St Peter and St Paul’s Church News
Christmas Café
It was a pleasure to welcome our local MP, Mr Edward Argar, to open this event, our first big fundraiser for two years owing to the pandemic. He was also able to present the cheque for £10,000 we were awarded from the National Lottery Community Fund to provide a new boiler for the church hall. Edward was formally welcomed on behalf of the church by parishioner Felicity Austin who presented him with a copy of the second book of Syston in the 20th Century, which was published last summer.
Both hall and church had stalls and activities. As usual the cake stall, run by gifted bakers Ann and Joanne Kemp, in the church was a great attraction, along with some handcrafted gifts. Another stall promoted the Christingle service and the Hot Chocolate Station proved immensely popular. A welcome space was made in the carpeted area for the younger children to enjoy Lego bricks and beside this was an inflated Snowman for taking ‘selfies’! As well as this there was an exquisite beaded nativity scene, created by our Associate Minister Sue Essex, on display in the lady Chapel. There was also a Memory Tree where people could attach a card naming someone they wished to be remembered during the Christmas season.
Over in the hall there was an opportunity to buy tickets for the raffle where the grand selection of prizes was headed by a £100 first prize. There was a large craft stall and tin and bottle tombola, a prize every time stall and some beautifully created Christmas decorations. Also in the hall were the refreshments; there was a choice of three delicious, home-made soups, with some bread, small cakes and mince pies, plus hot drinks.
It was a wonderful occasion and well supported by the community, especially Gamble and Hollis, Tesco Stores and Bistro Oggi. We were delighted to find that over £1,300 was raised for the next project which is the repairing of the ‘louvres’ on the church tower. The upkeep of Syston’s ancient church building certainly keeps parishioners busy with fundraising! A huge thanks goes to all visitors and those who worked so hard to make this event so successful.
Christmas Christingle
What a wonderful start to Christmas to fill the church for the Christingle service. Every child received a Christingle orange. The candles were lit and the Christingle song sung in celebration. The picture above shows Janet Bullock with her grandchildren. Sadly, Janet died suddenly and unexpectedly on Tuesday 3rd January only nine days after this photograph was taken.
It was very encouraging to see so many families together for this special service.
The collection for The Children’s Society raised just over £275
Carol Service
An hour after the Christingle service the church was filled again for a traditional Carol Service arranged and led by our Associate Minister, Sue Essex. Members of the congregation read the bible extracts telling the Christmas story and the specially formed choir sang a couple of Carols.
Midnight Mass
The service, which began at 11.30pm was well supported and it was a joy to sing the last verse of O Come All Ye Faithful beginning Yea, Lord, we greet thee born this happy morning.
Revd Biddy Saunders led the service and Sue Essex preached the sermon.
Church Chimes
So sorry to inform residents of Syston that once more there are issues with the clock chimes! We wait for Cumbria Clocks to have an employee in the area to see if he can rectify this.
Tower Louvres
Keep an eye out at the end of January or beginning of February when work on the louvres will begin. The workmen doing this job are reportedly going to abseil from the top of the tower to work on each window! As the original louvres were made from oak the replacement louvres must also be made of oak, as work on a listed building, as the church is, must be like to like. This, of course, adds to the high cost of this repair.
Do come and join us at 10am on a Sunday Morning or Wednesday morning at 9.30 for a shorter service. For other information on your church please look at A Church Near You in any search engine, enter your postcode and see what we are up to!