Do be realistic about your arrival time on the Friday evening and don’t schedule sessions and/or meals in a way that means you are running late before the weekend has even started; it sets a bad precedent for the rest of the houseparty.

The weekend should have a good balance of content and time for relaxation. Even the ‘free time’ can be used most profitably if you have given some thought in advance as to how best to employ Saturday afternoon and evening. Remember that it is not justified to assume that all CU members are loyal exponents of the national sport, so do provide an alternative to football. A walk? A wide-game (these are harder to get right than you might think)? Ask the centre management if
they have any ideas.

Just as the afternoon is not automatically football time, so too you are not obliged to have a cabaret-type event in the evening and it may be that team games or a ‘whole line is it anyway?’ event would work well. If you do decide to have a cabaret night, the evening should have a delegated co-ordinator and compere and it is probably wise for them to get quite full explanation of what each act will entail. In this way they can both avoid repetition of well-known sketches and should be prepared to exercise a degree of gentle veto - the tone of more than one weekend away has been damaged by the performance of inappropriate material.

It is also worth noting that there is probably time between the evening meal and bedtime on the Saturday to fit in a serious session before the entertainments. I have seen this time used usefully for a question panel. The panel could feature the speaker, your staffworker or other older Christians. Questions are best submitted in writing to a chairperson (the CU president?).