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Vicar’s Report: St Mary’s AGM 13th April 2011
Report of the Priest In Charge, Andy Myers
Hasn’t the year 2010-11 flashed by? Having completed my third year as Priest in Charge of St Mary’s, I go into the next financial year with
both optimism and trepidation for all the usual reasons. Our change of service times to enable me to serve both churches each Sunday has,
I think, been more successful than anticipated. Most church members have been loyal despite the fact that the change of times has caused
some inconvenience to some individuals.
Church attendance has been fairly steady throughout this year with the welcome addition of some new members. After a tribute to Anne Crann I
would like to report on “The State of St Mary’s” as usual under the four headings of Buildings; Mission; Spirituality and Finance
Anne Crann
I cannot proceed with this report without both expressing my personal sadness at the death in March of our long-standing Church Warden of 23
years Anne Crann. The tributes to Anne have been pouring in – but I think I need in this report to both register our churches thanks and my
personal thanks to the incredible contribution Anne made to our Church life.
Anne served as Church Warden alongside several Vicars. Her contribution to our church life was at every level: spiritual - as an intelligently
questioning believer; moral: she was the one often to draw the Vicar’s attention to a sick parishioner who needed a visit; she was the one who
spent time with an older parishioner who was getting confused for example; supportive - if she could she attended every church-related event in
the community that she could. This could be a meeting of Deanery Synod; or a meeting of Middleton Elderly Aid; or perhaps a campaigning meeting
for the Labour Party or a meeting to arrange the Summer Fayre; or a meeting of a local campaigning group; or a meeting of St Mary’s board of
governors. Anne was the only governor I know who could have a meeting delayed until she was able to be there, such was the respect that everyone
had for her.
She contributed in umpteen ways to the life of the parish – not just the general running of the parish but also to its spiritual life. She was
a central player in the Worship Group and a very able and thoughtful preacher.
She also fully supported the social life of the parish going on many trips organised by the Parochial Hall. She also took active part in many of
its fundraising shows.
Everyone knows how much Anne did. To me personally she was a lady who always did more listening than being listened too! Even in those final weeks
when visits must have been very painful for her she would listen attentively to my parish worries and was always 100% supportive. She met her death
with great courage fortified by all the sacraments of the Church.
Our condolences of course go to her husband Bill Crann and all his family. Our loss as a parish is only matched and surpassed by the loss which
her family must be experiencing.
May she rest in peace and rise in Glory.
Buildings: we still have the continuing anxiety of the state of our Church building. Sadly additional vandalism was done by the dismantling and attempted
theft of Yorkshire stone tiles from the boiler room house. The tiles have been replaced with a metal roof which we were assured has no attraction to thieves.
Sad to say, there have already been attempts to steal the roof, none so far successful.
The roof and interior of the church cause ever greater concern. However we are confident that soon we will have sold the Maude Hall, proceeds of which will come
to our church council – and I don’t doubt that their first priority will be the mending of the roof and restoration and decoration of the church interior. The
work to achieve this will have to be carefully planned around the many weddings we have booked this year.
On a more positive note after many adventures our converted hospitality area at the west end is looking good, especially with the addition of carpet tiles.
Mission: Our Ecumenically supported Kidz club at Middleton Primary school has just celebrated its first year and goes from strength to strength. During the dark
winter months young people still attended the after school church at Middleton Primary school in large numbers- often we had 60-90 children in attendance. The
challenge for coming months will be funding
.
Our social club still functions as a centre for social mission.
Weddings, funerals and baptisms continue to be in great demand at St Mary’s and very much are occasions for outreach and mission. This last financial year
we conducted 69 funerals; 14 Weddings and 41 Baptisms.
None of this out reach and mission could happen without the support of the wider parish. My particular thanks go again to Anne Crann as warden; David Askin as our
latest church warden; Allan Collinson for his invaluable work as treasurer and club secretary; to Andrea Render for her invaluable work and support as PCC secretary
and to everyone in the parish who has supported me in my leadership role and who have carried out so many of the behind the scenes tasks without which a parish cannot
function. Thanks must also go to Fr James Turner who despite a period of quite serious ill health has continued to support me in the cure of the parish.
Our joint PCCs with St Cross prove to have been very encouraging occasions for creative working together in mission.
Relations with our church school and Broomfield school continue to be good. We have had several services in church- but once again the highlight at Christmas was having
the whole of Broomfield special school in church fro the very special Christingle service- very well attended also by parents. Throughout the year Broomfield have been
attending St Mary’s on Fridays for Bible stories.
Cockburn High School has also been most supportive and twice had sent large numbers of their students to do Churchyard cleanups.
However there is much work to be done in connecting our Sunday Church to wider mission.
Spirituality
Growing links through Churches Together mean that we need more people from St Mary’s (and St Cross) to support the joint projects and services. We continue
to have support from a few individuals but I hope we’ll see more coming forward.
The introduction of monthly healing services seems to be going well.
We hope soon to see the restoration of our parish choir.
Finance
Our finances continue to be well managed by Allan Collinson and Bill Crann and we are hoping soon to see a big injection into them from the sale of the Maude Hall.
However we cannot be complacent because although we are paying our bills and the parish share, as membership declines through age related issues we must look to growth
in every area of church life.
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