Contact nov 2013
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Transcript of Contact nov 2013
1
November 2013
Services & Events 2
Puzzle Fun 6
Fundraising 5
Barneys Kids Page 9
Interview with Anne Graham
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Church Annual Reports
18
Eggnog Cupcakes Church Diary
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Inside this issue:
Methodist & United Reformed Churches Together 203 Main Road, Dovercourt, Essex, CO12 3PH
www.dovercent.btck.co.uk & find us on Facebook
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Church Secretary: Mrs Iris Hatch 01255 503688
Hiring Officer & Junior Church Co-ordinator:
Mrs Margaret Smith 01255 504828
Contact Magazine Editor
Jenni Bush Janet Scott
01255 506336 [email protected] 01255 506962
Sunday Services
1st Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship, with Junior Church, (Refreshments afterwards)
2nd Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship & Holy Communion, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)
3rd Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)
4th Sunday: 9.00am Holy Communion, 10.45am Morning Worship, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)
5th Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship/Family Service, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)
Church Activities
Messy Church—every 3rd Tuesday of the Month, 4.30pm.
Pause for Thought—Fridays 9.30—10.00am
Coffee Morning—Fridays 10.00am-12.00pm
Pilots—Fridays 5.30-7.00pm (term time only)
Worship Night—2nd Friday of the Month 7pm.
Deadline for Submissions for next magazine: 20th November
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Iris
A note from the Church Secretary..... Dear Friends, Autumn has certainly arrived now and everything starts to get busy again. There are several events arranged for the lead up to Christmas. You will find all the details in this newsletter. Please try and support these whenever you can. What does Advent season really mean for us? We have to thank God for this time of year when Advent reminds us of the extent of God’s love for us in sending his son. We hope that we can gain a sense of expecta-tion and a new confidence in the future
and gladly respond to what God is asking us to do. We also continue to ask God’s guidance for future ministry in our church. God of the unexpected you never fail to surprise us. Your world is full of wonder and delight. The mystery of your love amazes us and take us unawares. Give us the imagination to respond to your transforming grace.
Christian Greetings
8th November £4.00 per adult [free for children]. Adults to bring a firework
Remembrance
We all should remember That day in November
The year was Nineteen Eighteen The fighting was over
The world was “in clover” World peace was finally seen.
That day was to be For you and for me
The end of “The war of all wars” But as we all know That just wasn’t so
Nations still settle “old scores”
Dictators still rise
Whatever their size “I am in charge” is their cry
Their ideas are grand Just take over the land
But sadly many people will die.
But remember that day Now so far away
When peace of a sort was achieved And Pray that no more
Will the world go to war It’s something we all should believe.
Bill Brittain
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URC Eastern Synod
Birthdays We wish a very happy birthday this month
to....
1st— Millie Higgs
11th— Sadie Howman
25th— Gladys Good
28th— Ethel Muir
Kayla Bush
We wish you all many happy returns.
Advent Coffee Morning & Sale Join us on Saturday 30th. November
for our advent coffee morning.
Where you can warm up from the
winter and celebrate
the start of advent
season with us.
We will be
open
serving
aromatic
coffee, along with many stalls from
10am till 13.00pm.
We hope to have stalls in the hall and
will be inviting local schools to come
along and sing in the church.
If you have an idea for a stall or are
willing to organise and man the usual
stalls such as Cakes, Bric-a-Brac, Raf-
fles, tombola’s, toiletries then please
discuss with Hazel or Margaret.
Christine will be holding a tombola
and has asked if anyone feels able to
wrap 10 small gifts for the tombola
she would really appreciate it.
If you are able to help promote the sale by
displaying a poster please ask at church or
email [email protected]
Synod in March 2014 will be held at Christ
Church, Chelmsford. The head of Children’s
and youth work development, Karen Morri-
son, and the children's & youth work Pro-
gramme Officer, Natalie Husk from church
house to speak to us.
In October 2014 the meeting will be held in
Witham and Andrew Bradstock, secretary for
the church and society has been invited to
speak on 1914, the 100 year commemorations,
with emphasis on Justice and peace.
At the March synod some of the preliminary
results of the questionnaire were reported.
The data has since been analysed and here is a
summary.
Summary of findings:
Of the 140 churches in the eastern synod 36
returned questionnaires. (synod wide a re-
sponse of 25.7%. The data showed that:
32% of the churches have no under 25’s
attending services on a regular basis
34% of churches have no children attend-
ing services on a regular basis.
49% of churches have no young people
attending on a regular basis.
63% of churches have fewer than 2
young people attending services on a
regular basis.
Less than 15% of churches have children
or young who have been to an event or-
ganised by and Area partnership, synod
or the national church.
Nearly 80% of churches do not have
young people in positions of responsibil-
ity.
25% of churches do not have anyone re-
sponsible for organising events for chil-
dren or young people.
The Synod will be taking forward some sug-
gestions on how to improve what had been
highlighted from their survey. If you would
like to read the report in more detail please see
Margaret.
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Oh Christmas Tree
The Christmas Tree Festival at
the salvation army citadel is on
Wednesday 4th December till
Sunday 8th December.
Central church has accepted
the invitation to display a
decorated Christmas tree at
this event and I’ve been asked to organise this.
One of the activities at messy church in No-
vember will be for the children to make
Christmas tree tags. These will be available at
the church on Sunday 24th November and 1st
December.
Please will you all help to decorate the tree by
writing your own message on a tag, including
your name and all will be tied to the tree. By
doing this you will also be sending Christmas
wishes to family and friends at Central church
as our tree will come back after the festival
and form part of our own Christmas displays
Olive
Samaritans Purse Shoe Box Appeal
Thanks
to all
who
have
sent in
shoe
boxes
for the
appeal.
If you still are able to dust off the
Christmas wrapping paper and your old
shoe boxes and prepare to pack them
with goodies for operation Christmas
Child. Pat Lowry will be organising col-
lection of your shoe boxes, Collecting
them from church from 1st November
till 18th November. More details to fol-
low. Operation Christmas Child Shoe
box appeal is a great way of showing
Gods Love this year to others, and is a
great mission tool. If you’d like to know
more, speak to Pat, pick up a leaflet
from Church or visit
www.operationchristmaschild.org.uk/
Fun-dabidosi Fundraising! Thank You!
We would like to say a massive thank
you to Bethany, Naomi, Alyssa and
Jack who through their sponsored cy-
cle ride raised £146 for Essex Churches
Trust and 50% of this will be returned to
our church.
Our Gift day, held on the weekend of
the 12th and 13th October has also
raised £497 to date (13/10/13), thank
you to all members and friends for their
most generous donations.
Also a big thank you to all our volun-
teers, helpers and all who give up their
time and put so much into energy and ef-
fort into fundraising for the
church.
6 Oc
tob
er
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Let’s Get Messy Our Messy Church will be held on the
19h. November will continue our theme
of creation by considering NIGHT.
Worship will be led by Maddy Whittle.
This session we will have tags to deco-
rate Dovercourt Central Church Christ-
mas Tree that is going into the Christmas
Tree weekend at the Salvation Army be-
tween 6th – 8th.
December. We
would like all our
Messy Church to
write a message on the
tag that will then go on our tree, so come
with your thoughts for a message.
Margaret.
Next Messy Church - Tuesday 19th November 4.30pm
PILOT News
Meetings in No-
vember will be:
8th.this is the
curry and fire-
work evening
[there will be
alternative to
curry!!] 15th.
22nd. and 29th.
Margaret Smith—Pilot Captain
Pilots is a Christian organisation for children
and young people. If you are interested in join-
ing our pilot company please see Margaret,
more information on Pilots can be found at
www.urc.org.uk/ministry/pilots.html
It was November 30, and four men were chatting at a bar and talking about how
they'd named their children. The first, aware that it was St Andrew's Day, told them
that he'd earlier been at his son's birthday party.
"We called him Andrew, as he was born today," he explained.
The next man revealed that he too had had a son and named him after the day he'd
been born on - George.
The third couldn't believe it, for he too had a son named after the day. His was
called David.
And the fourth? Well, by amazing coincidence, he too had had a son named after
the day he was born on. But ... well, Pancake is an unusual name, isn't it?
Only Joking
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Church Annual Reports
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Report from Christian Aid Representative
The Christian Aid group met 3 times during the year at our meeting in October 2012 we were
privileged to have the co-ordinator for Essex, Rosie Venner attending. She updated us on
Christian Aid’s latest projects and gave us come fundraising ideas. She has recently returned
from a Christian Aid Project in Bolivia and has kindly agreed to take part in the Christian aid
service on the 11th may 2014 to share her experience with us. She had also arranged a fund-
raising and awareness raising event at Green island Gardens in ardleigh in April that Colin
Brenda and myself attended.
During Christian Aid week 2013 we raised £1126.02 from a store collection, street collections,
hunger lunches envelopes from various churches and the collection at the Christian Aid ser-
vice . Adding this to coffee mornings and a store collection held later in the year in total we
raised in excess of £1500.
Thank you to all those who contributed in any way. Our next meeting is on Wed 15th Feb 2014
at 7.30 pm at the Salvation Army hall. If anyone would like to find out more, please feel free
to attend the meeting.
Christine Jarrett
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RAMSEY & DOVERCOURT CRUSADERS ANNUAL REPORT – 2013
2013 has been another very busy year for our Group. Our Wednesday Evening Sessions at Dovercourt Central Church Hall have continued to maintain weekly attendances in the mid 40’s of young people and we are virtually operating to capacity. We currently have 80 children on our Register. At any one Meeting we try not to exceed 50 members. Leadership
Our Leadership Team comprises of Nigel & Therese Spencer, Fiona Reeves, Tina Peake, Sally Marsh, An Lammens & Senior Help-ers Jon Reeves, Meg Spencer, and Stuart Scott. Meg is currently at Goldsmiths University, Stuart is at Brunel University, and Jon has decided to have a break from Crusaders for awhile, but still helps when he can. We are delighted that Connie and Jonas have agreed to become Junior Helpers now. Patrons to our Group are Janet Thomas, David Barker, Lilian Yarrow, Chris Hammond & Stephen/Audrey Northfield. We have friends who Prayerfully support us including those at Crusaders Luton H. Q. Our auditor is Biddy Farrington and cheque
book co-signatory is Dr. Richard Wilson.
Our Activities
Besides the weekly Group Meetings, our main activities in which we have been involved have included organising the hugely suc-cessful Christingle Service here at Central Church during one of our Wednesday Night Meetings, having a presence at Dovercourt events, Family Bingo Evenings, and maintaining links with Colchester Crusaders. The Bingo Family Evenings remain popular thanks to the help of Caller Monica Graves and many of you! They help with our Charity outreach and Rent, so please do attend, especially the Christmas one on December 4th 2013. (Usual times & venue) A big success this year was holding Summer Meetings out in the open on the playing field at All Saints Primary School, thanks to the kindness of Head Teacher Richard Hopkins and to Margaret Baines for locking up afterwards. We certainly would like to re-peat meeting at this venue in 2014.
Once again the exciting event of the year was our Long Weekend at the National Crusaders Victorian mansion of Westbrook, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. We had an absolutely brilliant time and hope Colchester Crusaders will rejoin us for the virtually already Booked 25th – 27th April 2014 Weekend. (Please see me now if you have not Booked, are aged over 9 years old and want to go, as we really do only have 2 spaces left!)
Finances There are still no annual Membership Fees to belong to our Crusader Group – but a £1 contribution towards refreshments on
Wednesdays is vital to minimise our expenses. Funding has stabilised, thanks to Janet, David, Brian, Ian, Nigel and the Northfields helping us to again raise money at the 2013Victorian Event on the C.V.R. Also, we have gained generous grants from Churches To-gether (to help us with our Hall hire charges) the local Parish/Town Councils, Asda, & Dovercourt Caravan Club. A recent donation from Sacha, who lives many miles away but who supports our work with young people, has been most welcome. Also the bags of cuddly creatures received via Essex Police have been well received as well! Our audited Financial Statement is available if anyone needs to consult it.
Charities that we have supported this year include Christian Aid, The Children's’ Society, M.A.F., Toybox Charity, C.B.M. and Na-tional Appeals. (Report finalised October 20th 2013) Other News
We endeavour to remain true to our goals of supporting the Christian principles that Crusaders stands for within a caring, fun filled environment. We take great pride in encouraging our youngsters to take on responsibilities, not only for themselves, but for oth-ers within the Group, and in encouraging them to listen to, and to care for, others. As always, at our Meetings we have an expected Behavioural Code and if any member feels they cannot abide by this then we re-serve the right to ask those individuals to leave and have a ‘cooling-off’ fortnight. Re-admission is up to the individual and the Leaders to reach an agreed way forward. In our 23 years of existence we have never permanently barred any member but would
do so should we feel the health and safety and well-being of any of our Group was being threatened. Having said all this it remains a privilege to know our members in all their diversity! May that long continue!
Finally, once again may I ask that if any Christian Adult Helpers, who have a heart for helping young people, could help to assist at meetings, we would be thrilled to welcome them. Subject to Training and Police checks, if anyone reading this feels called to be-come involved with the running of Ramsey & Dovercourt Crusaders, then please do contact any of the Leadership Team. Again, we would like to express our gratitude to our families, local Churches, and all well-wishers, for their financial/Prayerful com-mitment. We remain an active Christian Youth Group only because of what everyone together achieves, please keep that vital support go-ing! Every Blessing, Ramsey & Dovercourt Crusaders.
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Date
November 2013 Details
Time
Fri 8th Pause for Thought 9.30-10am
Coffee Morning 10am-12pm
Curry Evening & Fireworks
Sun 10th Sunday Morning Worship with Communion— Led By Rev. D. Lang
10.45am
Alexandra House Service—Led by Rev. J Jenkins 3.30pm
Fri 15th Pause for Thought 9.30-10am
Coffee Morning 10am-12pm
Pilots 5.30-7pm
Sun 17th Morning Worship led by Mr N. Scott 10.45am
Alexandra House Service—Led by Rev C. Logan 3.30pm
Tues 19th Messy Church—Fun for everyone 4.30pm
Fri 22nd Pause for Thought 9.30-10am
Coffee Morning 10am-12pm
Pilots 5.30-7pm
Sun 24th Communion Service—Led by Rev. C. Knight Morning worship Led by R. Taylor
9.00am 10.45am
Alexandra House Service—Led by Rev. E. Walker 3.00pm
Fri 29th Pause for Thought 9.30-10am
Coffee Morning 10am-12pm
Pilots 5.30-7pm
Christmas Worship Night—Informal worship at All Saints church—please come along for a sing song
7pm-8.30pm
Sat 30th Advent Coffee Morning 10am-1pm
Sun 1st Morning Worship Led by Mr G. Heathcote 9.00am
Alexandra House Service—Led by Mrs M Whittle 3.30pm
Church Diary
facebook.com/DovercourtCentralChurch
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