What is MYA?
Methodist Youth Activities [MYA] is a grant-making trust that was set up with the aim of nurturing and educating young people and, by grant aid, helping them take advantage of opportunities that will help the formation of their lives.
We cover the age range 11 to 25.
And we are registered with the Charity Commission to operate within the United Kingdom.
The Objects of Methodist Youth Activities are:
- To help young people to develop their physical, mental and spiritual capacities so that they may grow to full maturity as individuals, and their condition of life may be improved.
- And to awaken, or strengthen, in them their desire for a full and active Christian life.
What does MYA do?
MYA started making grants to individual young people in 1995. In any recent year, about ten young people have received a grant as low as £100 and occasionally as high as £1,000 – as funds allow.
We are also interested in the work of young people’s organizations that are working with similar aims to MYA. The budgets of most projects of this type would be well beyond the means of MYA. So we would expect to contribute a proportion of the applicant’s budget. We are willing to consider applications for funding for up to 3 years. Depending on the availability of funds, our largest grants to projects would normally be in the region of £3,000 per year. In any year we are helping with grants about 10 projects, most of which are for more than one year.
Who is involved?
MYA has a membership of interested people who elect the nine trustees. It is the trustees who run the charity and decide upon grants. They meet twice a year, in November and June, to allocate grants. They will only consider applications that satisfy both the objects of MYA. Anyone who is interested can apply for membership. We would particularly encourage people who have received a grant from us to become members. Please contact the secretary who will be happy to give you more information.
How did MYA begin?
After the end of the Second World War, as the Methodist Church’s youth work expanded and the Methodist Association of Youth Clubs was established, some Ministers and Youth Club leaders in the Methodist Church started to take groups of young people camping for weekends or summer holiday weeks. These times of spiritual nurture, physical activity, and close friendship became recognized as being intensely valuable for the young participants. Many of them began their Christian discipleship at camp or as a direct result of it.
At the same time the East Anglia District of the Methodist Church established a permanent campsite at Mundesley, on the North Norfolk coast. In the 1960’s, at the height of popularity for this work, a group of enthusiasts for these camps concentrated their work at Mundesley. They formed a charity named Methodist Youth Camps, and secured property and land, available for hire, to be used by youth groups. For some time this was managed as a youth project of the East Anglia District of the Methodist Church. It was also available to school groups, and some LEAs booked it for residential field studies.
In 1981 Methodist Youth Camps became a company limited by guarantee called Methodist Youth Holidays Ltd, and continued its Christian work with young people. But by 1990 bookings from both Methodist groups and LEA schools were dwindling. In the face of declining business, the Trustees sold the property and relaunched under the name Methodist Youth Activities Ltd as a grant-making Trust, dedicated to the same aims as the original vision of the youth camps. Grants are funded by the income from the invested proceeds of sale of Mundesley.
MYA Ltd Registered Charity 1028540 Company No 1580871