All Saints, Little Munden

Weekly News - 8th October 2023

This weekend’s Bible readings:

Psalm 80:7-15 (p 593) and Matthew 21:33-46 (p 990)

Lunchtime concert season:

Our lunchtime concert season in St Mary’s has started! Thank you to all who have supported the first two concerts. The final one is on Saturday next, 14th October when the performers will be Flute Cocktail, directed by Wendy Walshe.

A soup and cheese lunch is 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.

Knit & Natter group:

If you like knitting or crocheting, come and join us for a couple of hours in the Sargant room at the back of Standon village hall at 2pm, usually on the 2nd Thursday of each month. Tea & cakes will be available. The next meeting will be on Thursday 12th October 2023. For more information please contact Marion T on 01920 745683.

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 almost sold out, but fear not! Basma plans another of these evenings for some time in 2024, to help raise funds for Little Munden, so if you’re unlucky this time, ask to be put on the list for that one!

‘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.

Operation Christmas Child:

The time has come again! Lizzy’s attic has been emptied and her sitting room has been converted into this year’s ‘Santa’s Grotto’ as she fills wrapped shoe boxes with stationery, toiletries and toys to be sent with Samaritan’s Purse to parts of the world where the children who will receive them have no prospect of receiving any other Christmas gift. If you’d like to contribute, you can do so by wrapping and filling a shoebox yourself (Lizzy will give you a list of what’s allowed) or by donating any of the things that will go into a box. If you’d rather donate money so that Lizzy can use it to buy things she is missing for boxes, or to pay for the travel costs, cash can be given to her or Caroline, or you can transfer it to the Standon PCC bank account (details at the end of this notice sheet) with the reference "OCC". Last year we sent around 150 boxes. This year’s boxes will go about mid-November (and Lizzy will start on next year’s!)

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.

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, who is working on it, 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:

8th October 10.30am Holy communion, St Mary's