The Step Leadership Conference 2025

The Step Leadership Conference 2025 saw nearly 70 sixth formers from local schools spend the day at Verso Vineyard Church digging into the topic “Leadership is intentional.”  They were able to sign up online and chose three of four different sessions to attend. Each session had been carefully created to focus in on a different topic.

Karen Durkin, a leadership coach and facilitator, lead a session that helped students explore what they are passionate about so that they can intentionally make choices and seek opportunities to build a career in these areas. Karen offered students many insightful questions, which they had to answer in pairs, and it was wonderful watching their faces literally “light up” with smiles as they discussed what they were passionate about with each other.

Helena Croft returned to the conference again this year and led a session that looked at intentional compassion – how to speak up for those who can’t speak for themselves. Her talk introduced the students to Streetlight, the charity she founded that seeks to end sexual violence and exploitation, (http://streetlight.uk.com). She spoke with candour and students showed great maturity and interest, asking some pertinent and thought-provoking questions.

Also returning were Dr Andrea and Jon Taylor Cummings from “The4Habits”. They introduced the idea of intentionally communicating clearly and carefully when handling conflict. Their session was very popular, and Jon and Andrea were delighted when several students came to thank them personally for how helpful and relevant the material had been and how they were going to use what they had learnt in their own relationships.

Mike Palin was our final guest speaker, leading a dynamic, encouraging session designed to help the students intentionally seek out others who share their interests and passions, so as to build community with them. Mike was highly engaging and got students to consider the power of a mentor and the power of encouragement amongst many other things.

In addition to these gifted session leaders, what also made the day special were two specific things: the first was that we also welcomed four Year 7 students from Loreto, who came along having completed Keep Calm and Cook with Step in the autumn term. We invited them with the intention of growing them as young leaders and it was wonderful to see them actively serving the sixth formers and talking with them. The second thing was our keynote speaker – Isaac Taylor Cummings (yep, Jon and Andrea’s son). A first year University student, Issac brought an energy and youth to the conference and his keynote was truly inspirational, Isaac boldly spoke about how Jesus was the greatest leader of all time, because people trusted Him, His influence was huge, His legacy endures, and He was a servant leader.

It was a tremendous day, with plenty of faith-based conversations between the team and the young people. Furthermore, feedback was overwhelmingly positive, with 98% of the students who attended saying they would recommend it to a friend, and twenty of them expressing an interest in a new Leadership Hub that we are thinking of running later in the year!

Thank you to everyone who helped make the day possible, from the guest speakers to those who helped serve the refreshments, to the chair movers and to those who swept the floors afterwards, it was teamwork from start to finish, and God’s name was most definitely glorified.

Amy