Letter from Deborah, late July
Dear Friends
Thank you to everyone who attended the Away Day at Holtwood at the beginning of this month. It proved to be a very worthwhile exercise, both in terms of getting people's thoughts about a sense of direction for the church, and as a means of getting to know those we don't usually sit with. The thoughts and suggestions gathered from the Away Day will be discussed at an extra-ordinary church council which will be held on the 9th August, with a view to putting together a strategy for mission and outreach over the coming months and years.
Thank you to everyone who came along to our Cornish Cream Tea, despite the heavy rainfall in the morning and the threat of rain throughout the afternoon, we managed to host this in the garden, serving somewhere between 50 and 60 cream teas (I lost count!).
During August we continue to hold a midweek communion at 11am on the third Thursday (15th), and Film Night on the fourth Friday (23rd) of each month. It would be lovely to see newcomers to either of these events. Please keep your eyes on the internal noticeboards and read the monthly newsletter for details of the next film.
In my last letter, I suggested a need to update our photo-board, and asked you to send a recent photograph of yourself to Brian Wilkinson. So far, very few of you have responded. If you don't have a recent photo, please ask Brian or me to take your picture next time we see you. It would be lovely to start the new Connexional year on the 1st September with a full board of people who are regularly part of our church community.
As you will know, worship is provided by ministers and local preachers Sunday by Sunday, but every now and again it is prepared and provided in-house, something the Methodist Church calls a 'local arrangement (LA)'. Recently we have had two LA, the first prepared by David Kendall, then this month by Ted Awty. As a church it would be wonderful to have a small group to plan and prepare future LA, as collectively there is the potential to spark ideas and thoughts and different ways of doing things. If this is something you might be interested in, please speak to me or one of our stewards.
Regarding church stewards, we are still short on people prepared to rise to the challenge of taking on this responsibility. Again, if this is something you would like to know more about please get in touch with me or one of our current stewards.
On Sunday I mentioned two things. Firstly, the possibility of not taking up an offering during the service but asking people to place their free-will giving in the plate as they enter the sanctuary.
Secondly, a new series for a lunchtime discussion group, based on A Methodist Way of Life. In essence, this is an opportunity to respond to God's gift of love, by considering twelve things that we might do individually and together to help us worship God, serve others, be evangelistic, and learn and care together. The first of these will be held on Thursday 29th August, at 12.30pm please bring a packed lunch.
Thank you to Linda for putting together the Church Newsletter. If you have news to share, please contact her, we would love to know your good news stories.
Grace & Peace
Deborah
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Newsletter for August 2024
Services for August
4th August: Revd David Vincent
11th August: Revd Deborah Cornish – Holy Communion
18th August: Mrs Joyce Wild
25th August: Revd Deborah Cornish – Cafe Church
Late July news
Film Night Friday 26th July at 7pm – Goodnight Mr Tom
The aggressive behaviour of an ageing man changes drastically in the company of a young evacuee from London whom he came across during World War II. An excellent book, so the film will be well worth watching!
Wimborne Food Bank – Family Fun Day Saturday July 27th 10.30 – 2.30
The field at Wimborne Rugby Club, Gordon Road, off Leigh Road
Ems Friendly Farm – Jamie Jigsaw – Tumble Tots – Crafts – Face Painting
Friendly Food Club – Competitions – Ice Cream Van – Fish and Chip Van etc
Everyone is welcome (voluntary donations if you are able to)
Margaret Shortall
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Heartfelt thanks
Saturday 13th July saw Deborah and John host a Cream Tea for the church family at the Manse. They worked tirelessly preparing, serving and clearing up for between 50 and 60 people. A peep behind the scenes showed just how skilled they were with their organisation; a hint that they had done this before at other times and in other places!
All present appeared to have an enjoyable time, the sun shone and £422 was raised to be divided between Dorset Action for Children projects and the Matthew Rusike Children's Home in Zimbabwe.
Sincere thanks go to Deborah and John for the time, effort and love given to the afternoon
Editor
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Message from the Circuit Leadership team
Just a short update on Laura and Andrew Pottage (Andrew is Superintendent Minister of the circuit). Laura is doing really well but continues with treatment. After discussion with the Acting Chair of District Rachel Borgars it has been decided that Andrew should begin his phased return to work by taking a service at each of the four churches in the coastal section during July/August resuming his full-time role in September.
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Methodist Prayer Handbook 2024/25
I will soon be ordering this new edition for us, so if you would like to receive a copy (cost £4.00), please let me know – either at church or on david.vincent16@outlook.com or 01202 883061.
If you received a copy of last year's edition, I will order this new edition for you unless you advise me otherwise.
In her song of praise, the 'Magnificat' (Luke 1:46-55), Mary thanks God for the child Jesus, who will announce God's kingdom which "brings down the powerful from their thrones and lifts up the lowly."
To engage in God's mission and be part of that transformation, we believe the Methodist Church is called to become an increasingly evangelistic, inclusive and justice-seeking Church.
Following the prophet Isaiah's call, echoing through the ages to us and reflected in Mary's prayer, the 2024/2025 Prayer Handbook focuses on how the Church can "learn to do right; seek justice and defend the oppressed" (Isaiah 1:17a, NIV).
The Methodist Prayer Handbook includes prayers for every day of the year together with the daily lectionary for the year.
David Vincent
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Summer Celebration
Our 'Celebrations' for children and their families have been extremely successful over the last few years. For the first time this year we are going to hold a 'Summer Celebration' during the school holidays which will take place onMonday 19 August at 2 pm. We invite our church congregation to come and share this outreach with us and experience our church bursting with families. The versatility of the refurbished Sanctuary does help these events. There is a poster on the board in the Foyer with the details so do put the date in your diary and we look forward to seeing you there.
Jan and Joy
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'Threads though Creation – on tour'.Details at http://www.bible-threads.com
"This is an exhibition of 12 huge silk panels bringing wonderful colour and pattern to the creation story..."
Our nearest venue is Sherborne Abbey, 29 Aug – 6 Oct 24.
This was discussed at the recent Stewards' meeting and if enough people show interest, it may be possible to arrange a minibus to take a dozen or so people. Please let the Stewards know if this is something you would like to attend.
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Welcome Service.
On behalf of the Southampton District of the Methodist Church, I am delighted to invite you to join us at the Welcome Service for the incoming District Chair, the Reverend Rachel Bending on Sunday, September 1st 2024 at 3:00 p.m. The service will take place at Salisbury Methodist Church, 26, St. Edmunds Church Street, Salisbury, SP1 1EF. The service will be led by the Assistant Secretary of the Conference, the Revd. Michaela Youngson and the preacher will be the Revd. Dr. Jennifer Smith from Wesley's Chapel, London. It will include the celebration of Holy Communion for all who wish to share. As is customary on such occasions, light refreshments will be served following the service. Directions for finding the church can be found here: https://salisburymethodist.org.uk/contact/ We ask if you could kindly register your attendance, please, in order to gauge numbers for seating and catering. https://sdmc-welcome-service.eventbrite.co.uk
Revd Rachel Borgars, Acting Chair, Southampton District of The Methodist Church
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With blessings,
Linda Bennett, on behalf of the Stewards
Linda.bennett176@gmail.com
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Newsletter for July 2024
HOUSE GROUP special meeting
We have just had the opportunity of a special meeting with Professor Judith Lieu, who is a long-serving Methodist lay-preacher as well as being a notable New Testament scholar, so she is well used to bringing academic insights into our Congregations.
She welcomed our various questions, acknowledging the difficulties of fully understanding these ancient writings, yet also reflecting her own sincere Christian faith. I'm sure all of our Group now have a better appreciation of how the earliest Christians clarified their own faith in Jesus and his message, which is of course expressed for us in the New Testament.
Our questions to Judy mostly followed on from our previous Group bible study: 'Who is Jesus for us today?', so we asked her to focus on four main areas:
- How reliable are the Gospels as records of Jesus' life and teaching?
- Mary's 'virgin birth' of Jesus
- Jesus as the 'Son of God', and 'Immanuel – God with us'.
- Jesus' resurrection.
I imagine that each of our Group members came away with their own particular new insights, as well as a few new questions to think about. To me, this session has underlined how it is good to have a 'questioning faith', but that ultimately 'we walk by faith, not by sight'.
David Vincent.
Folk Festival
A huge 'thank you' to those who gave so much of their time and energy over the Folk Festival weekend. Thanks also to those who supported us by providing cakes and other items to sell along with those of you who visited us for refreshments. We were fortunate this year to have help on the Saturday from New Life Community Church which was much appreciated. The setting up and clearing up each day was well organised with some of our younger element, particularly those from Hi Ten, helping out.
The dry weather was very welcome as we welcomed people from near and far. We made a profit of £1,800 which will be split between our two chosen charities – Julia's House and Lewis-Manning along with our own church funds, towards the purchase and installation of the Defibrillator which is now on the outside of our building.
The Folk Festival Committee
New Defibrillator
As many of you will be aware we now have a defibrillator installed on the outside wall of the church. This is available all day, every day to all members of the public and our fellowship as instructed by the emergency services when a 999 call has been made.
For anyone who is interested, online CPR training is a free tool that can teach you to save a life in 15mins. Learn to do CPR and use a defibrillator in just 15mins on your mobile phone, tablet or computer. Log onto revivr.bhf.org.uk Please print your certificate as proof of completion.
If anyone has any questions, please contact me
Di Browning.
Editor's note
My yahoo e-mail account is closing down so please ensure you use linda.bennett176@gmail.com when contacting me.
With blessings,
Linda Bennett on behalf of the Stewards
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Here is Deborah's letter for the second half of June:
Dear Friends
The last weekend in May was a truly joyous occasion. The new lectern fall, beautifully designed and crafted by Donna and Brenda, was dedicated, along with the defibrillator which has been installed and registered. For those of you unable to attend worship, there is a photo of the fall at the end of this letter.
In addition, we hosted the marriage of Fay and Paul, which I believe is the first wedding in nearly fifteen years. Their family and friends were very impressed with the welcome they received from the stewards and the coffee lounge. The sanctuary itself was beautifully decorated, with the flower arrangements courtesy of Christine, and the pompons made by Paul. The musical accompaniment was provided by Adrian, with John on the sound desk making sure the surprise message from the bride was heard by all.
We are now looking forward to a busy weekend with the Folk Festival this will be my first experience of Wimborne's folk festival. As usual the church will be open, providing the usual hospitality, together with an opportunity to stock up on a fresh supply of books and a few gifts for friends and family. I hope to see you there.
At the recent stewards' meeting we agreed that it would be good to meet as a church and plan for the future. With that in mind, we have booked Holtwood Methodist Church for Saturday 6th July from 10am to 2pm. This is an opportunity for as many people as possible to come along and continue the conversation that was held at the Annual Church Meeting. We will begin with worship, there will be three sessions, interspersed with refreshments, ending with a light lunch. To ensure that as many people as possible can attend we would like to offer transport for those unable to get there otherwise. To help with the organisation of this, there is a sign-up sheet at the church, this asks for your name, whether you need a lift or can offer a lift, and to help with the catering please let us know if you have any food allergies or intolerances and we will endeavour to accommodate these.
Looking to the future, it has been noted that our photo-gallery in the sanctuary is out of date, and it would be lovely to show newer photos. The plan is to do this during August, so we start our new Connexional year in September with a pristine collection. Your help with this would be appreciated, please send an up-to-date photo of yourself to Brian Wilkinson or leave one in his post-box near the vestry. It would help to have these as ASAP, so we know who we need to take photos of if you don't have one available.
Friday 28th June will be the next Film Night, which starts at 7pm. We will be showing a film based on the true story of a 61-year old taxi driver (played by Jim Broadbent) who steals the portrait of the Duke of Wellington from the National Gallery. He then sends ransom notes saying he will return the painting if the government invests more in care for the elderly.
John and I will be hosting aCornish Cream Tea at the manse, between 3-5pm on Saturday 13th July, with donations for the work of Action for Children and Matthew Rusike Children's Home in Zimbabwe. There will be a sign-up sheet for this at the end of this month, just to give me some indication of how many people to prepare for.
Peace & Grace
Deborah
Here are two letters for the month of June – an early edition of the June Newsletter and a letter from Deborah – both have interesting items.
Newsletter for June 2024
Services for June
2nd: Revd. Deborah Cornish
9th: Folk Festival Service Minster Green 10a.m.
16th: Local Arrangement
23rd: Ms Liz Ward
30th: Revd. Deborah Cornish
Folk Festival – Saturday 8th & Sunday 9th June
It is almost here!
We will be open from 9.00 – 5.00 on Saturday and 10.00 – 4.00 on Sunday.
What do we need?
CAKES, PAPERBACK BOOKS, JIGSAWS and NEW UNUSED GIFTS
Items for the Folk Festival stalls can be delivered to church on Sunday 2 June at the morning service or in the week commencing 3 June during coffee lounge or on Friday 7 June in the afternoon from 2.00 pm.
We are hoping for plenty of cakes for our stall. We find that cakes with lots of cream are not as popular but coffee cake sells like mad! Tray bakes, homemade biscuits, savouries along with cheese, plain and fruit scones are in demand as well. We would also like some gluten free or dairy free cakes. Please let us know if your cakes have been frozen.
As last year, we are having a 'New Unused Gifts Stall' so do look in your cupboards to find all those gifts that you have been given but not used.
The Folk Festival Ecumenical Service is being held at 10.00 am on the Minster Green so don't forget to come over to us afterwards for coffee. If you are not attending the service, do join us for coffee, share a time of fellowship and then enjoy your lunch in the Wesley Hall.
A big thank you to all those who will be helping over the weekend. This is much appreciated. If you are unable to help, please support us by popping in for refreshments. These are being served on both days including lunches between 12 – 2 pm. We are raising money for Julia's House and Lewis-Manning Hospice Care along with our church funds.
The Folk Festival Committee (Jenny, Joy, Kate and Terry)
Wimborne Food Bank news
Good Afternoon Supporters,
I cannot believe it is May already!! Thank you so much for your support, we really cannot thank you all enough.
I am busy planning for our upcoming Family Fun Day which is planned for Saturday 27th July (weather permitting) from 10.30-2.30pm on the field by Wimborne Rugby Club so I have been busy contacting local businesses for raffle prizes & for a teddy bear for our name the bear competition.
We are also planning a Community Lunch, our school summer holiday parcels for pupil premium families & the Easter cooking event that we held with the Friendly Food Club was so well received that we are planning another cooking session with them in the October half term. The Friendly Food Club are also coming to our family fun day along with Jamie Jigsaw, Tumble Tots, Diamond Faces Face Painting, Ems Friendly Farm & more!
We have been given a large number of toiletries by a couple of local businesses so we have been giving out an additional toiletry bag alongside each parcel.
We now have 6 people in our money advice team, one of which is a debt advisor. They are working with many families to help them with budgeting & reducing their debts & are at the sessions every Wednesday morning.
We recently changed the layouts in our food stores, so we have much more room to make the parcels & store items. So, the volunteers are happy!!
Our stock levels are doing ok thanks to the support of our wonderful caring local community although they are not quite keeping up with demand. The items that we are short of we post on our social media Facebook & Instagram pages however we would still love our local schools to hold a mufti day for food donations if possible.
We are still searching for a part time storeman to help move heavy crates of stock to our sorting & packing shed so that they can keep making parcels / re stock the shelves.
We have fed over 1000 adults & children so far this year & we could not do it without your help.
Thank you all so much
Kind Regards
Sharon Keenan
Wimborne Food Bank Manager
With Blessings
Compiled by Linda Bennett on behalf of the Stewards
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13th May 2024
Dear Friends
I know it's not that long ago I last penned a missive to you all, but here is another one.
We've had two Circuit Services since my last letter. The first was at Highcliffe at the end of April to dedicate the Easter Offering which will support the Methodist Mission Fund. Then last Thursday we gathered at Holtwood to celebrate The Ascension of Christ. We all took our picnic teas and chairs and worshipped out-doors in the sunshine, with music provided by the band, and various folk from around the Circuit taking part. Although no one from Wimborne managed to get across to Highcliffe, it was lovely to see a few folk from Wimborne at Holtwood, and hopefully next time we have a Circuit event we will see a few more of you.
Yesterday, we had Café-style worship, this time David Vincent used the Fielding Room and Coffee Lounge as the base for our worship, with break out areas for creative stuff and a quiet zone in the sanctuary. He and Jan encouraged us in giving thanks for creation and creativity; a joyous occasion as people tried their hand at creating roses and painting two lovely poster-sized pieces of art. Eric accompanied our singing on the piano, offering his creative talent. As this is Christian Aid, we were also invited to learn a little more about the work of Christian Aid, focusing on Burundi.
This week there will be a Stewards' Meeting, and I'm delighted to say that we have a new addition to the team: Mr Ted Awty. However, we could still do with a couple of extra people, to help share the work and increase our option for creative thinking about the life and future of our church.
I'm looking forward to Friday 24th May, not only is it Wesley Day, but I will be conducting my first wedding in Wimborne at 1pm. Fay & Paul would love to see folk from the church as they celebrate their marriage. Later that same day will be our regular Film Night, when we will be showing Miss Potter, starring Renée Zellweger and Ewan McGregor.
The weekend of Wimborne Minister Folk Festival, June 8th & 9th, will be extremely busy as our church will be open for tea and coffee, light lunches, and goods for sale in the car park. I hope to see as many of you as possible there.
John and I will be hosting a Cornish Cream Tea at the manse, between 3-5pm on Saturday 13th July, with donations for the work of Action for Children and Matthew Rusike Children's Home in Zimbabwe.
Peace & Grace
Deborah
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