Vestry Notes:
The latest meeting of the Vestry took place on Tuesday, April 5 th.
We heard that the church’s finances area in a healthy state which is just as
well as some quite expensive projects are about to begin.
To start with there is the prospect of a completely refurbished kitchen which
will be done by John Caullay. The old units will be removed and new ones
installed. Men’s Shed is helping to pay for this. They will purchase two new
cookers, a microwave, a fridge and new utensils. This is very generous offer
for which we are very grateful. Later in the summer we hope to be able to
replace the central heating boilers which should decrease the gas bill but we
are still waiting to hear whether we will get any help from the Diocese
towards the cost of this.
The other new project is a completely new departure for St Oswald’s. You
may have noticed that there are few, if any, teenagers present on Sunday
mornings. This is something which people have become bemoaning for
many years. Now something is happening which may, eventually, remedy
that. We are going to pay for a Youth Development Outreach Officer whose
job will involve working alongside people in the local community to do things
like creating art-work, possible starting a small garden project, perhaps with
Kings Park School, and working with mental health teams to help young
people with mental health issues. These are only some of the things which
this officer will be doing. I hope there may be more details about the job
elsewhere in the magazine. The person who will be taking on this exciting
and/or challenging task is Linda Hardie, one of our new Vestry members and
a recently baptised member of the congregation. She already has a lot of
experience of community work and seems an ideal person to take on this
new role. We all hope that this may lead to young people coming to St
Oswald’s but it is not the main aim of the project which is to help them in
their own situations and while doing so bring the Christian message to them.
We have been told that the Bishop will be coming on a visitation on
Wednesday 27th April 2016. He will attend the normal Wednesday service
that week and stay for lunch (probably rolls from the café across the road).
Finally, I would like to give another reminder that we still need a new
Secretary. I shall be resigning at the last Vestry meeting before the AGM in
December 2016 and while that may seem a long time hence, it is amazing
how fast time goes. There are two large boxes of files which will be
deposited in the church if no-one else has volunteered to take over by then.
You have been warned!
Paula Fleetwood.
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