The Benefice of St. Bartholomew

Harvest Festival in the Benefice - 2016

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Written by Tony Gowers

Harvest will be celebrated throughout the Benefice at the following services and events:

Donhead St Mary & Donhead St Andrew

A combined Harvest Service will be held at St Mary’s Church, Donhead St Mary on Sunday 18th September 2016 at 11.00 am. The service will be followed by a shared Harvest Lunch in Donhead St Mary Village Hall. For more details, click here.

St Catherine’s Church, Sedgehill

The Harvest Service will be held on Sunday 25th September 2016 at 6.00 pm.
The Harvest Supper will take place in Sedgehill Village Hall on Saturday 24 September beginning at 7.00 pm. Click here for more information.

St Mary’s Church, East Knoyle

The Harvest Service will be held on Sunday 2nd October 2016 at 6.00 pm. The service will be followed by Harvest Supper in East Knoyle Village Hall. For more details, click here.

St Leonard’s Church, Semley

The Harvest Service will be held on Sunday 9th October 2016 at 9.45 pm.
The Harvest Supper will take place in the Barn, Grove House, on Saturday 8 October at 6.30 pm. Click here for more information.

Please do come and join us - all are most welcome.

From The Rev'd Alice Goodall - News from Finmere

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Written by Tony Gowers

I realised the other day that we have now been in the Shelswell Benefice for six months – the time has flown by! This missive is well overdue, but I wanted to wait to write until I could show you how we used the very generous leaving gift that was given to us at our last service. Also, I was missing you too much! In the last couple of months, though, I have started to feel at home and settled.

I can now find my way around the patch without even thinking, and have got to know lots of people. The ministry team is great, and there are some excellent things going on here. The church congregations are generally very small – not surprising, given that most of the villages are small. But their size doesn’t stop them being a strong Christian presence within the villages or contributing to some fabulous community events – including a food festival, beer festival and two music festivals!

Some of the things I have particularly enjoyed so far have included:

• a prayer walk connecting three of our villages
• an open air Pentecost service in Evenley Wood Gardens with barbecue – on one of the few lovely sunny days in May
• our Little Lambs toddler group
• the Benefice ‘holiday at home’ scheme
• our celebrations for the Queen’s 90th birthday
• meeting people and eating (far too much) cake

Joe has been occupied doing lots of painting, decorating, and gardening. He has joined the Benefice Choir, and is volunteering at the Quainton Railway Centre. We are both enjoying being in a house that is WARM! And Joe is delighted that he can mow the garden in just 20 minutes. The hens have settled well into the run built for us by two of the church wardens, and the cats have already embarked on controlling the local rabbit population.

We were very touched by the leaving gifts from the Benefice of St Bartholomew – Lynda’s picture has pride of place in our sitting room, most of the goodies have now been enjoyed, and we used the money to employ someone to dig our vegetable patch and put in some raised beds – see photo. We have a fruit cage on one of them, thanks to tea@thechurch. Our vegetables are doing well, and in fact have grown a whole lot more since the photo was taken a couple of weeks ago.

We gained so much from our time in the Benefice, and you will always have a special place in our hearts. It has been good to keep up with some of your news through the Parish magazine, through posts on Facebook, and through the occasional visitor. And should you be travelling north and fancy a brief stop in Finmere, don’t hesitate to get in touch!

With best wishes,

Alice

Rev'd Alice Goodall, ex-curate

Parish Away Days - 17th to 20th October 2016 - Alton Abbey

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Written by Rev'd Richard Warhurst

The Rev’d Richard is an Oblate of Alton Abbey and has been asked to arrange a time away.

Alton Abbey is an Anglican Benedictine monastery in Hampshire set in beautiful grounds. It has been described in The Times as “the best kept secret in the Church of England” and “the place to go when you need six weeks holiday but can only spare a day”.

Join us to experience the worship and fun of a monastic community.

Places are limited so please contact the Benefice Office (telephone: 01747 830174) to reserve a place.

The cost is likely to be £125.00.

To find out more about Alton Abbey, click here.