Every six years (starting now), churches are required to make a new 'electoral roll', which is the official list of everyone who is a member of a particular church. This means that all of us (however long we have been regular worshippers at St Nicholas's) are asked to fill in a new enrolment form. Being on the electoral roll is really a form of both witness and stewardship, meaning that we are prepared to be counted as members of St Nicholas's and to play a part in its governance. One of the nearby links will take you to a site which contains all the relevant notices and forms.Enrolment forms will be available in church from this Sunday onwards, and a link to a Word version of the form is also attached, which you can if you prefer print and complete at home.The new roll must be finished two weeks before our Annual Parochial Church Meeting on 25 May, i.e. by 11 May. The task of drawing up the complete roll will be quite demanding, so please return your form as soon as you can. Only those on the roll by 11 May will be able to vote at the APCM - you can't join on the day, or in the two weeks preceding!
Hall users can hardly have missed the large cracks in the walls of the kitchen, along with a number of other problems to do with condensation, mould and door that don't close properly. The good news is that the cracks don't seem to be caused by the usual form of subsidence. The end wall of the hall appears to have settled slightly and also rotated a little, and the cause is likely to be an accumulation of water in a disconnected drainage system. discovered by accident when we were investigating the state of the foundations. By chance, the hole revealed the remains of a catchpit right next to the foundations. After protracted and ongoing investigation, we now know that the pipe running in to the catchpit no longer leads anywhere (though it could still be channeling water into the pit); it looks as if it came from a surface drain nearby. The 1948 map attached shows a 'St Nicholas's Church' which is not the present one; it's the Nissan hut left for use as a temporary church after the estate had been built. The undated (but slightly later) map shows both the old and the present buildings, and it looks as though the north side of the Nissan hut and the present hall are more or less in line. There may have been a drain beyond the east end of the former church, abandoned and filled in in the early 1950s.
