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OVERVIEW OF THE PARISH IN 2014
By the Churchwardens
It was a great surprise to the Parish that our Parish Priest, the Reverend Clive Fairclough, decided to take up the challenge of leading the Anglican Church Community in Moscow and moved from the Parish in July 2014. During his brief two and a half years with us, he brought enthusiasm and vision and led us through a period of analysis and planning for our Church priorities and directions. Not all the initiatives have moved forward as intended but it was a refreshing period.
Of the four priorities -
Renew and project our identity to the Community
Whilst each of the five Churches has given thought to the idea of “Friends of ...” bodies to encourage community support and involvement in the life and work of the Church, it is only in Fladbury that plans are being laid for such a scheme and here the concept has been broadened to focus more on village heritage. However, we have all been prompted to try to connect more deeply with our wider community and to build on existing practices, albeit without creating a formal structure. In Charlton, for example, there is increasing use of the Church building for village activities and throughout the Parish, pastoral care is provide for those in need.
Retain Focus on Young Families
Cushion Church in Wyre Piddle and Open the Book in Cropthorne and Fladbury Schools continue strongly. School services are held in both Churches and schools. Crib and Christingle services took place. However, the challenge remains to find attractive forms of worship to encourage young families to come to Church. We hope that a new Priest will help us to face this challenge.
Finance
Our ageing and declining congregations inevitably results in lower income and an inability to pay the full Parish Share. However, as the Treasurer reports, we do make a significant contribution to the Diocese towards the cost of clergy salaries, pension and housing and the Diocesan office. Our communities have indicated that they value the Church buildings in the villages. We need to find a way of working with them to raise more funds for essential maintenance of these historic buildings.
Nurturing the Spiritual Life of the Congregation
An on-going priority. We greatly value the spiritual guidance and leadership of our retired clergy who have enabled us to retain a pattern of regular worship across the Parish.
Conclusion
We hope in 2015 to be entering a new phase in the life of the Church in this Parish with a new Priest to lead and work with us who will also be working with Deanery colleagues in our neighbouring benefices. In the meantime, we are enormously grateful for the time, energy and enthusiasm of so many colleagues in all our villages who continue to further the example and work of Christ in this place. The following reports in this document are evidence of their efforts.
Bill North and Richard Mumford
PARISH STRUCTURE 2014
Church Wardens, Parish Priest [Vacant]& Parochial Church Council
Sub-
Committees / Lay Leaders
[LLM/Reader
& ALMs] / Churches / Administration / Parish
Wide
Groups
Deputy
Church
Wardens
Atlas [Mission] / St John the
Baptist
Fladbury / Treasurer / Bell Ringing
Communications / St Thomas’s
Lower Moor / Bookkeeper / Five Alive
Magazine
Fabric / St Anne’s
Wyre Piddle / Fees / Flaeda Singers
Finance / St John the
Evangelist
Charlton / Legal / Parish Choir
Green Charter / St Michael’s
Cropthorne / Parish Office / Open The Book
Healing / PCC
Secretary
Pastoral Care / Service Rota
Walk Abouts / Weddings
Baptisms
Funerals
Welcome Leaflet
OUR CHURCHES
St John the Baptist, Fladbury
Before Clive Fairclough left the parish we were running a full set of Sunday services, with two 8.00 am Communions a month and a 9.30 am service, of one sort or another, most weeks. Once the vacancy started services had to be fined down all across the parish and we have ended up with a 10.00 am Sunday Holy Communion on the fourth Sunday and a United Eucharist on the first Sunday - dropping the less popular Morning Worship. There is now only one 8.00 am Communion a month. It is good that the congregation for the United Service is from all distant parts of the parish, but the "family" element is sadly lacking for the fourth Sunday - this is now under review as I write.
The School uses the church for its end of term services: Christingle and Nativity; Easter; and Leavers' Farewell. They also select carefully for other uses/occasions to make sure that the times that they visit are meaningful.
After four attempts, Martin and Hilary Fowler finally managed to sell their house, moving out of the village in January 2015. Tribute must be paid to both of them for their support of the church over many years - Hilary with her flowers in particular and Martin very much for his work as Church Warden and also Parish Warden. We will miss them for their dedication and loyalty and we wish them well in their new abode.
There has been no significant structural alterations to the church building this year. We have had the annual de-cobweb/clean up and the cleaning rota has worked reasonably well, with grateful thanks to those on this "press-ganged" list! Flowers are in the capable hands of Celia Willis and her helpers and the bells are rung most expertly for every service by a dedicated team of bellringers. Thanks to all involved.
Jane Bugg has organised Coffee-and-Chat mornings on many Saturdays throughout the year, raising significant sums of money for worthy charities, including the church itself! Thanks to Jane. There are lots of people who do lots of things for our church and we are most grateful to everyone. It is in good hands at the moment, but we must constantly look to the future.
We are indebted to Stephen Malkinson for taking ownership of the Family Service on the fourth Sunday and Wendy for struggling to run a Sunday School. We are also grateful to Frank Bentley for (together with Stephen) presiding so expertly over other Sunday Services and maintaining the Wednesday morning Communion.
The churchyard is looking as good as it has been for many a year, with thanks to Dave our gardener and Bill North who supervises his hours and his work. We are also grateful to the Head family who (father and two sons), with such agility climb the precarious ladders to the top of the tower from time to time in order to fly the various flags...... a job that we churchwardens have willingly relinquished!!
There have been, in 2014: Weddings 10
Baptisms 3
Funerals 5
Memorial/Thanksgivings 3
Philip Hildesley and Martin Ounsted
Deputy Church Wardens
Fladbury Flower Festival and Walkabout
2014 was the second year that this event was being organised by the new management and, as joint chairmen, we can say that we had learnt quite a lot from the previous year and put to rights many of the mistakes that were made in 2013! We centralised many of the events in the main marquee, maximising its use; increased the bus route; opened up a second car park; changed the Saturday evening event to a fun evening for local people; continued the Monday Talk tradition with a very successful ‘History of Fladbury’ talk - and other things which escape our minds as we write!
We were blessed with good weather and the visitors came in their large numbers. Over twenty gardens were open and the flower festival in the church was quite stunning as usual. There seemed to be more classic cars than ever, the food in the village hall and the other food outlets raised significant sums of money, the stalls on the village green were doing a brisk trade, the exotic reptiles were an enormous attraction, however, the games on the recreation field did not take off as they were expected to do, the central music was different but good, the Saturday night "Party on the Green" seemed to go down very well; the raffle took a record sum of money! As always, a huge number of people were involved in one way or another - too many to single out - and we are enormously grateful to them for their time and effort.
After expenses, we made £7K profit and the Fladbury Cricket Club and the Fladbury Art Group were the two local organisations who applied for funds and were successful, receiving between them the designated 10%.
We look forward to another good Walkabout in 2015.
Philip Hildesley and Martin Ounsted
Joint Walkabout Chairmen
St Thomas’s Lower Moor
St. Thomas Church has seen a year which has included one baptism service in June and regular services throughout. We celebrated our Patronal Festival in July and Harvest Festival in September.
Harvest Festival, held in October this year, was supported by local growers and packers and, with the contributions from our Church family all produce, dry goods and tins were gratefully received by MAGGS the Worcester based charity providing meals for the homeless.
The Service of Remembrance, important to many of our Parishioners, was, as ever, well attended.
For Christingle, we again enjoyed a coffee morning in the Village Hall with the making of the Christingles; always a happy event. Christingle service was led by Stephen Malkinson marking the anticipation of Christmas.
In June we said goodbye to Reverend Clive following his final service with us before taking up his overseas appointment.
As last year, we welcomed a Salvation Army Band to lead us in carol singing on Lower Moor Village green; the weather a little on the windy side but the music grand and the singing of some eighty voices a very welcome sound.
Thanks are due to all those who support St. Thomas Church; those who work in the background, quietly giving their time and without whom church life would be difficult.
The one sad note from the year gone by is the passing of our friend Tom MacDonald.
The church is open from early morning to early evening every day for those who wish to visit or rest in the quite for a moment of reflection.
Carol and Michael Martin
Mission and Outreach
In 2006 the Committee of St Thomas Church decided that the Leisure Home Development in Salter’s Lane, Lower Moor should be made aware of the Church in the village and an approach was made to the Site Owners, Allen Caravans Ltd. They enthusiastically supported the proposal to hold a Songs of Praise service in their beautiful clubhouse on the side of the main lake and as it was a balmy summer evening the service was held on a large balcony over the lake. As a result of the success of that event a Harvest and Christmas celebration have been held every year since. Many thanks are due to the stalwart team from our five villages and beyond who continue to organise these events and the motley crew of singers, performers and musicians who regularly turn out.
The attendance has steadily grown and at the last Christmas event there was a congregation of 110, largely Springs residents. Why don’t you join the next event to make this a real Parish outreach?
Graham Pharo
St Anne’s Wyre Piddle
This year has seen some changes to the pattern of Worship due to Reverend Clive’s departure. To start with we continued the pattern as in previous years with a monthly Holy Communion and Cushion Church and we are happy to welcome the whole parish for United Services. Since Reverend Clive left the pattern has changed and we no longer host the united services. The Holy Communion services were reduced to every other month, as clergy to preside are in short supply. We are very grateful to Reverend Stephen Malkinson who takes most of our Holy Communion services and to Reverend Ian Spencer who has led Cushion Church throughout 2014.
Every five weeks Morning Prayer takes place in Wyre at 8.30 am in rotation with the other churches. We have also welcomed the ‘Towards Wholeness’ team. St Anne’s Patronal Festival in July was celebrated with a ‘Songs of Praise’ service, which was well received. There have also been three funerals and two baptisms during the year. In August we were delighted to welcome Bishop Graham who led prayers in the church as part of his walk through the parishes. The Crib Service on Christmas Eve was again well attended and much enjoyed.
We rely on a faithful group to keep everything running smoothly. Wendy Malkinson organises the rota for services and sets up for the Holy Communion. There are several readers and intercessors and we are lucky to have two servers. We are grateful to Philip Hildesley and Eiluned Morgan-Nash for playing the organ at our worship. Kate Burston and Eve Meusz have contributed greatly to the success of Cushion Church. The rota of cleaners, led by Sylvia Fletcher and the flower arranges led by Vivien Ford keep the church looking well-cared for and beautifully decorated. We are very grateful to Jonathan Parkes for his work on the fabric and churchyard.
This year the churchyard has been improved by a path leading down to the garden of rest. We are grateful for the donations and the grant from the Parish Council which helped us pay for this project. The churchyard is well cared for – thanks to Cara Scott and Jonathan Parkes for their work. We also have some lovely snowdrops planted by Pete Bond and Angela Hayden, which are enhancing our churchyard.
Fund raising events have included two coffee mornings, stalls at the village fete, a Harvest Supper with entertainment by FOG and a Christmas Quiz. We are very grateful to everyone who helps to support the church in this village and throughout the parish.
Liz Gardner
St John the Evangelist, Charlton