Contact nov 2013

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November 2013

Services & Events 2

Puzzle Fun 6

Fundraising 5

Barneys Kids Page 9

Interview with Anne Graham

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Church Annual Reports

18

Eggnog Cupcakes Church Diary

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Inside this issue:

Methodist & United Reformed Churches Together 203 Main Road, Dovercourt, Essex, CO12 3PH

www.dovercent.btck.co.uk & find us on Facebook

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Church Secretary: Mrs Iris Hatch 01255 503688

Hiring Officer & Junior Church Co-ordinator:

Mrs Margaret Smith 01255 504828

Contact Magazine Editor

Jenni Bush Janet Scott

01255 506336 [email protected] 01255 506962

Sunday Services

1st Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship, with Junior Church, (Refreshments afterwards)

2nd Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship & Holy Communion, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)

3rd Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)

4th Sunday: 9.00am Holy Communion, 10.45am Morning Worship, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)

5th Sunday: 10.45am Morning Worship/Family Service, with Junior Church (Refreshments afterwards)

Church Activities

Messy Church—every 3rd Tuesday of the Month, 4.30pm.

Pause for Thought—Fridays 9.30—10.00am

Coffee Morning—Fridays 10.00am-12.00pm

Pilots—Fridays 5.30-7.00pm (term time only)

Worship Night—2nd Friday of the Month 7pm.

Deadline for Submissions for next magazine: 20th November

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Iris

A note from the Church Secretary..... Dear Friends, Autumn has certainly arrived now and everything starts to get busy again. There are several events arranged for the lead up to Christmas. You will find all the details in this newsletter. Please try and support these whenever you can. What does Advent season really mean for us? We have to thank God for this time of year when Advent reminds us of the extent of God’s love for us in sending his son. We hope that we can gain a sense of expecta-tion and a new confidence in the future

and gladly respond to what God is asking us to do. We also continue to ask God’s guidance for future ministry in our church. God of the unexpected you never fail to surprise us. Your world is full of wonder and delight. The mystery of your love amazes us and take us unawares. Give us the imagination to respond to your transforming grace.

Christian Greetings

8th November £4.00 per adult [free for children]. Adults to bring a firework

Remembrance

We all should remember That day in November

The year was Nineteen Eighteen The fighting was over

The world was “in clover” World peace was finally seen.

That day was to be For you and for me

The end of “The war of all wars” But as we all know That just wasn’t so

Nations still settle “old scores”

Dictators still rise

Whatever their size “I am in charge” is their cry

Their ideas are grand Just take over the land

But sadly many people will die.

But remember that day Now so far away

When peace of a sort was achieved And Pray that no more

Will the world go to war It’s something we all should believe.

Bill Brittain

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URC Eastern Synod

Birthdays We wish a very happy birthday this month

to....

1st— Millie Higgs

11th— Sadie Howman

25th— Gladys Good

28th— Ethel Muir

Kayla Bush

We wish you all many happy returns.

Advent Coffee Morning & Sale Join us on Saturday 30th. November

for our advent coffee morning.

Where you can warm up from the

winter and celebrate

the start of advent

season with us.

We will be

open

serving

aromatic

coffee, along with many stalls from

10am till 13.00pm.

We hope to have stalls in the hall and

will be inviting local schools to come

along and sing in the church.

If you have an idea for a stall or are

willing to organise and man the usual

stalls such as Cakes, Bric-a-Brac, Raf-

fles, tombola’s, toiletries then please

discuss with Hazel or Margaret.

Christine will be holding a tombola

and has asked if anyone feels able to

wrap 10 small gifts for the tombola

she would really appreciate it.

If you are able to help promote the sale by

displaying a poster please ask at church or

email [email protected]

Synod in March 2014 will be held at Christ

Church, Chelmsford. The head of Children’s

and youth work development, Karen Morri-

son, and the children's & youth work Pro-

gramme Officer, Natalie Husk from church

house to speak to us.

In October 2014 the meeting will be held in

Witham and Andrew Bradstock, secretary for

the church and society has been invited to

speak on 1914, the 100 year commemorations,

with emphasis on Justice and peace.

At the March synod some of the preliminary

results of the questionnaire were reported.

The data has since been analysed and here is a

summary.

Summary of findings:

Of the 140 churches in the eastern synod 36

returned questionnaires. (synod wide a re-

sponse of 25.7%. The data showed that:

32% of the churches have no under 25’s

attending services on a regular basis

34% of churches have no children attend-

ing services on a regular basis.

49% of churches have no young people

attending on a regular basis.

63% of churches have fewer than 2

young people attending services on a

regular basis.

Less than 15% of churches have children

or young who have been to an event or-

ganised by and Area partnership, synod

or the national church.

Nearly 80% of churches do not have

young people in positions of responsibil-

ity.

25% of churches do not have anyone re-

sponsible for organising events for chil-

dren or young people.

The Synod will be taking forward some sug-

gestions on how to improve what had been

highlighted from their survey. If you would

like to read the report in more detail please see

Margaret.

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Oh Christmas Tree

The Christmas Tree Festival at

the salvation army citadel is on

Wednesday 4th December till

Sunday 8th December.

Central church has accepted

the invitation to display a

decorated Christmas tree at

this event and I’ve been asked to organise this.

One of the activities at messy church in No-

vember will be for the children to make

Christmas tree tags. These will be available at

the church on Sunday 24th November and 1st

December.

Please will you all help to decorate the tree by

writing your own message on a tag, including

your name and all will be tied to the tree. By

doing this you will also be sending Christmas

wishes to family and friends at Central church

as our tree will come back after the festival

and form part of our own Christmas displays

Olive

Samaritans Purse Shoe Box Appeal

Thanks

to all

who

have

sent in

shoe

boxes

for the

appeal.

If you still are able to dust off the

Christmas wrapping paper and your old

shoe boxes and prepare to pack them

with goodies for operation Christmas

Child. Pat Lowry will be organising col-

lection of your shoe boxes, Collecting

them from church from 1st November

till 18th November. More details to fol-

low. Operation Christmas Child Shoe

box appeal is a great way of showing

Gods Love this year to others, and is a

great mission tool. If you’d like to know

more, speak to Pat, pick up a leaflet

from Church or visit

www.operationchristmaschild.org.uk/

Fun-dabidosi Fundraising! Thank You!

We would like to say a massive thank

you to Bethany, Naomi, Alyssa and

Jack who through their sponsored cy-

cle ride raised £146 for Essex Churches

Trust and 50% of this will be returned to

our church.

Our Gift day, held on the weekend of

the 12th and 13th October has also

raised £497 to date (13/10/13), thank

you to all members and friends for their

most generous donations.

Also a big thank you to all our volun-

teers, helpers and all who give up their

time and put so much into energy and ef-

fort into fundraising for the

church.

http://www.operationchristmaschild.org.uk/

6 Oc

tob

er

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Let’s Get Messy Our Messy Church will be held on the

19h. November will continue our theme

of creation by considering NIGHT.

Worship will be led by Maddy Whittle.

This session we will have tags to deco-

rate Dovercourt Central Church Christ-

mas Tree that is going into the Christmas

Tree weekend at the Salvation Army be-

tween 6th – 8th.

December. We

would like all our

Messy Church to

write a message on the

tag that will then go on our tree, so come

with your thoughts for a message.

Margaret.

Next Messy Church - Tuesday 19th November 4.30pm

PILOT News

Meetings in No-

vember will be:

8th.this is the

curry and fire-

work evening

[there will be

alternative to

curry!!] 15th.

22nd. and 29th.

Margaret Smith—Pilot Captain

Pilots is a Christian organisation for children

and young people. If you are interested in join-

ing our pilot company please see Margaret,

more information on Pilots can be found at

www.urc.org.uk/ministry/pilots.html

It was November 30, and four men were chatting at a bar and talking about how

they'd named their children. The first, aware that it was St Andrew's Day, told them

that he'd earlier been at his son's birthday party.

"We called him Andrew, as he was born today," he explained.

The next man revealed that he too had had a son and named him after the day he'd

been born on - George.

The third couldn't believe it, for he too had a son named after the day. His was

called David.

And the fourth? Well, by amazing coincidence, he too had had a son named after

the day he was born on. But ... well, Pancake is an unusual name, isn't it?

Only Joking

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Church Annual Reports

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Report from Christian Aid Representative

The Christian Aid group met 3 times during the year at our meeting in October 2012 we were

privileged to have the co-ordinator for Essex, Rosie Venner attending. She updated us on

Christian Aid’s latest projects and gave us come fundraising ideas. She has recently returned

from a Christian Aid Project in Bolivia and has kindly agreed to take part in the Christian aid

service on the 11th may 2014 to share her experience with us. She had also arranged a fund-

raising and awareness raising event at Green island Gardens in ardleigh in April that Colin

Brenda and myself attended.

During Christian Aid week 2013 we raised £1126.02 from a store collection, street collections,

hunger lunches envelopes from various churches and the collection at the Christian Aid ser-

vice . Adding this to coffee mornings and a store collection held later in the year in total we

raised in excess of £1500.

Thank you to all those who contributed in any way. Our next meeting is on Wed 15th Feb 2014

at 7.30 pm at the Salvation Army hall. If anyone would like to find out more, please feel free

to attend the meeting.

Christine Jarrett

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RAMSEY & DOVERCOURT CRUSADERS ANNUAL REPORT – 2013

2013 has been another very busy year for our Group. Our Wednesday Evening Sessions at Dovercourt Central Church Hall have continued to maintain weekly attendances in the mid 40’s of young people and we are virtually operating to capacity. We currently have 80 children on our Register. At any one Meeting we try not to exceed 50 members. Leadership

Our Leadership Team comprises of Nigel & Therese Spencer, Fiona Reeves, Tina Peake, Sally Marsh, An Lammens & Senior Help-ers Jon Reeves, Meg Spencer, and Stuart Scott. Meg is currently at Goldsmiths University, Stuart is at Brunel University, and Jon has decided to have a break from Crusaders for awhile, but still helps when he can. We are delighted that Connie and Jonas have agreed to become Junior Helpers now. Patrons to our Group are Janet Thomas, David Barker, Lilian Yarrow, Chris Hammond & Stephen/Audrey Northfield. We have friends who Prayerfully support us including those at Crusaders Luton H. Q. Our auditor is Biddy Farrington and cheque

book co-signatory is Dr. Richard Wilson.

Our Activities

Besides the weekly Group Meetings, our main activities in which we have been involved have included organising the hugely suc-cessful Christingle Service here at Central Church during one of our Wednesday Night Meetings, having a presence at Dovercourt events, Family Bingo Evenings, and maintaining links with Colchester Crusaders. The Bingo Family Evenings remain popular thanks to the help of Caller Monica Graves and many of you! They help with our Charity outreach and Rent, so please do attend, especially the Christmas one on December 4th 2013. (Usual times & venue) A big success this year was holding Summer Meetings out in the open on the playing field at All Saints Primary School, thanks to the kindness of Head Teacher Richard Hopkins and to Margaret Baines for locking up afterwards. We certainly would like to re-peat meeting at this venue in 2014.

Once again the exciting event of the year was our Long Weekend at the National Crusaders Victorian mansion of Westbrook, Ryde, on the Isle of Wight. We had an absolutely brilliant time and hope Colchester Crusaders will rejoin us for the virtually already Booked 25th – 27th April 2014 Weekend. (Please see me now if you have not Booked, are aged over 9 years old and want to go, as we really do only have 2 spaces left!)

Finances There are still no annual Membership Fees to belong to our Crusader Group – but a £1 contribution towards refreshments on

Wednesdays is vital to minimise our expenses. Funding has stabilised, thanks to Janet, David, Brian, Ian, Nigel and the Northfields helping us to again raise money at the 2013Victorian Event on the C.V.R. Also, we have gained generous grants from Churches To-gether (to help us with our Hall hire charges) the local Parish/Town Councils, Asda, & Dovercourt Caravan Club. A recent donation from Sacha, who lives many miles away but who supports our work with young people, has been most welcome. Also the bags of cuddly creatures received via Essex Police have been well received as well! Our audited Financial Statement is available if anyone needs to consult it.

Charities that we have supported this year include Christian Aid, The Children's’ Society, M.A.F., Toybox Charity, C.B.M. and Na-tional Appeals. (Report finalised October 20th 2013) Other News

We endeavour to remain true to our goals of supporting the Christian principles that Crusaders stands for within a caring, fun filled environment. We take great pride in encouraging our youngsters to take on responsibilities, not only for themselves, but for oth-ers within the Group, and in encouraging them to listen to, and to care for, others. As always, at our Meetings we have an expected Behavioural Code and if any member feels they cannot abide by this then we re-serve the right to ask those individuals to leave and have a ‘cooling-off’ fortnight. Re-admission is up to the individual and the Leaders to reach an agreed way forward. In our 23 years of existence we have never permanently barred any member but would

do so should we feel the health and safety and well-being of any of our Group was being threatened. Having said all this it remains a privilege to know our members in all their diversity! May that long continue!

Finally, once again may I ask that if any Christian Adult Helpers, who have a heart for helping young people, could help to assist at meetings, we would be thrilled to welcome them. Subject to Training and Police checks, if anyone reading this feels called to be-come involved with the running of Ramsey & Dovercourt Crusaders, then please do contact any of the Leadership Team. Again, we would like to express our gratitude to our families, local Churches, and all well-wishers, for their financial/Prayerful com-mitment. We remain an active Christian Youth Group only because of what everyone together achieves, please keep that vital support go-ing! Every Blessing, Ramsey & Dovercourt Crusaders.

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Date

November 2013 Details

Time

Fri 8th Pause for Thought 9.30-10am

Coffee Morning 10am-12pm

Curry Evening & Fireworks

Sun 10th Sunday Morning Worship with Communion— Led By Rev. D. Lang

10.45am

Alexandra House Service—Led by Rev. J Jenkins 3.30pm



Pilots 5.30-7pm

Sun 17th Morning Worship led by Mr N. Scott 10.45am

Alexandra House Service—Led by Rev C. Logan 3.30pm

Tues 19th Messy Church—Fun for everyone 4.30pm

Fri 22nd Pause for Thought 9.30-10am


Pilots 5.30-7pm

Sun 24th Communion Service—Led by Rev. C. Knight Morning worship Led by R. Taylor

9.00am 10.45am

Alexandra House Service—Led by Rev. E. Walker 3.00pm



Pilots 5.30-7pm

Christmas Worship Night—Informal worship at All Saints church—please come along for a sing song

7pm-8.30pm

Sat 30th Advent Coffee Morning 10am-1pm

Sun 1st Morning Worship Led by Mr G. Heathcote 9.00am

Alexandra House Service—Led by Mrs M Whittle 3.30pm

Church Diary

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