Thoughts from The Vicarage with an advert, stations of the cross and a quiet morning.
Greetings on a chilly but sunny day as we look ahead to the 2nd Sunday of Lent with the Stations of The Cross now ready to be walked in St Michael & All Angels with images and prayers to help us journey with Jesus on the road of suffering, death & grief.
Images are by Sieger Koder with prayers by Padraig O Tuama. The pictures are fully accessible online here https://tinyurl.com/yks69wnd
Fancy a Quiet Morning – time for reflection and gentle guidance? All welcome from 9.30-12.45 @ St Laurence Hungerford RG17 0JB by kind invitation of Revd Mike Saunders – a good friend of many in the Valley. If you need help to get there just be in touch with me.
A new electoral roll – thank you from the electoral roll officers, Karen All Saints, Jenny St James and Keith St Michael’s for your completed electoral roll forms. By law, 14 days before the APCM each electoral roll must be published. The final date for applications for St James electoral roll is March 15th.
The season of Annual Parish Meetings APCMs is coming up when Parishioners are invited to a meeting at which Church Wardens are elected for the year 2025-2026. Nominations for Church Wardens should be received by myself before each meeting. Those on the electoral roll then elect members onto the PCC – the Parochial Church Council. Nominations for PCC members need to be received with consent from the nominee prior to or at the meeting. Nomination forms for Wardens and PCC members will be available in each church. While this might all sound rather a mouthful – we do need to follow due process. And of course at the heart of this is a sense of service, of using gifts and talents to serve the church in this small corner of God’s creation. Please do think about stepping up and once again, please don’t hesitate to ask.
St Michael & All Angels needs YOU.
Sorry – no poster, but a fabulously helpful attachment! Could you be the next PCC sec?
- Being a PCC secretary is not just about writing minutes and circulating agendas, although these things are important. It is about using your gifts for administration to make sure that your church or parish is supported so that it can focus on its mission and service.
- It is thanks to the work of the PCC secretary that other members of the PCC can be well prepared for meetings so that time is not wasted in matters of routine, decisions are made clear so that the right actions are undertaken, correspondence is dealt with graciously and, during a vacancy, the processes for appointing a new minister run smoothly.
- PCC secretary duties include liaising with the chair of the PCC for meeting agendas, preparation and distribution of relevant documents to PCC members, maintenance and safe keeping of all formal PCC documents, management of the APCM, co-ordination of the PCC’s Annual Report and acting as the conduit for communication between the PCC, diocese, deanery synod, and the congregation.
- The role of PCC secretary is an important ministry, but it is not one you undertake alone. Diocesan staff are on hand to help with any problems you may come across and hold in-depth annual training sessions for PCC secretaries.
A message from Dan Lond of Thames Valley Police
The Neighbourhood team have received reports of possible drug dealing in the Close End area of Lambourn and are encouraging residents to report all incidents to us so that we can combat this. If you see drug dealing in progress, please call 999 so that officers can immediately respond to it. If you would like to pass us concerns/suspicions/intelligence around drug dealing, please report online via the TVP website: Report a crime | Thames Valley Police or email the neighbourhood team at: HungerfordandDownlandsNHPT@thamesvalley.police.uk
Please do respond – I’ve had a positive meeting with Dan. He asked me to stress the importance of reporting as above.
Finally, as we enter the second week of Lent please do let either myself or Christine know if you would like a conversation around Lent – or if you have any kind of query – no question ever too small! And please don’t worry if you think you should know the answer already!!
And very finally, some Lenten thoughts:
Every blessing,
Julie