#391: the festival of new school shoe purchases
Dear friends,
Bertie here, just back from a very exciting weekend at the Greenbelt Christian Festival in Kettering, to find a very cheery fox pruning itself on the Rectory lawn. Greenbelt was amazing- two of the foodstalls sold cheese! I tried them both. Repeatedly. And some of the talks were great, and so was the music, and the corporate singing, and the worship, and the comedy- Milton Jones was superb- and we saw lots of old friends, and had a great time. And it didn’t even rain that much. We must all go next year, all of us, every one of us. But before then there is a fox to chase off the lawn- let me just go an do that [long pause]- actually, turns out that I may have slightly overestimated how fearsome I am- I was lucky to get away with my tail and my whiskers there- anyway, here is the news…
Coming Soon
This Sunday is the blessing of School bags at 9.30 and 11- do please come along with your school, college or work bags to have them blessed. There is also a 10am Service at Woosehill as usual.
The Funeral of Douglas Stuckey will be at Easthampstead Park Crematorium at midday on Wed the 6th of Sep.
Ride and Stride and Heritage Weekend
Lots happening on the weekend of the 9th and 10th of September…
Ride and Stride need more volunteers to cycle round or walk round, and also more people to sponsor, and also more people to be at Church to welcome weary pilgrims… We will need 8 people willing to do an hour that day in Church, from 10 to 6pm. Please do volunteer if you can! It will be fun. Andrew Harte has sent this message for Bertie to pass on…
September 9th 2023 – Ride & Stride
This is the annual event to raise money for both the Berkshire Historic Churches Trust (who provide grants to help maintain church buildings) and St Paul’s Parish.
There is still time to take part as a Walker or a Rider to visit churches in Berkshire but we particularly need a team of volunteer Welcomers in the church to greet people visiting St Paul’s Church. As it is also Heritage Weekend there should be more visitors than usual. Welcomers usually cover a one hour slot between 10am and 6pm, so we need at least eight volunteers.
Please let Andrew know if you can help by being a Welcomer, by dropping him an email.
If you can’t help, please sponsor those who are. Andrew will have his sponsorship form at the back of the church after the 9:30 Mass this Sunday, 3rd Sept!!
Email Andrew at: rideandstride@spauls.org.uk
Sponsor him using Just Giving: https://www.justgiving.com/page/rideandstride2023-stpaulswokingham-andrew
And as part of Heritage Weekend there is this… Colin Weedon will be giving a lecture at 11 and 2 on the Stained Glass Windows in Church on Sat the 9th of September.
And then, on the evening of Sunday the 10th of September, there is an evening of Games and Conversation for people who are new or newish to church- everyone welcome from 7pm in the Parish Rooms- please bring a board game and a drink and we will do the nibbles. Suitable for all ages. And do come along even if you are not that new…
Other News and Notices
Thank you to Chris Cipkin for his excellent Organ Concert 10 days ago, which raised very nearly £500 for the Church Restoration Fund.
SPLOG is a welcoming group for gentlemen who gather every other month for a meal and conversation. John Sutton is the convenor. He writes: “Our next Splog will be on Friday 29th September 2023 at Chalk in Wokingham at 8pm, meeting at the Broad Street Tavern beforehand, at 7pm. As last time, they will do us two courses from the attached menu for us for £25, excluding service. As always, drinks will be paid for individually. Please email splog.wokingham@gmail.com if you would like to find out more, or go on the mailing list.
The old oak tree by the Reading Road which dropped a large bough into the Churchyard earlier in the month is not at all healthy. We are currently waiting for an official report from an arbiculturalist but the early indications are that we are going to have to remove most of the tree because it is so badly weakened. We will keep you posted as soon as we have definite news.
The latest update from Bishop Hall, featuring the MU Conference we sent a donation from the parish towards:
The Lucky Numbers draw for August took place before the 8 am service at St Paul’s on Sunday 27th August
Congratulations to the lucky winners who were:
£50 # 53 Wendy Darlison
£25 # 73 Gordon Lupton
£15 # 49 Jane Sherwood
£10 # 15 Brian and Jenny Perris
One share (number) costs £24 per year, and you can have as many shares as you wish. Funds remaining after the distribution of the prizes go to the Restoration Fund, for repairs and renewals to the church building.
For more information, please contact Tony Roberts (979 5351), Liz Gallagher (989 1176) or Mary Cassidy (979 5096) – or talk to Mary at St Paul’s, or Tony or Liz at St Nicholas’.
And here is the September edition of the Deanery prayer cycle:
