Longcot Village

Dear Congregation and Friends of St Mary Longcot,

Please find attached the Benefice Newsletter and associated documents for this Sunday. 

Benefice Sunday Service.  Tomorrow is the fifth Sunday in the month, so there will be no service at St Mary. Instead there will be a Benefice Holy Communion service at St James, Bourton.   The service starts at 10am.

Forthcoming Funeral/Celebration of Life.

• The funeral for Simon Dalton-Morris will be held at the Kingsdown Crematorium at noon on Monday 1^st November.  Simon has been a stalwart member of the St Mary’s gardening team over many years and will be greatly missed.  Shirley has said that everybody is welcome to join the family at both the service and afterwards at Stanton Hotel, Stanton Fitzwarren, SN6 7SD.  Our thoughts and prayers are with Shirley and her family.

• The family of Joan Turner have arranged for a celebration of Joan’s life to be held at St Mary’s Church, Longcot, at 12.30pm on Wednesday.  Joan and her late husband, Godfrey, were a mainstay of St John’s Church Fernham for many years.  Our thoughts and prayers are with her family.

Best wishes,

Dennis

Longcot with Fernham PCC

Dear Congregation and Friends of St Mary Longcot,

Please find attached the Benefice Newsletter and associated documents for this Sunday.

Holy Communion – St Mary.  Norma will be leading a service of Holy Communion at St Mary tomorrow.  The service starts at 9.30am and will be livestreamed.

Local Villages Newsletter.  Please also find attached the Local Newsletter for November.

Forthcoming PCC Meeting. The next Longcot with Fernham PCC meeting will be held via Zoom (and not at St Mary as originally planned) at 7pm on Wednesday 3rd November.  Details will be forwarded shortly by Lucy.

Best wishes,

Dennis

Longcot with Fernham PCC

An opportunity to enjoy a live performance of Beethoven’s masterful Septet for clarinet,
horn, bassoon and strings in the beautiful surroundings of the newly converted church.
The performance will be preceded by a brief talk with musical illustrations. The Torriano
Ensemble are a group of professional musicians who have been playing together for many
years and specialise in performing some of the lesser-known pieces for clarinet and string quartet alongside the great classics of the genre.

Dear Congregation and Friends of St Mary Longcot,

Please find attached an e-mail from Lucy with the Benefice Newsletter and associated documents for this Sunday. 

Morning Prayer – St Mary.  Richard Fergusson will be leading a service of Morning Prayer at St Mary tomorrow.  The service starts at 9.30am.  Refreshments will be served afterwards. 

Benefice Sunday School. There will also be a Benefice Sunday School held in St Mary tomorrow afternoon.  Details are in the Newsletter.

Key Register For St Mary.  I am attempting to update a very old version of the key register for St Mary.  If we haven’t already spoken, I would be grateful if you would make contact with me in order to let me know which keys you have for the church and garden shed.  Thank you.

Best wishes,

Dennis

Longcot with Fernham PCC

Dear Congregation and Friends of St Mary Longcot,

Please find attached an e-mail from Lucy with the Benefice Newsletter and associated documents for this Sunday.  May I draw your attention to the piece about Ron Johnson on page 2 of the Newsletter.  Ron has been a strong and generous supporter of St Mary for many years and earlier today a number of us were privileged to attend a lovely celebratory lunch for his 100^th birthday.  Happy birthday Ron.

Holy Communion – St Mary.  Canon Paul will be leading a service of Holy Communion at St Mary tomorrow.  The service starts at 9.30am.  It would be lovely to see as many of you as possible for our first communion service in the church for nearly 5 months

Best wishes,

Dennis

Longcot with Fernham PCC

PS It has been a long time since we have been having regular services in St Mary, so our administration has become a little rusty.  We are therefore particularly grateful to Lucy for fixing a number of issues that we (I) had forgotten about!  Thank you Lucy.

Dear Congregation and Friends of St Mary Longcot,

Please find attached the Benefice Newsletter and associated documents for this Sunday.

Opening of St Mary The Virgin Longcot.  You will all be aware that we are holding our first service in the newly refurbished St Mary on Sunday 3rd October at 3pm.  It will be a Village Harvest Festival service with our Methodist colleagues.  The Revd Norma Fergusson will be co-leading the service with our local Methodist preacher.    There will be refreshments after the service, which will include coffee/tea (and something slightly stronger), biscuits and cakes.   Villagers not attending the service have also been invited to join us 4:15pm to share the refreshments and to have a closer look at the stunning transformation inside the church.  Do please have a good think about how best we should use the new facilities.  Members of the Longcot Village Trust have been giving this plenty of thought but we need you all to share your ideas with us.  Sunday afternoon will be an ideal time for us to do just that.

Best wishes,

Dennis

Longcot with Fernham PCC

Hello Everyone,

Please find attached next week’s Newsletter, the Bible Readings for Sunday 26th September and ‘Look’, the Sunday sheet for children. 

Best wishes,
Lucy

Dear Congregation and Friends of St Mary Longcot,

Please find attached the Benefice Newsletter and associated documents for this Sunday.

Holy Communion –  St John Fernham.   Tomorrow’s service at St John Fernham will be Holy Communion at 9.30am and will be led by the Revd Norma.

Opening of St Mary The Virgin Longcot.  We are planning to hold our first service in the newly refurbished St Mary on Sunday 3rd October at 3pm.  It will be a Village Harvest Festival service with our Methodist colleagues.  Details will be published shortly but you can rest assured that there will be more that just coffee and cake in the way of refreshments.

Volunteers Needed.  In the meantime there is still much to be done inside St Mary in order to ensure that we are ready for that first service.  The bell ringers have already made a start in the bell tower and the windows in the nave have already been cleared of their cobwebs and builders dust, but there is much more that would benefit from the help of some willing volunteers.  For example, we need a small group to move tables and chairs up to the mezzanine this coming week (say Tuesday 14th September at 6pm for 20 minutes?); then a larger group of strong volunteers to move pews and give them an initial clean on Saturday 18th September from 10.30am to 12.30pm; and then a group to clean the nave and sanctuary from 14.30pm to 16.30pm in the afternoon of Saturday 18th September.  Please offer whatever time you can – there will still be plenty to do in the following weeks.  Please just send me an email or text me so that I have a rough idea of who will be turning up. Depending upon the progress that we make, I will ask for further volunteers for specific tasks in the following weeks.  Thank you in advance!

Best wishes,

Dennis

Longcot with Fernham PCC

Please find attached next week’s Newsletter, the Bible Readings for Sunday 5th September and ‘Look’, the Sunday sheet for children.

Dear Congregation and Friends of St Mary,

Please find attached this week’s Benefice Newsletter and associated documents.

Benefice Service – St John’s Church Fernham.  This Sunday’s service is a Benefice Service at St John’s Church, Fernham, at 11am, and will be led by the Revd Norma Fergusson.  All are welcome.

St Mary’s Church.  The refurbishment inside St Mary’s Church is nearly complete.  Keith is in contact with ABS Builders in order to sequence the final clearing up by them inside the church which will then leave us in the congregation to clean off the pews and reorder them inside the nave.  We would be very grateful for some willing volunteers to help with this and either Keith or I will be in touch with you at the start of September with details.  We are then planning to resume normal services at the beginning of October.  Again, details will be sent out once they are absolutely firm.  In the meantime, many of you will have noticed the scaffolding on the south side of the bell tower.  Through some very generous donations Keith has managed to raise enough money to pay for the repairs to the roof.  We also now have clearance from the Diocese to proceed and the work will begin at the start of the month.

Ride & Stride (R&S) 2021.  My apologies for not getting this information out earlier but the annual Ride & Stride event will take place on Saturday 11th September.  Although St Mary will not be open to welcome Striders, it is still hoped that one or two brave souls from the Village will be able to visit some of the churches in the Vale and obtain some sponsorship.  If you are interested in taking part, please contact me asp for details, including sponsorship forms.  I would particularly welcome potential Striders who are undertaking their DofE Award!

Village Newsletter.  A copy of the September ‘Village Newsletter’ is attached.

Best Wishes,

Dennis

Longcot with Fernham PCC