Thanks for all who help in St Marys– It is such a big team: those who clean, do flowers, help tidy the churchyard, the pigeon pooh pickers, local farmers who help gutter clearing, providing weed killer that works, trench digging, heating, and those who contribute via churchyard church lighting etc. gaining grants, painting benches, maintaining the clock, bells, lych gate light, sweeping the path etc. 

This is a special building; certainly the biggest village space, some say a magnificent one, with heritage and history. There are many visitors including King Charles III (pre-promotion). The double pulpit links to famous English poet George Herbert being two of the most notable. It houses village artefacts. Some people come to church for the bier! …… The church also houses other village historical pieces, such as pictures of those who served in the war.

Some may see the value in maintaining it as a historical monument, others as a present day location for spiritual worship and we hope also increasingly as a useable village facility for all kinds of village and para organisational events; social, sporting, recreational, artistic, musical, historical, welfare as well as spiritual. Hopefully, you may have some ideas too.

The church building is a community village asset – 40 churches closing per year – I guess most don’t want to look out on ruins. It has a churchyard for all, statistics aren’t in our favour of escaping the need for a long-term resting place. I hope that many see the church building as a village asset

The church is administered by the PCC, a charity; who hold the building in trust. We want to preserve it for future generations. Maintenance is time consuming and costly and hard to do for a few, so it takes a group effort.

Long term, in order to maintenance of the building means it needs to be used more widely. For it to become a useable space we need new facilities. There are already plans for a new toilet in the north porch and once we have running water, we will add new kitchen facilities in the tower to enable catering for social events. The final key element is heating. You may have already noticed that it’s not the warmest. We would be interesting to hear if you would consider using the building more as a village hall. Ultimately, it could be the venue for lunch clubs or Pilates classes, concerts etc etc I’d love to play table tennis in here or for it to be hired out to generate some income for maintenance. So far we have been able to do the roof and there are plans to put in a toilet; funded largely by a combination grants, existing reserves and also the financial contributions from village lighting and giving of the local congregation. The heating of a big area is challenging but we are looking at using infra-red heaters that just heat the people and not the building. They work instantly and as we are not heating the whole space just us, this saves on expense and helps the environment. We’ve been round some churches to see them in action and test them out. 

There are limits to what we can do to the building as it’s grade one listed, so we need permissions and it takes a considerable effort. Also it takes a considerable sum of money and Hugh has been very successful in gaining grants. In that respect, the more people we can show as being involved or the more that could benefit from the improvements, the easier it is to get grants, so thanks for coming and for all past and future involvement.

Partly in order to demonstrate this community interest, we are also looking to form a Friends of St Mary’s group. This would also be for those who would be willing to contribute to the upkeep of the site. Many are already doing this, but we would like to make it a slightly more formal group so we can show interest and publicise what needs doing and see if people can help or have relevant expertise. This group would not be involved in any of the services or the spiritual aspects, but have its purpose as maintaining and developing the site. This may include many tasks that many of you are already doing such as cleaning or churchyard clearing. It may involve practical tasks. E.g. we are hoping for a team to cut up some boards and screw them to the shutters in the tower to stop the pigeon nests and pooh from getting through the grills and blowing into the area where the bell ringers perform. We are so good at pulling together as a village and gain the benefit of our mutual support. We are more than happy to have questions now or individually so do mill around. If you would be interested in willing to join FOSM then chat to the PCC, Alan, Amanda, Hugh Linda, Pat, Dick, Jenny or myself or put your email on the sheet on that table.

Once again thanks for coming, thanks for all past contributions and do let us know your thoughts so we can move forward in a way that benefits the majority in our great village.