Rosebery Road Methodist Church

The Festival was well-supported, despite the cold weather, and everyone who visited was most appreciative of the displays and the work that had gone into setting them up. Some additional donations towards our Church Hall Refurbishment Fund were made over the Christmas period, so the final amount has yet to be announced. We would like to thank everyone who came and who donated so generously.

We look forward to welcoming the Year 3 children from Angel Road School on Tuesday 13th December, when they will be coming to see the displays of cribs and trees and also to do some Christmas themed craft work.

Our services during the Christmas season will be: Morning Worship with Holy Communion at 10.30am and Christingle Service at 4.00pm on Sunday 11th December; Morning Worship at 10.30am and Candlelit Carol Service at 6.30pm on Sunday 18th December; Christmas Day Celebration at 10.30am on Sunday 25th December; and Epiphany Carol Service on Sunday 1st January. Further details may be found on the Services and Times page.

Preparations for the Festival are in full swing, and the displays are looking beautiful. We hope that plenty of visitors will come to see them! Opening dates/times and other information may be found in the earlier post about the event.

Although we normally raise funds for a charity, this year we have decided to ask for donations towards the very necessary refurbishment of our Church Hall suite, and we hope that visitors will feel able to support us in our efforts to get the rooms ready to be offered for use by local (or not so local) community groups.

Our annual Cribs and Trees Festival will be open on Saturday 3rd, Sunday 4th, Friday 9th, Saturday 10th and Sunday 11th December from 10.30am to 4.00pm (12 noon to 4.00pm on the Sundays), with the Christingle Service at 4.00pm on Sunday 11th. There will also be organ recitals by Tim Patient from 11.00am to 12 noon on both Saturdays, and carol singing at 11.00am on Friday 9th.

As usual, there will be light refreshments available, plus craft, gift, produce, and second hand book stalls. Parking will be available in the school playground opposite the church.

Donations this year will be in aid of our Church Hall Refurbishment Fund, as the Hall and particularly the side rooms are in need of renovation so that we can offer them for hire to local user groups.

We look forward to welcoming friends old and new over the two weekends, so please do come along, we’d love to see you! The displays will remain in place until the new year, so can be viewed over the Christmas period by those who come to the seasonal services.

We look forward to welcoming the Year 3 classes from Angel Road School on Tuesday 11th October, when they will be visiting the church to see our Harvest displays; to learn more about Harvest; and to do some related craft work.

Seventeen of us went to Heartsease Lane last week for a lovely service led by Rev Nick Collison, and an enjoyable time of fellowship – coffee/tea followed by a buffet lunch – afterwards. It was good to meet and chat to friends old and new.

This week (9th October) we look forward to welcoming some friends from Heartsease Lane and possibly other churches to our Harvest Festival service, which will be followed by tea/coffee and then a ‘bring-and-share’ lunch in the Calvert Hall. We hope that everyone will enjoy the fellowship as much as we did last week.

This year we shall be celebrating Harvest Festival with two services. The first will be at Heartsease Lane Methodist Church on Sunday 2nd October, with visiting preacher Rev Nick Collison, as part of that church’s closure plans. We have been invited to go to this, so there will be no service here that Sunday. There will be a buffet lunch afterwards for those who would like to stay.

The second service will be here at Rosebery Road on Sunday 9th October, and we have invited the Heartsease Lane congregation to join us in worship and in refreshments and a ‘bring-and-share’ lunch afterwards.

We look forward to sharing fellowship on the two Sundays, and also to welcoming members of Heartsease Lane who might choose to come to our services once their church has closed.

We have already gained a few new hirer groups, and we haven’t even advertised widely yet! We’ve also had enquiries from some more groups who might be interested in using our premises, so we are looking forward to growing as a community facility.

During the past two weeks we have had four clearing out sessions in the Calvert Hall suite, which have made a massive difference to the premises. A mountain of ‘stuff’ is now awaiting removal by a waste collection company, which will free up the outside space. Many thanks are due to everyone who came and helped with clearing, cleaning, tidying the car park and access ways, and much more – a total of almost 80 person-hours’ work was done over the four sessions.

The next job will be to get the side rooms refurbished so that they, too, will be available for use once again.