PCC News
St Stephen's Parochial Church Council News
The PCC met on 15th November and there was quite a long Agenda. Among the matters discussed were the Church Finances, which are always of some concern, especially as we are still in the middle of our Floor and Fabric Appeal. On the positive side, the floor work is now complete – not without a tremendous amount of in-house work by Alan and Polly. Their hard work and time freely given in the cause of beautifying the House of God is to be congratulated . They have saved us a vast amount of money by completing the floor staining and polishing and I am sure I express your feelings when I pass on to them both our most sincere thanks for a wonderful job well done.
The south west corner of the boundary wall has been restored and by the time you read this, the floor and this section of the boundary wall restoration will have been paid for, taking up nearly all of the funds so far raised through the Appeal. The water pipes in the vestry have been insulated by Mike Harding and Dave Green – again saving us a lot of money and our thanks are indeed due to them. Mike has painted all the step edges with white paint to make them easier to see by people with sight impairment. The radiators have been adapted by Dave Yeomans and Peter Davies and should see us through the winter – again an in-house cost saving, deserving of our grateful thanks.
The gardens, now adopting their winter apparel, have been a picture of colour and beauty thanks to the hard work of Mike and Penny, Dave Green, Alan and Polly , Derek and Ralph, Chris and Roy. The gutters have all been cleaned by a professional contractor and our own team of Dave Y, Mike and Dave G have painted the ironwork with anti-theft paint. What a wonderful team of volunteers we have – praise the Lord!
A tender for the major part of the boundary wall work has been accepted, with refinements still to be discussed with the Architect and Contractor. It is to be hoped that when the work starts in the Spring, we will have raised sufficient funds to pay the bills- in the region of £22,000. Pray that funds will materialise and please support all the fundraising events that are organised.
New cruets for holding the water and wine at the Eucharist will be purchased in memory of Gerry Gearing and they will then hopefully be suitable etched with his name and dates.
The illustrated scroll presented to St Stephen’s in the Summer by Canon Cornford from Australia will soon be mounted and framed . The cost of this has been met by an anonymous donation for which we are extremely grateful to the donor.
The success or otherwise of past fund raising and social events and services was discussed and evaluated. It would be helpful if members of the congregation passed on their comments about the things that take place at church so that we can repeat, improve upon or delete from our programme things which we organise but about which we often have very little feedback. New fundraising ideas too would be very welcome.
A St Stephen’s Christmas Calendar will again be available this year, produced by Sue – first sales at the Advent Fair – and Parish Christmas Cards will be ready for delivery mid December.
The new all Saints’ Academy has been officially opened – reported elsewhere in this magazine, and St Stephen’s, along with each of the other Cheltenham Deanery Churches, has donated £30 towards the cost of furnishing the Chapel. Other items discussed were really run of the mill and house- keeping matters.