The ongoing excitement of the Olympics and now the Paralympics has swallowed up the summer and it hardly seems possible that September can have come round so quickly. Whether you were glued to the 24 sport channels or taking advantage of empty galleries and museums, I hope you had a good summer.
Work is almost complete on the new clergy vestry, though the move in and re-ordering of the old vestry into an office are ongoing as decisions have to be made about exactly what to put where and how to make best use of the space.
Events this month
We will be welcoming James Sherlock as our new director of music on 9th with a drink after Evensong.
It’s the Friends of the Music Garden Party after the 10.30am service on 16th – see page 26 for ticket details.
On Saturday 22nd we are holding a Book Market so do bring your books along between now and Friday 21st. And then come on 22nd and buy more to replace them! We’ll also have a Traidcraft Stall, be serving tea and coffee and will be running Graveyard tours during the morning.
Sunday 29th is Harvest Thanksgiving so there’ll be much cleaning and decorating on the morning of 28th and then the Harvest Lunch following the 10.30am Eucharist on Sunday. Details will be on the pewsheet nearer the time.
Regular events
Wednesday Bible Study starts on 12th, Holy Hamsters on 13th, Women’s Bible Study on 17t.h
We’re glad to welcome Bach to Baby (formerly Classics with my Baby) for a new season starting on 18th.
September always feels to me like the start of something – the summer holiday period is over, the new academic year begins, we all take a deep breath and prepare ourselves for autumn so it seems appropriate to mention now a few volunteering opportunities/needs around the church.:
The first is the churchyard. If you visited a country church on holiday and marvelled at how well kept it was you were probably looking at a lot of dedicated work by local helpers. And that’s the only way we’re going to get ours tidy. We have a small and dedicated band who meet monthly and do what they can but we do need more. Now the lottery project is over we no longer have any help from outside beyond Camden’s occasional grass cutting (very occasional, alas). The ABG Trustees have recently paid to have some work done but their funds are limited and won’t stretch to much more. What we particularly need at the moment is someone who could use a cordless strimmer if we buy it, so that we can keep the area where ashes are being interred cut regularly.
The second is stewarding – being in the church during the day to welcome visitors. My aim through the summer has been to have 2 people around all day – either 2 staff or 1 staff and 1 volunteer and mostly we’ve achieved that – and thank you to everyone who helped make this possible. But once the holidays are over we’re back to a very limited number of people filling the slots and could do with more.
And then there’s hassock mending…. I don’t believe we’re EVER going to get to the end of them. Barbara Thomson started the repair programme in about 1990. And it’s not that once we get to the end we have to start again – the ones we’ve repaired are in good condition still, it’s just that there are so many still waiting to be done. We’ve always set aside Wednesday afternoons but now we 3 volunteers have taken to fixing a convenient date amongst ourselves so please contact me if you’d like to help. This month I’ve put it down for 5th if anyone would like to come and for October it will be Thursday 4th, both from 2.30pm.
In October we’ll all be invited to consider how much more we could give in time and talents so get ahead of the game, start thinking now!
September
Judy East