All Saints, Little Munden

Weekly News - 1st October 2023

This weekend’s Bible readings:

1 Timothy 6:6-10 (p 1194) and Matthew 6:25-33 (p 971)

Harvest appeal:

This year’s appeal will be divided between our long-standing partners at Kisiizi Hospital in Uganda and the Holy Land Institute for the Deaf, which some of our folk visited last year. Fliers are available in all our churches. The cash collection at the harvest services in All Saints (this weekend) and St Catherine’s (on Tuesday) will go to the appeal; in St Mary’s there are special envelopes available for your gifts. Alternatively, you can give online to any of the bank accounts detailed later in this notices sheet, using the reference ‘harvest’.

This year’s ‘Friends of Kisiizi Day’ is on Saturday 7th October in Reading at Brookside Church. The friends would be delighted to see any representatives from our benefice to enjoy the updates and fellowship that the day always brings.

All Saints@6 this weekend:

This Sunday, All Saints@6 is an invitation service. Invitations have been passed on to as many Christians living in the Dane End area as we know, and everyone is welcome to come together, whether they belong to one of our churches or not. We hope to spend time together, pray together and encourage each other in our discipleship.

Lunchtime concert season:

Our lunchtime concert season in St Mary’s has started! The remaining concerts are on 7th and 14th October. The programme are:

7th October Bella Cora, directed by Ros Savournin

14th October Flute Cocktail, directed by Wendy Walshe

A soup and cheese lunch will be served from 12.00 onwards, with concerts taking place at 12.30. As usual, we ask for £5 to cover lunch, and there will be a retiring collection for the Friends of St Mary’s.

Midweek Music:

Thank you to those who supported this week’s concert. £202 was raised for our three churches.

Giving in St Mary’s:

You may have spotted that gift aid envelopes have reappeared in St Mary’s. We can claim gift aid on cash donations in the collection bags, but only up to a certain amount and last year Standon exceeded that amount. If you’re making a cash donation (in church or at one of our events) and you are a tax payer, it would be helpful if you would complete a GA envelope, please. If you’ve signed an ongoing gift aid declaration, just your name on the envelope will enable us to allocate the donation to your existing declaration. That will mean that we will claim more gift aid on the amount of cash given by non-tax-payers. Thank you for helping us maximise the amount we can recover from HMRC.

This isn’t an issue at present for our other two churches, who haven’t reached the limit and are able to claim tax back on all the cash donations they receive.

Basma’s cookery evening:

Basma will be hosting another demonstration of Levantine cookery, followed by supper, in the Memorial Hall, Dane End, at 7.00 pm on 21st October. Tickets are available from any of the Sacombe PCC. Proceeds will go to St Catherine’s. We recommend booking early – these always sell out very quickly!

4th Sunday Sunday lunch:

Heather’s next Sunday lunch will be on Sunday 22nd October at 12.30 at Whitehill Golf course near Dane End. There are only 12 spaces so please let her know as soon as possible if you would like to go. 07909 065550.

Lighting issue in St Mary’s:

Since the electricians switched off the power in St Mary’s recently the panel of buttons to control the lights hasn’t been working. We are in contact with the manufacturer, but until we can get it sorted, the visitors’ lights switch (in the porch, just outside the big doors) has been altered so that it puts on all the lights. Please use that one if you need lights on.

Aegean cruise & stay ‘In the Wake of St. Paul’:

Our friend and frequent visitor, Revd Nigel Bennett of St Jude Southsea will be leading a cruise to the Aegean between 3rd and 13th October 2024. Specially invited guests include Pam Rhodes from BBCTV’s Songs of Praise, Paul Jones, Fiona Hendley-Jones and Revd Dr Peter Walker. John has more details; please ask him if you’d like to know more.

Website - changes:

Our benefice website is on the www.achurchnearyou.com platform. The ACNY platform has been/is rolling out a number of changes to improve their site so that benefice information doesn’t need to be duplicated for each church. Please bear with us as we work to populate the new pages.

Some people have been having difficulty reaching the benefice page. It can be reached via this link: https://www.achurchnearyou.com/benefice/32-240BF/. The forward from https://ubsms.org.uk has been updated to point to that new page.

Services for the next few weeks

Midweek services each week:

Tuesdays, 9.30am Holy Communion (BCP), St Catherine's

Wednesdays, 9.30am Morning worship & Bible study, St Mary's

Sunday services:

1st October 8.00am Holy communion, St Mary's

10.30am Harvest morning worship, All Saints