News for 2002
January:
After the very busy time in the church over the Christmas and New Year period, 2002 started fairly quiet. At the church leader's meeting this month, Mike Rawlinson volunteered to take on the role of church secretary. The secretary acts as the 'official' point of contact within the church for dealings with outside organisations and the Connexion of which we are part.
A few new people have continued to worship with us after coming to some of the services over the 2001 festive period.
The joint ecumenical service was held towards the end of January in the church, where we shared with our brothers and sisters in Christ from Bishop's Cleeve and surrounding areas in a celebration of praise and worship during the week of Christian Unity.
Another structural change occured in the church this month with the construction of a partition wall in the back room of the church. This partition wall, complete with double doors has created a sizeable and valuable storage area for tables, chairs and various 'bits and pieces'. The additional benefit is that the remaining space is now completely free of clutter and muddles.
As a result of the re-organisation of the back room, the church can now offer a creche area for some of the younger children and their parent(s). This has proved to be immediately useful and popular with a couple of families being able to remain in the church whilst their off-spring are being safely cared for on the church premises.
With the use of the back room for the creche facilities, came a new challenge - that being the relocating of the G-Force group. This thriving group of young people now meet off the church premises in a converted loft space in a large thatched roof garage belonging to one of the church congregation. This enables the G-Force group to 'raise' the volume levels now that they meet independently of the main church. We thank Eddie for the use of this facility.
Food and friendship seemed to be the flavour of this month with three separate events serving to bring the church congregation together. At the start of the month (3rd) G-Force laid on a charity dinner in Southam village hall, with the food having a Mexican theme. The evening was very well attended with friends old and new and the food was really very good. In total, the money raised amounted to £313.04. People International will benefit from this. If you are interested, you can find out more about People International. Thank you G-Force.
On the 17th many of the congregation remained in the church after the morning service to participate in a shared lunch - we all brought something savoury and something sweet and shared it. There was more than enough food to go around and again, the time spent together enabled us to find out more about each other.
The third event on the 31st was the traditional Easter Breakfast, although this year a slight break from the tradition, the breakfast was held in the old village hall in Woodmancote. Once again, Keith and Ruth made all the arrangements and those of us that attended enjoyed a very pleasant (and tasty) start to Easter Sunday. Thank you Keith & Ruth.
A good crowd from the church and friends joined together at the Garrison Savannah Suite (Kings Head) in Bishop's Cleeve on the 26th and enjoyed a really fun time together attempting to play skittles. Various teams competed against each other in a friendly sort of way, with no real threat of scoring serious points! More of the 'bowls' passed straight through the 'pins' than actually hit their targets! As usual, great fun was had and some dark horses were identified as having a couple of good eyes between them - sufficient to win the event! If only some of us practised we could actually pose a serious threat....
This month saw the last evening communion service take place - in its traditional form. For many years the numbers of the congregation had been lowering and had reached approximately eight to ten people per Sunday evening. Through careful thought and steadfast prayer, ways in which the church can open its doors at times other than Sunday mornings are to be considered within the leadership team and congregation as a whole.
On a more positive note, we enjoyed each others company on 22nd June when we restaged an outdoor games afternoon complete with barbeque on the local Woodmancote Primary School playing fields. Fortunately for us the weather remained fine with plenty of early evening sunshine. Various games were played including rounders, chucking the welly and after the helpings of food a varied and motley crew of all ages staged an impromptu game of football. Some of the players taking part hadn't had that much exercise for 'many' years! Overall the event was a hugh success with nearly all the church turning out (for the food!) and a good hardy bunch taking part in some of the games.
We experienced a fairly quiet period during the summer months of July and August. Some of us enjoyed a gentle country walk in July followed by a superb summer cream tea at the home of Eddie, with plenty of scones, jam and fresh cream washed down with tea (and squash for the children!). The afternoon weather was magnificent and most enjoyable.
August saw the majority of the church congregation away on their summer holidays, getting plenty of well earned rest and relaxation. One major event for the church building was the replacement of the old wooden flooring in the main church hall. This floor covering (mainly chipboard) had seen better days and had actually given way during last year's childrens Holiday Club! Now we boast a new fully tongue and groove floor. We will be taking the opportunity later in the year to completely re-decorate and re-carpet the church.
In September itself, we enjoyed a first for the church in the form of a Harvest talent evening. This event was all about sharing our God given gifts of talent with our church family. Many people attended the event in Southam village hall, with displays of handy work (wood turning, photography, painting, model making) and a fabulous demonstration of talent on stage. This element of the evening was really good fun with such diverse 'acts' of talent as; puppet show, flute playing, recorder/piano pieces, poetry (both serious and funny) and a short but hilarious rendition of 'Cinderella' [Cinders to you!]. We mustn't forget that the evening was also made complete with a fantastic spread of food and (you guessed) puddings. The following Sunday (8th) saw the church harvest service - this year the donations of food and produce was given over to the Cheltenham Homeless Project.
In comparison to the previous month, October was particularly busy in the life of the church. Three items worthy of mention were the church Annual General Meeting, the church Leadership elections and the children's holiday club.
Annual General Meeting:
We hope to bring you a small article linked to the reports from the various groups presented at this years meeting.
Leadership elections:
Church leadership elections were held this month. Ken Petersen had stepped down from the leadership team, David Hall and Gareth Howell chose to stand again and to seek re-election, Elizabeth Lewis and Andrew Hiscock stood for election to the team. Nigel Cleaver remained as part of the team, not needing to seek re-election to serve the 3rd year on the team. All those who stood for election were duly elected.
Holiday club:
SPLASH! hosted another holiday club at the end of October. We hope to bring a small article with some pictures to mark this special event in our church calendar.
Many people in the church were extremely busy this month redecorating the church. Much effort was required to make good the wear and tear in the high ceiling. The work took approximately two weeks to complete and together with a new colour scheme we took full advantage of re-carpeting the church on top of the newly installed floor (this was completed in the previous August).
December:
Our traditional Carols by Candlelight service took place on the Sunday evening prior to Christmas day. There were no surprises this year in that the church was packed to its limits, with every available space filled. It was good to see many new faces from the local community and we pray that we will see them again in the future. Other services were conducted during the Christmas period (the afternoon children's nativity service and the Christmas morning birthday celebrations). The attendance on Christmas morning was phenominal! A scene never witnessed before - the Church again packed almost to capacity.
We had a really good time at our Christmas party - held this year in the New Village Hall in Woodmancote. Held there this year for comfort and safety reasons, we enjoyed really good food, good company and a cracking set of party games suitable for all ages.