Meon Valley Foodbank
07956 375447
www.meonvalleyfoodbank.co.uk
Follow us on twitter @MeonValleyFB
Registered Charity in England and Wales 1190417
Wickham Centre, Mill Lane Wickham PO17 5AL
Thank you very much for your continued support.
The following items are needed before Monday, 13th February 2023:
- Tinned meat meals of all types
- Tinned and instant potatoes
- Tinned Spam and Corned Beef
- Instant Pot Noodles
The Food Bank is usually open on Mondays between 10 am and 12 to receive food donations.
Food can also be dropped off at the following places:
- In one of the local collection boxes
Meonstoke Church, Droxford Church, Exton Church
- Droxford Post Office
- Marks and Spencers, Whiteley
- Sainsbury’s Bishops Waltham,
- The Jubilee Hall, Shore Lane, BW
- St Peter’s Church, Curdridge
- St Peter’s Church, Bishop’s Waltham
- Blessed Mary Church, Upham.
Thank you all for your kind donations and continued support of the Food Bank.
Meon Valley Foodbank
07956 375447
www.meonvalleyfoodbank.co.uk
Follow us on twitter @MeonValleyFB
Registered Charity in England and Wales 1190417
THANK YOU for your continued support.
PLEASE give generously.
Aggie Weston’s (http://www.aggies.org.uk/ ) is a Christian Charity that supports the Royal Navy, Royal Marines, Royal Fleet Auxiliary and their families through the provision of Pastoral Workers in military bases and establishments around the country.
We are now looking to recruit several people to join a couple of our teams based in the Portsmouth area. The roles call for people with a Christian vocation.
Closing date for applications is Monday 23rd May 2022.
W(h)ither the Church?
I have been struck recently by two events and a set of data that have reminded me that the relationship between the rural church and its community is far from dead, in fact, even to say its significance has withered would be going too far.
In our benefice, an average of 4% of the adult population attend church each week, 3.5% in our neighbours in Hambledon, Newtown and Soberton, the next highest in the deanery. ‘That proves not many people go to church’, I hear you say, but hold on – that is more than double the proportion attending in some more built-up areas of our deanery and even more than the diocese overall (Source: Deanery Synod papers). It’s certainly a better position than we sometimes think!
However, we cannot be complacent. The church nationally and locally has been on a significant journey over the last five years and not always an easy one. Slow progress and the impact of COVID-19 have taken their toll on mission and ministry; there will no doubt be further changes of direction.
In our local deanery, we are looking for ways to share our resources to best effect. We are shaping a vision of working more collegially. We hope to create different and diverse ways for us to learn more about our faith, to equip us to serve the community better and succeed in our ministry.
As the church seeks to ensure its relevance and build sustainability, across the deanery we have identified what seems to be a way ahead:
- Collaborate across historic parish boundaries
- Retain and develop a vibrant local presence in communities
- Increase the overall capacity for leadership
- Enable clergy to focus on spiritual leadership
- Provide co-ordinated administrative support
- Slim down governance structures
If the future of your local church matters to you:
- What do you see as the strength(s) in this approach?
- What might be a concern or worry?
- Over what timescale should such a change in our ways of working take place?
- What about our buildings?
- What could parishes share in general? What could we share specifically?
(Skills, people or resources)
The local rural church and its communities have been intertwined for centuries, and many of us believe that we lose the relationship at our peril. Email me or write with your views or ideas for sustaining that relationship or even building it further, so we can serve you better and not just survive, but have the capacity to go from strength to strength.
General Synod Paper – The Emerging Church
Diocese Paper_4_Live_Pray_Serve_Update__Context
The Primacy of the Parish by Bishop Philip North
The Emerging Church of England
The Emerging Church of England is the name for four strands of work which together will help leaders in every diocese to discern the shape, life and activity of the Church of England in the 2020s. The main aim of the Emerging Church of England is to follow a shared vision – to share what God has done for us in Jesus Christ and continues to do through the Holy Spirit – with simpler national governance structures.
This work began before the coronavirus pandemic but has been intensified and adapted in light of the changing circumstances. The work is to:
- Review our strategic context:? the Church and the impact of the social, political and economic world around us
- Determine key strategic priorities for the next ten years?through a shared Vision and Strategy
- Deliver simpler governance structures
- Transform our national operating model for the future i.e. the practical ways the Church is organised and functions.
The work is overseen by a Coordinating Group, chaired by the Bishop of Manchester and made up of members of the Church Commissioners, the Archbishops’ Council and the House of Bishops. Its job is to recommend proposals to the governing bodies to ensure the necessary changes happen at the right time, as well as ensuring the different areas of work join up well.
Four groups – Recovery, Vision & Strategy, Governance, and Transforming Effectiveness – have been tasked with consulting the wider Church, providing recommendations and guidance, and transparently communicating their progress and findings.
Recovery
The Recovery Group, led by the Bishop of London, looks at how to respond to and interpret changing government advice on church buildings and services. Its responsibilities also include supporting churches in reaching out to existing and new worshippers through digital means; the Church of England’s response to social need; and the wellbeing of church and communities.
Vision and Strategy
Led by the Archbishop of York, this group works with dioceses on how best to use the resources, abilities and time available to make decisions about what our priorities should be and how they will work themselves out through the complex and dispersed diversity of a church like ours.
Governance
The Governance Group, led by the Bishop of Leeds, will review the effectiveness of the national governance structures and functions of the Church of England, and make recommendations to the Archbishops for possible changes to improve the functioning and effectiveness of those structures, processes and activities.
The group published a report which can be found here.
Transforming Effectiveness
This group, led by the Bishop of St Edmundsbury and Ipswich, focuses on the practical ways the Church is organised and gets things done that enable the local church to flourish.?The whole system will be looked: what should continue as is, what should be changed, and what should just stop.
Wilfrid’s Café has re-opened
Delicious coffee and cakes and much more
The Café is open on Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Mondays from 10.00a.m. to 12.30 p.m.
Also, Wilfrid’s is still offering takeaways and we can now offer you a choice of indoor or outdoor tables and seating.
Indoor seating is available from 1045 on Thursdays after the friendly midweek Eucharist
Please join us for the service and a coffee in the café afterwards
You can now make donations on-line
to the
Parish of St Andrew, Meonstoke and Corhampton.
Help us to
Save our Beautiful Saxon and Medieval Churches,
Serve our wonderful Community and
Conserve our splendid Church Green
Scan the QR Code
Click on the Button
Or follow the link: https://cafdonate.cafonline.org/14912
to the PCC of St Andrew – Meonstoke with Corhampton CAF Donate page.
PLEASE D O N A T E YOUR SUPPORT IS VALUED HIGHLY
WILLIAM COLLINS TRUST
Our local charity was set up to benefit the children and students from The Bridge parishes who could do with a bit of financial help with their education. Some further information is available [HERE] and an application form is available [HERE].
Please feel free to speak informally and in confidence to any of the trustees listed on the form or to the Fr Tony (The Rector).
THANK YOU!
Supporting Children and Families made Homeless in Portsmouth
A HUGE THANK YOU
to Becky for organising the carols around the tree on Friday evening. It was a wonderful way of being community and it raised over £1,000 for the E C Roberts Centre in Portsmouth. The money and all the toys collected have been delivered. The Community Christmas Tree celebrations of all the things we have that we are grateful for, has raised £1000 – an extremely valuable contribution to support the E C Roberts Centre in Portsmouth (www.robertscentre.org.uk). THANK YOU to all who supported the event or have given toys or money.
Thank you too
to all those who clean the churches, arrange flowers, maintain, mow, strim and tidy our churchyards and Church Green, look after buildings or people, read or lead prayer and all the other things you do.
WELL DONE AND THANK YOU ALL.
