Believe it or not there is a Goth/Emo club just for teens locally. Run by a church. Onyxx got in so much trouble there.
Unfortunately in my experience, just because something is run by a church, doens't make it safe or appropriate, in the slightest. It can be MORE dangerous because they don't begin with any expectations pressured on them by parents.
When I was in my mid to late teens, our church youth group was taken over by a new pastor who felt "the call" to reach out to troubled youth. He ministered to young men who were struggling with prison sentences or similar, and invited them along to our youth group. But then he didn't stay to supervise - we were a pack of teenagers trying to meet as a church youth group, and these young thugs would turn up. The couple that the preacher was trying to help weren't too bad (although they did hve a bad influence on some of the girls) but they brought their mates, who weren't in the least interested in being "saved" but were looking for more opportunities to "have a good time" in whatever form that took.
One night the youth group met at our home. The preacher wasn't there but of course all his rehab convicts and their mates were. My father was unimpressed. We didn't really do much that night, just watched the beginning of a charity telethon on TV for a while. The other church males left at the right time (told me afterwards thast by their leaving, they were trying to give a hint to the other blokes that it was time to leave - they didn't get the message). Cowards. These crim types wouldn't leave. Dad surprised one of them going through the bathroom cabinet and that was the last straw - he threw them all out.
I heard what happened afterwards later. They all went back to the house where three of them shared a flat. They had the TV on watching the rest of the all-night telethoon and sent a couple of them out for beer. Pat, who was telling me this story later, told me how he fell asleep in front of the telly (after drinking I don't know how many slabs of beer) then went to the fridge for another beer. He opened it - it was full of milk! Seems that while he was passed out in front of the TV, the other guys thought it would be fun to go up and down the street and steal the early morning milk deliveries to all the neighbours.
Just as Pat was standing looking like an idiot in front of the fridge full of milk, the cops kicked in the door. Pat got handcuffed, but when the other guys were rounded up and confessed, they let Pat go. Turned out he was the only one in the household to survive with his legal skin intact. All the others went back inside. Pat a few months later joined the army and managed to escape that cycle.
Meanwhile a bloke who was a protegee of the preacher who came to youth group meetings. No more at our home! This bloke got talking to me, I felt a bit sorry for him because he was sitting alone. He was older, looked in his mid twenties (I was about 17) and when I spoke to him I found out yes, he was another protegee of the preacher.
"What were you in for?" I asked him.
"Carnal knowledge," he told me.
At which point I had to steel myself to NOT turn and run - "carnal knowledge" isn't called that any more, but it boils down to pedophilia. He went on to say that he'd had sex with a girl who he thought was old enough but who turned out was not, and he himself was at the time only 17. He was in prison for 6 months for it.
I did look around for the preacher - of course he wasn't there. I really didn't know what to do - we were taught to be kind to these guys but really, the preacher did a darn fool thing, putting us in jeopardy like this.
I can't remember how it happene,d this bloke asked if he could write to me, I think, and at the time I was living near the university at another preacher's residence. I think I gave him the address, thinking that it would be OK, the preacher I boarded with would be there.
Then some months later, this bloke turned up on my doorstep. In between he'd been sending me love letters, very immature ones with SWALK scawled on the back with lots of hearts. The night he turned up I was thankfully hosting a study night with my (male) friends. As a Science student, most of my classmates were male. And these guys, NOT churchy, had the commonsense and morality to NOT leave me in the lurch, but simply outstayed this bloke and wouldn't leave. I think it was 4 am before the last of my friends left.
And where was the preacher I boarded with? I had discovered by this stage that he was no protection at all. The room I rented was a basement room with its own external entrance. I had zero protection in this place. The windows wouldn't even lock!
In recent years a local church used to hire the village hall for meetings and on Friday nights they held a youth group in the hall also. But those kids simply trashed the place every Friday night. I was involved in some other groups that also hired the hall, notably dance classes for our girls which were held on Saturday mornings. We'd arrive to find toilets blocked up, toilet doors hanging on their hinges and any dance concert props and sets smashed to pieces even though they had been stored in the roof space.
So these days - I have lerned to not automatically trust church groups. Unfortunately. Too often the people organising them are themselves too honest and therefore too trusting 9and so allow a lot of bad stuff to go on right under their noses) or they're too idiotic to know what to do, they have not got the professional expertise to properly run something like this.
And I say this as a member of a church, so I'm not simply bagging out religion here. But ANYONE trying to set up something like this - you have to do it right.
In Australia, the best cluubs, discos etc for kids are run by the cops. They're called "Blue Light" discos and the kids love them. So do the parents - these are drug-free zones.
In Australia at the end of evverty school year, we have "schoolies". Hordes of school leavers migrate after their final exams, to various locations (such as the Gold Coast). I remember a movie from my youth called "Where the Boys Are" which was set in Fort Lauderdale - this is something similar. It's a week-long debauch. The kids are known as "schoolies" but they attract older male hangers-on which now have the name "toolies".
Say no more.
Marg
