The Parish Church of St John-at-Hampstead

The PCC will meet on Monday 13 November for its last meeting of 2017.
At the meeting held on 18 September we received a report from Diana Finning on the successful “Holiday in Hampstead” week which took place in August, and heard about the Junior Church activities on 17 September which raised over £600 for the “Send a Cow” charity appeal.  Rosemary Loyd reported on the work of the Social Action working party, and highlighted the appeal for donations of men’s winter clothes and shoes in good condition for the local Contact Club for homeless people.  John Barker also told us about an inspiring event he had attended at the House of Lords in connection with the “Safe Passage” scheme for helping refugee children. 

We discussed the on-going preparations for the C4WS Night Shelter which will be hosted in the Crypt Room on Saturday nights as from 11 November, co-ordinated by Andrew Penny, including the purchase of a new freezer and other planned improvements to the facilities in the parish rooms.  We also received an update on the plans for the church to sponsor a Syrian refugee family.

Plans for the recruitment of our next Director of Music were also discussed, as well as the arrangements for organising the choir and other musical activities during the period when the post is vacant.  Also on the subject of music, the Vicar told us that David Moore had suggested giving the Junior Choir more opportunities to sing a full service, and we agreed that they will now sing a full Evensong on a Thursday evening twice per month. 

We reviewed proposals for preparing our new Mission Action Plan for 2018-22, beginning with the Parish Survey which should be under way by the time you read this.  Finally the Vicar gave us some initial information about a prospective new curate who will hopefully join us in 2018.  More news on both of these will follow in due course!