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Category: Churches

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Keep the Bell Ringing Appeal for St Mary’s

Heritage of St Mary's Old Church, West Bergholt
The classic view of St Mary’s Old Church – our local heritage

Keep the Bell Ringing

Friends of St Mary’s Old Church have launched the “Keep the Bell Ringing” appeal for £10,000 .

Why £10,000?

Our 1,000-year-old West Bergholt Old Church in Hall Road is now in need of serious care and attention to give it the chance to continue another 1,000 years.   Its roof is leaking in 2 places requiring repair of the valley gutter and dormer window, and the belfry needs work on its weather cladding.  The estimate of cost for this external work, by the Churches Conservation Trust which now cares for this redundant church, is an eye-watering £127,200.  The CCT secured grant funding for most of this sum, but we have to raise the funding shortfall of £10,000 locally.

How you can help

We need your help!  The plan is to erect scaffolding and do this specialist work next Spring, so we need to raise the funds quickly to make this happen.  To confirm the grant the donors need to see that we can raise our share of the money.

We will ring-fence all donations to this appeal, you could help us in the following ways:

  • Firstly make a donation either:
    • by cheque to the ‘Friends of St Mary’s Old Church” sent to our Treasurer: Rhys Lloyd, 4 Coopers Crescent, West Bergholt, CO6 3SJ.
    • by electronic transfer online to a/c no. 65515734, Sort Code 09-92-99. Please indicate who the donation is coming from.
    • through justgiving.com: to the “ St. Mary’s Old Church West Bergholt” appeal.
  • Next, consider coming to the events we are planning this autumn:
    • Table Top Sale: Saturday 19th November at the Orpen Hall, 10am-2pm at the Orpen Hall.  We will be serving Light lunches and refreshments.  Call Gill Poole on 240512 to book a sale table.  Entrance 50p.
    • Mulled Wine and Mince Pies in the Old Church – Sunday 11th December from 12.00 – 2.30pm. Come and admire the Christmas trees decorated by various village groups, and meet friends and neighbours.  This is a free event but donations will be gratefully received, and memberships (just £5), renewed.
  • Buy our Christmas cards of the Old Church:
    • at our events,
    • the local shops, or
    • from Teresa on 241878 or Jane on 240167. 6 cards for £3.50.
  • Become a Friend of St Mary’s Old Church or renew your membership (just £5). Phone Rhys or Carrie or visit the church for details.
  • Make your friends aware of our Appeal; also that the Old Church is open to visitors from 10am – 4pm every day.
  • Hold a fundraising events or help us with one of ours. To offer help, please contact Jane or Carrie.

Inside St Mary'sInternal works as well

While this external repair work is undertaken we will also carry out urgently needed plastering work and decoration inside the church. This will be funded by the very generous legacy of Mrs Yvonne Henderson which was left specifically for this purpose.

Thank you for reading this appeal.  We hope you will be able to help us preserve our lovely ancient church for future generations and keep it available for the use of our village.   Please be as generous as you can.

Celebrate Christmas with us

Start your Christmas celebrations this year by coming to the 2016 Candlelight Carol Service at the Old Church on 18th December at 2.30pm.

Contacts

 

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St Mary’s Update – 1st November 2016

poppySt Mary’s Update – 1st November 2016

St Mary’s Church update for 1st November provides listings of services, bible readings and other events and news such as Remembrance & Christmas services.

christmas-choirChristmas Choir

Calling all Singers!  Caroline Finlay will once again be getting together a group of people to sing at the Carol Services at the Old Church on 18th December and at St Mary’s on Christmas Eve (6.45pm). No auditions necessary! The first rehearsal is Sunday 20th November @ 10am in church. Continue reading “St Mary’s Update – 1st November 2016”

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Concert Band’s Busy Autumn

Concert Band’s Busy Autumn

The band have already been very busy around the village this autumn, holding an open rehearsal at Heathlands in September and a primary school workshop (again at Heathlands) in October.  Coming up as well we have a concert in the Church of St Mary in November, and of course we’ll be playing for the village Remembrance Service.

Workshop

concert-band-workshopSurprisingly the workshop was the first one we’ve held at Heathlands, as historically the school musicians were encouraged to join the band by its founder Sid Cooper who taught music there. These days our approach to maintaining a wide range of ages in the band is to hold regular primary school workshops, which have proven to be an incredibly popular and fun way for us to encourage tomorrow’s musicians. We were delighted to see so many players from Heathlands join us for the workshop and perform a wonderful  “mini concert” at the end of it, and to see such enthusiasm for music at the school. The final word goes to somebody at the workshop…

The band made everyone feel very welcome indeed – what a fun afternoon!

Concerts & Charities

At the time of writing this, we’re looking forward to performing our “1966 And All That” concert in the village.  This will be our first concert on home turf for a couple of years. This time we’ll be raising money for Children In Need to add to the £35,000 that we’ve raised for local & national charities since we started recording the amounts a dozen years ago. That amount includes:

  • almost £10,000 for St Helena Hospice, not including the amounts we raised for them before our records began,
  • £4000 we’ve raised over the years for the village Church and its charities, including at 2004’s impromptu “Last Night Of The Proms In A Barn” when the heavens opened unexpectedly.

Christmas

As always we’ll end the year with a concert featuring the wonderful music of Christmas.  This year we are  at the beautiful St Peter ad Vincula Church in Coggeshall again on Saturday 10th December at 7:30pm. The concert will include music from Vaughan-Williams, Irving Berlin, Leroy Anderson (Sleigh Ride), The Beach Boys (Little Saint Nick) and many others. We’ll also be performing a selection of carols, some to sing to, and some beautiful arrangements that are perfect for listening to. We hope you’ll join us for a lovely evening of festive music in a lovely setting.

As always, details on all of our events are available on the band website www.wbcb.org.  New players of any age are always welcome to come along on Friday evenings at Heathlands School, or our next Open Rehearsal on 20th January.  We look forward to seeing you at our Christmas Concert, and we wish you a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year.

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St Mary’s Good News Update – 4th September 2016

St Mary's Update - 1st September 2016St Mary’s Good News Update – 4th September 2016

The latest edition of Good News, St Mary’s Parish Magazine is reproduced below (together with additional material from 4th September notices), use the links to the various stories & news items.

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Autumn Fruits Walk with Steve Hallam

Steve Hallam leads a walk in search of Autumn FruitsAutumn Fruits with Steve Hallam – 16th October

Steve Hallam will lead a guided walk to seek out berries, soft fruit, nuts, seeds & fungi.  All of these are now out in abundance.  To join Steve you should meet him at the Old Church at 10am on Sunday 16th October -wear suitable clothing!

Steve will explain the folklore about the finds, which ones should not be eaten – and what will happen to you if you do!  You should expect to see around 20 types of berries, fruits and nuts.

The walk will take in Hillhouse Wood and surrounding hedgerows, and will thus be a little longer than normal.

Strong boots or wellies should be worn, as we may encounter long wet grass!

 

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St Mary’s Update – 15th September 2016

Colchester Foodbank

St Mary’s Update – 15th September 2016

St Mary’s Church update for 15th September provides listings of services, bible readings and other events and news such as Harvest Festival & Foodbank.

Colchester FoodbankHarvest Festival Appeals – Sunday 2nd October

This year we will be donating our Harvest groceries and produce to the Food Bank and to the Open Door project run by Colchester Baptist Church. Continue reading “St Mary’s Update – 15th September 2016”

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St Mary’s Update – 9th August 2016

Rio-2016St Mary’s Update – 9th August 2016

St Mary’s Church update for 9th August provides listings of services, bible readings and other events and news such as Ride & Stride, Messy Church with an Olympic theme & Coggeshall Flower Festival.

Messy Church – Sunday 14 August

This coming Sunday the theme for Messy Church will be the Olympics. Hope you can join us! Continue reading “St Mary’s Update – 9th August 2016”