopefully you’ve all heard about the Hope ‘08 initiative...

‘Churches across the United Kingdom are constantly at work serving and communicating with 58 Million residents and many visitors to the United Kingdom. 'Hope' proposes to support this work, by facilitating intensified, united, focused prayer and a year of activities, communicating the Gospel through words and actions, creating a lasting legacy of both physical and spiritual change in the lives of communities and individuals’

We’re partnering with Hope ‘08 and are set to do 8 schools week across the country under the ’hope’ banner. We’re also preparing to perform at loads of festivals over the summer and hopefully reach thousands upon thousands of kids with the gospel.

OUT NOW!!!

Our new album, “Talk of the Town” is available now from www.innervation.org/store for £9.99 or from Wesley Owen and other Christian bookshops. We are all really happy with the way that it has come out, Mark and Zarc have done such an amazing job. We sold around 400 albums the night of the Apollo and have recently heard that we’re number 1 in the Crossrhythms chart!! With this new album we aim to rival any mainstream girl band, the only difference is that our songs are saturated with healthy, positive lyrics and a real refreshing sound which we hope will inspire and bring hope to young people across the country.

We’ve already heard some amazing reviews!...

-‘Absolutely amazing album - full of full on lyrics about how God loves us and remains faithful no matter what. I was at the Apollo gig and was overwhelmed by what I heard - it was awesome!’
-’The tunes are instantly memorable and the lyrics present the Christian message in a way the pre teen audience can understand and relate to.’
-’The album tackles teenage issues over a poppy and vibrant backdrop, tbc continues to provide a voice for adolescent Christians who seek an alternative message to the glamorisation of sex and money by the majority music acts today. 

I've just found out that I've got to move out of my house and it's a bit(!) unsettling moving for the 3rd time since I've been here. So please pray I can find somewhere to relax and call home. Please pray also for my financial situation as moving may cause my rent to go up.
Thank you for taking the time to read my letters, I'll be sure to write again soon and inform you of all the exciting adventures and experiences that I encounter in this crazy job that is tbc!!
Thank you again for all your love and support.

With love from Manchester,

Megan,x  

13th November 2007

Well hello from the North!!

Wow , life has been crazy over the past few months, -I’m not sure how I’m going to fit all my exciting news in! I’ll cut it down so you don’t doze off! Hehe!

But seriously.. WOW! What a couple of months. Firstly, I’ve been here a year!! I cant quite believe it! I’m a fully fledged northerner ! (well, sort of!) And what a year it’s been! ..settling into a strange place, finding a church, combating homesickness, raising funds.. It’s been amazing, hard, but amazing. One of the main things that has changed is my confidence. When I moved here I didn't really feel good enough and it was a daily battle to be at work. Over the past year I have searched to find that all important confidence that is essential for stage; but it’s only recently that I realised I was looking inside me for it, instead of looking to God. The thing I came to realise is this; No, I can’t do it, I don’t have the strength or the words to say on stage, but HE DOES. And time and time again he gets me through the most daunting, nerve racking situations.

Last night for example we performed a full set and got to share our faith with a 5,000 strong non-Christian crowd! YEAH! I love it!!

Right, let me take you back in time to the summer, remember that? The beautiful sunshine, the blistering heat? No. Nor do I!! But anyway despite the poor excuse for a summer, I had a great time! We performed LOADS! We did workshops, holiday clubs, kids parties, community events.. You name it, tbc were there!!

The BIGGEST blessing has been my car. (A BIG shout out to Wendy Shewring-what a legend!!) My little green Polo came at the end of August and it has, (no joke) changed my life up here. It used to take me 2 and a half hours to get home from work on the busses, and now?.. 20 minutes! It really has been fantastic! No more waiting around at bus stops in the dark. So thank you all for praying that I’d get one!

We’ve recently spent a week in Liverpool working alongside Kidzklub. We visited 6 schools where we took assemblies and promoted the end of the week kidzclub event where we performed and had a turn out of 700 school kids! It was fantastic to share the relevance of Jesus to that many kids because it’s what I'm passionate about. The week after Liverpool was Reading. WOW! again, what an amazing week! We performed in tons of Primary schools and had a fantastic time meeting lots of new people. The week was so successful that it resulted in a sell out gig at the prestigious Hexagon Theatre with over 1,000 little schoolies buying tickets - and more having to be turned away!! It was phenomenal!

As many of you will know, we're in the middle of preparing for the launch of our BRAND NEW ALBUM, 'Talk Of The Town' at the Manchester Apollo. We're visiting 43 Primary schools in and around Manchester promoting the concert, and by the time we finish we'll have seen over 15,000 kids.

Gosh! I'm getting excited just thinking about it, what an amazing opportunity we have eh? When you're performing to such large crowds and having to sign lots of Autographs it'd be so easy to let your feet come off the floor, but I recognise that none of this is possible without God, we wouldn't achieve such amazing things without him. He is the only reason we do our job, to tell the kids all over the UK of his amazing love which has changed our lives.

S o... What's next for me, I hear you cry??! Good question well, in the next few days we're filming our new music video in a 70's club in Wigan which is going to be great fun, I'm sure! And we've got LOTS and LOTS of rehearsals in the studio to perfect all of our 14 dance routines and vocals!! - what a MAMOTH task!

I think I've blabbered for long enough. I do hope YOU are all well, it'd be great to know how you're all doing, I don't often get a chance to catch up with most of you - write to me!! I love post! hehe!
Thank you for all your love and friendship. I've felt so supported since I've been here. What a lovely bunch of friends you all are eh? I am SO grateful
for your love, prayers and financial support.. I think you're blimmin' wonderful.
Until next time,

With love,

Megan xx

As for me, may I never boast about anything except the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ. Because of that cross my interest in this world has been crucified. Galatians 6:14

Prayer/Praise Points

*  Please pray for my relationship with David as we’re only seeing each other once a month at the moment which is rather difficult to say the least!!

*  Praise God for what he’s doing with tbc, how amazing that we’ve had this opportunity to share his love with so many thousands of kids! C’mon!!

*  Please pray for physical, spiritual and emotional strength in these new few months, we’ve got a LOT booked in our diaries and sometimes it’s hard to keep positive when you’re so exhausted.

*  Finally please pray for me to remember that this is all about God, not about me. I don’t want to get distracted by the fans. 

3rd May 2007

1st December 2006

Thank-you . . .

. . from Julie Newby and Meg Howard to all those who supported the fundraising curry night - £430 was raised and Meg is very grateful.

27 September 2006

Hey guys and girlies!!

Just wanted to say a MASSIVE thank you to all of you for your incredible support over the past few weeks since I found out I’d been accepted into Innervation. You’ve all provided TONS of love, encouragement and a real sense of commitment towards what I’m doing. I hope everyone enjoyed the fundraiser as much as I did!! What a talented old bunch you all are eh? …and guess what??!! You’ve all been so generous that I’ve almost got enough money to see me through my first year!! How exciting is that?! Thank you for every penny given so willingly, I promise to be a wise steward-I’m a world class bargain hunter, believe me!

I’ll be moving to Manchester on 2nd October and will start training the next day with two other lovely girlies, Laura and Lucy J so please remember to pray for us three.

So… off I go on this very exciting new adventure, DON’T forget me!

I’ll be in touch soon,

With so much love to all of you,

Meg, xxxxxxx

Oooh! P.S email me if you can!.. megsrh@hotmail.com thankyou

17 September 2006

For those who don’t know me, my name’s Meg, I’m 18 and I’ve just finished my A-Levels at King John Sixth Form. Over the past 2 ½ years, God has been clearly preparing me (if you want the mega long story of it, please do come and chat to me!!) so that I am now about to start voluntary work with Innervation Trust, based in Manchester, whose vision is “to blitz the young people of this country and beyond with the good news of Jesus through chart-style music, explosive shows, and healthy lyrics”. After my initial three months of training, I will be joining an Innervation band called ‘tbc’ and will start going into schools and sharing the gospel, performing in concerts all around the country, as well as working alongside churches.

It sounds really exciting yes??! Well it IS, but it’s also VERY SCARY!! It means that I will be leaving my family and all of you lovely lot and starting a new life in Manchester. However, the great thing about doing things with God is that He promises to stick by us and supply everything that we need.

This is also where you all come in – I believe passionately that we can all be involved in God’s work of reaching ‘the least, the last, and the lost’! I would love to hear from you if you feel you could support me in any way. megsrh@hotmail.com

I aim to produce very regular newsletters, video diaries, possible panic phone calls for prayer and will generally be in contact with you all to keep you updated and I hope that we can all learn together and become enthusiastic about what God is doing with young people today. So for those who thought you were getting rid of me, think again, haha!!

For more information about Innervation Trust, please do have a look at their website… www.innervation.org and click on ‘links’ to find out more about the various bands.

Thanks for taking the time to read this,

I’ll be in touch soon J

Lots of love, Meg xxx

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