Your 2026 summer update ☀️

Hi friends,

A big part of our preparation for the next season is finding the right team to deliver our amazing holidays at Le Pas Opton. As the sun begins to shine after a grey Vendée winter, we’re delighted to say recruitment is going well!

Speakers and Worship Leaders

My key role is to invite our speakers, worship leaders and pastoral team and we’ve got a great team to introduce you to. It’s great to welcome back some familiar faces and today I’d like to introduce some new people joining us this summer.

We’re welcoming the former Chaplain-General of the British Army, Jonathan Woodhouse to input into our Retreat week. He’ll also be making some guest appearances on weeks 1 and 3 as he has a great testimony to share as well as leading a stream for those in Christian leadership. Olly Goldenberg, director of Children Can will be a great addition to Count Everyone In week and our expanding Pre-Schoolers family week. Ben and Emma Jeffery are Senior Pastors of Soulcity Church in Manchester and educate their children outside of mainstream schooling, and we’re looking forward to what they will bring to the Home Education week. We’re delighted to have Dutch speaker Wim Hoddenbagh with us in July. Wim is a prominent speaker and founder of Presence with a heartfelt message to bring the Dutch closer to God. Gareth Higgs, part of the Moorlands Faculty, picks up the reigns for the Equipped week. Also making his first LPO visit is Patrick Regan, an activist who is passionate about speaking on themes such as resilience, courage and wellbeing. It’s great to have Martin Young and Krish Kandiah back with us again as well for their first visits in a few years.

New to the worship team, we welcome Stuart and Gill Davison who will lead worship at the Retreat. April Ballard, a worship leader and songwriter from the south west, will be leading worship at half term. You may have met her at New Wine and David’s Tent. Stepping from the band into the lead role we also have Rob and Joke Buis working together with Beth Cutting.

Please do pray for our new and returning team as they prepare to minister to us and lead us in worship. Please also pray as we’re looking for one speaker and one worship leader to complete the line up. Full details on the team can be found on our website at Spring Harvest Holidays | Bible study & worship

Animateurs and Bénévoles

Throughout the winter Lou Bentley, our Volunteer Manager, has been busy recruiting a great team.

Lou writes:

For the last few months we have been working hard recruiting our Animateur team for 2026. We have spoken to over 100 applicants - a mixture of new and returning Animateurs and it was a real privilege to speak to every single one of them. The calibre was incredibly high and I was struck time and time again by the depth of faith these young people have. In a world that so often says no to the truth of the Gospel, these young people are stepping out in their churches, workplaces and campuses to share the Good News of Jesus, and they will bring that same desire to LPO this Summer, sharing with our children and youth. We have invited approximately 70 young people to be part of our Animateur team this summer, which is amazing. Sadly, we did have to turn down some really strong applicants (mainly because of their availability) so please pray for them in their disappointment.

I've also been working on recruiting other volunteer teams. Our Montage team is ready to join us in April and again, we had even more people applying this year. The second week of Montage averages 16 people which is the biggest it has been in a while! This is such a blessing to us as there is a lot to do in the last few weeks before season starts and having a team this size means we will be in really good shape for May 11^th . There are lots of different tasks - it's not just putting up tents - and we're looking forward to working alongside such a servant-hearted group of people. There's still room for more if you're interested in joining us, or know of anyone else who might be!

Our Bénévole team is also growing but we still have a number of gaps in the team. We are still looking for team cooks, Night Shepherds, minibus drivers and people for Hire Centre. We are grateful for those that will be joining us and would appreciate your prayers for others to come forward to join us. With that, please spread the news into your networks as we find that word-of-mouth can be very effective too. Find out more about volunteering with us at Spring Harvest Holidays | Volunteering

LPO Staff Team

Dave Bentley, our Park Manager, has been busy recruiting our seasonal staff team at LPO and has some new names to introduce you to.

Dave writes:

It’s great to see the LPO staff team shaping up for the coming season. I’m delighted that Sally will be taking over the lead role in the Vendée Vous Café. Sally joined us last year in the cleaning team. She loves LPO and our guests and is a great fit in this key role, working alongside Gwendoline who returns for another year. While many of you will miss Gary bringing you your daily hot beverage, he is loving his full-time role in the site team, working with James to learn all there is about maintaining our accommodation. Gary is also working alongside Jeremy and new seasonal team member Matheo, all busy making the site look amazing for you under the leadership of James. Olivier will be back with us and is already full of ideas for what best to serve you at the bar. With Surya heading up the kitchen team and new and old faces joining us, you’ll be well fed and watered again in 2026.

We're delighted to see some returning faces in our reception team. Across our Welcome team we'll be able to converse in French of course, and clearly English, but we can add native Spanish, Dutch, Korean and Indonesian to the list now! Our cleaning team is similarly diverse and after a trialling time recruiting, we are delighted to have found two good people to join Alice and our three returners to make ready our accommodation across site. We're busy recruiting smaller contracts for the summer to make sure those arrivals days go as smoothly as possible.

Please do keep our team in your prayers, for safety, health, and energy as we draw closer to the 2026 season.

Annual General Meeting of the Association Le Pas Opton

Annual General Meeting of the Association Le Pas Opton
If you were the lead booker or a member of our team in 2025 you should have received an invitation to the online Annual General Meeting at 7.00pm UK time on Tuesday 24th March. If you haven’t received your invitation please contact Guest Services.

Thank you for your ongoing support of Spring Harvest Holidays, Le Pas Opton.

John Musgrave

Managing Director, Spring Harvest Holidays

President's Representative, Association Le Pas Opton