It’s a cold October evening and a hooded group of young people are peering around the door of the newly opened Foyer at Kingston URC. The year is 2005 and this group’s tentative inquiry into what is inside is the first youth encounter with ROOM, an exciting joint Oxygen and KURC project that had just been launched. Over the course of the next few years dozens of young people passed through those self opening doors and on into ROOM, playing playstation, badminton, or board games as well as chatting to the many church and oxygen workers and volunteers who have been on hand to offer a listening ear. All of those who have come to ROOM have made a new friend in the church, finding an unconditional friendship and support that is unusual to the town centre. Many of them have moved on from Kingston, knowing that the church is interested in them.
Now after these great successes the time has come to rethink ROOM, numbers in recent months have been low, many of the students who came previously have now moved onto jobs or higher education. With no one coming we have taken the positive decision to put the project on pause, and instead of reopening ROOM in the spring, we will instead look to relook at how we K URC can best work with Oxygen to meet and engage with young people in the town centre.
So whilst we might say goodbye to the current ROOM we will remain to the there for the young people we have met. We will continue to hope and pray for them and then in time who knows what will be in the future ROOM?




