To find the latest articles available on the website please use the side menu or use the button below
The latest services are always available by clicking on the link below.
We offer comprehensive information for the bride and groom considering marrying in the parish of Swaythling
Visit The Reverend Canon Gary Philbrick on Facebook by clicking on the link below.
The meeting began with the opportunity to look back over the year so far, and forward to what is coming.
It was the intention that 2011 should be 'a year of refreshment'.
The usual round of worship and prayer has been maintained, and supplemented by joining in the E100 scheme of Bible reading, which comes to an end with Bible Sunday on 23 October.
We thought that would be a good time to get some feedback from participants in this venture.
The year has been marked by a significant number of weddings and baptisms, and it was felt that it would be good to use the contacts made through these services as a basis for parish visiting in the coming year.
We decided that it would be helpful to have a Parish Day, when we could perhaps explore prayer in more depth than we sometimes do; and we need to find a way of encouraging giving alongside the use of all our talents.
This latter is important, for although our finances are nearer to being in the black than they have been for some time, we have a long way to go before we can say that they are on a sound footing.
In the summer months there are fewer committee meetings, but we did have a report from the Standing Committee, which gave us material for our opening discussion.
St Alban's Church committee reported on a variety of housekeeping matters, including the provision of a handrail to the stairs down to the office, the need to find a way to protect the top part of the window in St Agnes' chapel, which is vulnerable to stone throwers, and the progress on the repair of the fence round the church.
More exciting was the request for a resolution to ask for a Faculty to go ahead with the new statue of Alban (which has just been received as we go to print.).
St Mary's had various items under its Project heading which needed our attention.
There has been a breakdown of the electrical supply in the church, which is in process of being remedied, but a delay in getting the drainage of the church dealt with means that the opportunity to complete the work this summer has been lost, and it will have to wait for the spring.
There is quite a lot of work to be done on the trees in the churchyard – permission has to be sought from the Diocesan Advisory Committee for this.
That body has agreed to the proposals, but because the churchyard is in a conservation area, permission has to be sought also from the City Council to fell or trim trees which are in a dangerous state.
We agreed to fund the work, subject to that permission being granted.
Still outstanding is the implementation of the new Baptism policy discussed earlier – but it has not been forgotten.