Over the last few weeks, thousands of children, young people and leaders have got involved with celebrations for our 140th anniversary!

It has been fantastic to see groups across the country get involved with a range of special activities, challenges and events, providing members with an opportunity to take part in these celebrations and create unique memories.

140 Monopoly Challenge (Company & Seniors)

On Saturday 30th September, over 700 young people and leaders came together across four cities to kick start our 140th celebrations.

140 teams took part in our 140 Monopoly Challenge in London, Manchester, Glasgow & Aberdeen, with teams racing around these cities trying to visit as many properties as possible on that city’s Monopoly board in five hours.

This saw teams across the UK visit major landmarks and locations such as The Ritz, Old Trafford, Glasgow Cathedral, Marischal College, The Midland Hotel, Hamden Park, Nelson’s Column and many more!

Congratulations go to our winning teams in each location, 1st Lindfield (London), 1st Rainford (Manchester), 4th/5th Kilmarnock (Glasgow) & 1st Rosehearty (Aberdeen).

It was also great to see many other groups take on the 140 Monopoly Challenge in their local area, covering other towns and cities such as Birmingham, Bath, Leeds, Durham & Cheltenham.

Juniors 140 Sleepover

2,000 Juniors continued the 140th celebrations on Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th October with our Juniors 140 Sleepover.

This involved sleepovers in over 100 locations across the UK, including in church halls, trampoline parks, adventure centres, castles and even in South Africa.

Throughout the evening, children took on our specially created sleepover programme, including party themed minute to win it challenges, our Juniors 140 quiz, toasting marshmallows, the sleeping bag prayer, litter picking, a pizza party and more!

We also were able to bring 1,500 Juniors together on Saturday evening for our online gathering, almost certainly our biggest BB online gathering ever! This saw us checking in with some of the locations, setting some fun on the spot challenges and hearing a special message from Christian magician, Paul Brown.

Anchors 140 Challenge

Throughout October Anchors have also been getting involved with the 140 celebrations, with their own challenge.

Anchor age groups have been tasked with creating the number ‘140’ in the most creative way possible.

This challenge is still ongoing, however so far we have already seen lots of brilliant submissions, including using glow sticks, BB uniform, games equipment, cakes, food bank donations, seashells, candles and more!

Celebrating through termly programmes

Groups have also been making use of our 140 activity cards to celebrate over the last few weeks.

This has included seeing Anchors create time capsules that they can open when they are Seniors, Juniors exploring The Boys’ Brigade in numbers, Company taking on our ‘Big BB Quiz’ and Seniors travelling back to 1883 in our ‘140 Years’ activity.

Groups have been sharing photos of these activities in action on social media using the hashtag #BB140.

140 Prayer & Thanksgiving

On Wednesday 4th October, the day of our 140th anniversary, our Ministry Team hosted an online thanksgiving and prayer gathering as part of the celebrations.

We were joined by Jonathan Eales, CEO; Rev Stuart Cutler, Brigade Chaplain; and dozens of leaders from across the country. We thanked God for all that he has done through the ministry of The Boys’ Brigade over the last 140 years and prayed for the ongoing and future ministry of the Brigade.

Gallery

Check out some photos from the various celebrations below…