Hello everyone, a Happy New Year to you all. What a busy time we had in December. We held a lovely Carol Service at St Andrews, Nunton. There is something quite magical about candlelight, so with a huge congregation, and a large choir, all holding candles, we raised the roof with great singing. Thank you to all the folk who come together each year to create a choir at Christmas, and to Adrian for co-ordinating it all. We had an amazing Christmas Day service in St Mary’s, Odstock. In a small church which comfortably holds 65 people, we had 74. We celebrated together and kept warm. Huge thanks to everyone who decorated both churches - they were so pretty and filled with love. Despite the weather, small groups of Carol Singers sang their way round Odstock, Nunton & Bodenham, collecting money for the Tear Drop Fund. This is a charity which operates in 50 different countries, helping disadvantaged children. Thank you everyone, especially the refreshment stops along the way, with mulled wine and mince pies or coffee to warm us up.
To celebrate All Souls' Day, and to remember all our departed loved ones, we held a service at St Mary's at the beginning of November. The Church looked beautiful, with the gleaming brass illuminated by candlelight.The service, led by the Rector, the Revd Dr Ruth Howlett-Shipley, and newly appointed Revd Maggie Metcalfe, opened with the glorious and apposite hymn Be Still My Soul, written by Katherina von Schlegel in 1752 and set to Jean Sibelius's Finlandia, ably played on the organ by Shelagh Lamb.Members of the congregation were invited to write the name of a loved one on a card which was then offered up at the altar. It was a moving service, with the clergy team offering comfort and hope where it was much needed.
