September - Orientation: Volunteers meet for the first time and spend 6 days getting to know each other and learning more about JVC life and the placements they will work in.

November - Community & Simple Lifestyle: After 2 months of JVC life, we explore some of the positive and negative aspects of community, including  group formation and dynamics, and conflict resolution, and share ideas about living simply and sustainably.

February - Social Justice: Building on experience and encounters from their placement work and inner city life, facilitated sessions help volunteers share their experiences and reflect on how society can be challenged and changed. Volunteers look at the resources in their faith traditions which motivate and inspire them to do justice. Picking up the theme of simple lifestyle again we look at how living simply does justice.

May - Spirituality - Silent Retreat:  As the end of the JVC year approaches, volunteers experience an individually guided retreat in the Ignatian tradition, providing the opportunity for quiet reflection on the year so far, and plans for the future. The first weekend of the is spent looking at ways of praying, and how we get in touch with the life we are called to, and make good decisions about our lives. The rest of the retreat is spent in silence, meeting with a director once a day and praying and reflecting: some do this by walking in the gardens or by drawing in the art room.

July - Evaluation: The year ends with 4 days to look back over the year and reflect on what volunteers have  learned from it, what they brought to it and what they take away. It’s also a chance for the volunteers to spend some time together as a group and to say goodbye. It includes a time of celebration, where volunteers’ work and achievements are recognised.

Volunteers must pay for travel from their home to the location of the Orientation event in the Manchester area, and home again at the end of the Evaluation residential, which is held near Liverpool.

Apart from this, accommodation, meals and all other travel costs for the above events are paid for by JVC.

Link Weekend: Approximately 7 months after Gap Year volunteers have left JVC, they are invited back for the weekend of Palm Sunday, to enjoy each other’s company, and explore how JVC has affected their lives since the end of the programme.

Accommodation and meals are provided for the Link Weekend, but travel costs are the responsibility of the former volunteer.