News and Events
Lent Course
The season of Lent begins with the Ash Wednesday service on 22nd Feb. at the Methodist Church. This will be followed by a Lent Course looking at the Last Supper (2 sessions), Gethsemane, the Trial, and the Crucifixion.. This will be from Wed. 29th Feb. to Wed. 28th March (7.20pm for a 7.30pm start). Please note that these will be held in the Parish Rooms this year. Let’s view Lent with a positive mindset: yes, it should be a time of reflection and denial, but only so that the fruits of spiritual renewal can be gained.
Special Weekend Friday 14th to Sunday 16th Sept 2012:
This involves Bishop Tony and his wife Lucille speaking at the events we organise on these 3 days. Bishop Tony will be meeting us on Monday 6th Feb. at 7.30pm. All are welcome to this meeting – please let Mike or Sheila know if you are coming because the venue will be dependent on numbers.
February Newsletter:
We hope you all had a good New Year and are starting to enjoy the lighter evenings.
We are very pleased to let you know that the lead on our south aisle roof has now been replaced with terne-coated stainless steel. This steel looks like lead but has no second-hand value, so it will not be attractive to thieves. Work started on Monday 16th January and will be complete by the time this newsletter is published. Thank you to everyone who gave so generously for this repair, which we can afford to settle immediately in full.
We are also grateful to the Nottingham Historic Churches Trust for their very generous grant towards the project.
To make the church and churchyard more secure we have installed bollards across the path to the entrance to prevent cars or vans accessing the area. Thank you to the Parish Council for paying for the bollards and to 3 church members for installing same.
On 2 March the three churches in Tollerton and Plumtree are holding the annual Women’s World Day of Prayer service. This year it is being hosted by St Mary’s, Plumtree with the Rev Trevor Kirkman as the speaker. The topic is ‘Let Justice Prevail’ and the material has been prepared by the Christian women of Malaysia. The service starts at 7pm and there will be refreshments afterwards. All are welcome.
We are holding our annual two day Art and Photography Exhibition on the weekend 19/20 May. If you are an artist or photographer please start preparing your submissions for display. If you like to visit the exhibition please tell your friends about it and keep the date free. We will be serving refreshments as usual so you can eat with us.
Janauary Newsletter:
As mentioned in December's update we organised a Gift Day at the end of November to raise funds for repairing the damaged roof. We wish to replace the whole south aisle roof with terne-coated stainless steel rather than lead. We are delighted to report that nearly £5000 was donated over the past couple of weeks and the Nottinghamshire Historic Churches Trust has offered a grant, which will cover the shortfall. We await approval from the diocese and have a provisional date booked with the roofers to get the work done at the start of January weather permitting.
Geoff Chubb and I attended a seminar on lead theft, where one of the speakers was from the Nottinghamshire Pre-crime Prevention Section. His data on metal theft and in particular lead theft were very interesting. They are putting a lot of effort into reducing the incidence of metal theft and Smartwater were also there reporting on their joint efforts to improve the practices of scrap-metal merchants.
We held our Christingle service on Sunday 4th December. Several children from the village attended with their parents and we had a lovely service. We sang Shine, Jesus, Shine while the children held their lit Christingles standing down the central aisle of the church.
At the time of writing we still have our carol singing at the Air Hostess pub to come as well as all our Christmas services.
Something to look forward to later in 2012 will be the visit of the Bishop of Sherwood Tony Porter, and his wife Lucille to the parish. Their visit will be from Friday 14th Sept. to Sunday 16th Sept. and a variety of events and meetings are currently being discussed and planned. We hope as many people as possible will find something that is of interest to them, and will come and hear about the difference Jesus Christ has made to many down to earth and "normal" people.
Above you will find details of our New Year Quiz. Please note that it is on Saturday 28 January not 21 January as announced in the December edition.
It just remains for us to wish you all a happy New Year
December Newsletter:
As mentioned in November's newsletter we have had a third lead theft from the south roof. Thus we have decided to replace the roof with stainless steel a more expensive option but with no scrap value. The steel will be terne coated which will give it a dull appearance similar to lead. We can only claim back about £1200 from the insurers. This is because they will only give a maximum of £5000 per church per 12 months of claims for metal theft. Our February/March claim was for £3800 hence the £1200 figure. The church is very grateful to Shaun Beer who made time to do temporary repairs to the roof on the same day the damage was discovered on all three occasions. As a result of his prompt action no water penetration occurred and therefore the newly furbished organ was unaffected.
We organised a Gift Day for church members on November 27th to go towards raising about £6000 to meet the balance required. A more detailed breakdown of the figures is available if requested. If anyone in the village would like to give to this fund we would be very pleased to receive your donation.
On the second Monday of each month starting on 14th November we will go on a prayer walk around the village. Starting at 14 Priory Avenue at 10am a group will walk for 30-45 minutes on a circular route covering a few streets at a time. We will be praying for individuals and situations as appropriate.
We were very pleased to see such a wonderful turnout for the Remembrance Service on 13th November. The church was packed and it was standing room only. We tried an experiment with having the organ playing for the hymns and will try to get the volume higher for next year. The collection for the Poppy Appeal was £210.25. The money has been sent.
Planning for Christmas, we have organised carol singing at the Air Hostess on Tuesday 20th December starting at 8pm. Ian Thompson has kindly agreed to provide the keyboard accompaniment.
Our Christingle service is at 10am on Sunday 4th December. All the children present will be given a Christingle, which will be lit at the appropriate time in the service and which they can take home afterwards.
Our Candlelit Service, which is held jointly with the Methodist Church will be at St Peter's on Sunday 18th December at 6.00pm. There will be mince pies and tea/coffee afterwards.
Finally, the Memorial Book is back in its rightful place fully updated.
Happy Christmas to you all
November Newsletter:
We have had a mixed start to our autumn session. We held a very successful and enjoyable quiz in the Church Centre on 8th October. The evening was well attended and we had an excellent ploughman's supper at the interval. The questions tested everyone's brains and we had great fun solving the 'Dingbats'. All monies raised will go to church funds.
We certainly need that money at present as thieves struck our side roof the following evening. We hadn't replaced the lead from the second burglary thank goodness, so they just took a bit more from where they left off last time. The church architect has been informed and we can now look at replacing all the lead with stainless steel, which has no second hand value and so should stay in place.
We also thank Mike Payne and helpers on working party days for cutting down and removing a large dead tree from the orchard, repairing leaking gutters on the church, and keeping the churchyard neat and tidy. We rely on volunteers to maintain the grounds apart from the lawn mowing.
Our Remembrance Sunday service starts at Medina Drive at 10.10 on 13th November. The uniformed groups and many villages will parade to the church, where there will be a short service followed by the Remembrance Ceremony at the war memorial. Mike will be leading the service for the first time since he arrived in Tollerton as this time last year he was working on a project in Africa with a previous church.
If you have been down to the church and noticed the Book of Remembrance is missing I am in the process of getting it updated to include the names of recently cremated people. We hope to have it back in its case as soon as possible.
Next month we'll be telling you about our Christmas services!
October Newsletter:
Summer now is over and we are getting into our Autumn routine. We are holding a quiz on 8th October and tickets are on sale now. It is being held in the Church Centre starting at 7pm. We will be serving a ploughman's supper in the interval and you can bring your own wine etc. Tickets are available from me, Geoff or Margaret Smith.
Sadly we had some of our newly replaced lead taken from the church roof back in August. We are now in negotiation with the diocese and the insurer hoping we can replace the stolen lead with stainless steel or similar, which has no resale value and therefore should stay in place.
By the time you read this we will have held our Harvest Festival. We are sharing the gifts we receive at the service between Framework and Friary Drop–In in West Bridgford.
Dates for the future include Remembrance Sunday at 10.15 on 13 November and our Christingle Service at 10am on 4 December.
We look forward to welcoming you to St Peter's soon.
Beating The Bounds
In June 2010 we resurected the ancient tradition of 'Beating the Bounds'. This ritual consists of walking the perimeter of the parish to mark the boundary and to pray for the crops and the parishoners. While we managed to walk some of the route we were forced to curtail the journey as it decided to rain heavily. A group of about 12 church members walked together carrying the cross from St Peter's. Along the way Mike, our Priest-in-Charge blessed the area, the people and the crops. we reutrned to the rectory on Tollerton Lane for a wonderful tea and some great converation. We plan to repeat the exercise next year on Rogation Sunday. Go to our Gallery Page to see the slide show pictures of the walk.
