All Saints to host Christian Aid Week United service

Christian Aid Week news
All Saints Church will host Wokingham churches' Christian Aid Week service on Sunday 15th May. A special ecumenical service in the evening will include a visiting speaker to be announced. More details to follow.

All Saints' Christian Aid rep Peter Barrett said: "If you want to take action for the world's poorest communities then why not join our team of house-to-house collectors in Christian Aid Week. If you can't collect, think about hosting a coffee morning, or a Big Breakfast, or get sponsored for the walk around Bix, near Henley.Please see me for more details."

All Saints' Cambodian church link charity founder visits London

Chomno In  CEO and founder of Cambodian Hope Organisation (CHO) was in London earlier this month to meet UK church leaders. The Cambodian Hope Organisation (CHO) is a Christian NGO based in Poipet, Cambodia. It is linked with the UK church-based agency TearFund. CHO's projects involve community transformation, church transformation and business enterprise. 

Since a member of All Saints Church, Peter Barrett,visited CHO in Cambodia several years ago to see its work at first-hand, All Saints Church has supported the charity with a regular annual donations. See a video about how it's work tackles human trafficking, or visit its website.

Leading adoption charity PACT thanks All Saints Church for support

PACT would like to thank All Saints Wokingham for your continued support. We are hugely grateful for your daily prayers, awareness raising and fundraising for PACT charity.

As you may know, PACT was founded by the Oxford Diocese in 1911 and has been supporting and strengthening families ever since. PACT provides award winning community support to vulnerable families across the Thames Valley, supporting families on issues including domestic abuse, debt, mental health and parenting. PACT also provides an ‘outstanding’ (Ofsted 2014) adoption service including specialist therapeutic support for adopting families.

PACT would like to take this opportunity to update you on what we have achieved recently. 

PACT’s Bounce Back 4 Kids (BB4K) programme for children and parents who have been victims or witnesses of domestic abuse has achieved excellent outcomes and plans to extend d the service which currently operates in Oxfordshire and West Berkshire into Wokingham. PACT supported 61 children and their non-abusing parent through the BB4K programme in 2015 and hopes to support even more vulnerable families in 2016. We believe that with the correct effective support in place for the parent and for the child, we can build resilience, help to keep the family safe, educate them against entering into another abusive relationship in the future and help the healing process so that families have the best chance of improving their lives.

PACT’s award winning community project for women continues to receive new referrals from women with complex needs who have reached crisis point. Alana House supports an average of 70 women per month and helps them to turn their lives around and become contributing members of society.

In 2015, PACT placed 92 children with their ‘forever families’ and provided 1313 hours of therapeutic support to vulnerable adoptive families. The therapeutic support provided  included counselling, Theraplay, clinical psychology, life story work, creative play therapy, homeopathy, dyadic developmental psychotherapy, filial therapy, occupational therapy, art psychotherapy and drama therapy which help children to overcome difficulties in childhood, adolescence and early adulthood which have resulted from childhood developmental trauma and neglect. 

For more information on PACT and the services offered please visit www.pactcharity.org.

We hope that that you will continue to support PACT individually as well as through the church. If you or a friend or family member works for an organisation who may be able to support PACT please do get in touch: laura.senior@pactcharity.org

Thank you

Walking start to Parish Communion service on Palm Sunday

Parishioners are being invited to start their morning worship in walking mode on Palm Sunday 20th March, to recall the entry of Jesus into Jerusalem for the final week of his life.

Rector of All Saints Wokingham, Canon David Hodgson said; "We'll start our Palm Sunday worship in the playground of All Saints Church of England Primary School at 9.30am with a blessing of the palm crosses and a reading of the story of the Lord's triumphal entry into Jerusalem. We will then walk along Norreys Avenue to continue the service in church at 9.45am. Walkers are asked to bring fronds of leaves or branches to wave as they walk, and to wear red, the colour of Holy Week. Any tree will do as we don't have too many palms in Wokingham!"

2016 Giving Campaign update

The pledge renewal response panel on the All Saints Church website

The 2016 Giving Campaign at All Saints Church was launched at the end of February with letters of thanks to all who give to support the mission and ministry of All Saints Church. 

Those who give to the church by pledging a regular amount were asked to renew their pledge for the coming year and prayerfully to consider the level of their pledge. 

A different letter was given to those who do not yet pledge their giving to the church, asking if this regular giving would be something they might consider. 

Renewed pledges were dedicated in church on 13th March. To date 58 people have responded to indicate the renewal of their pledges. Of these 22 pledges were at an increased level and 1 at a reduced level. Currently there are 151 people involved in regular pledging; there is still time to return pledge renewal forms and  new pledges are welcome at any time.

Glass screen for tower comes a big step closer

Glass screen for tower comes closer

Members of All Saints Parochial Church Council were delighted to receive news that the detailed designs for the glass screen in the tower archway, between the ringing chamber of the tower and the body of the church, have been accepted by the Oxford Diocesan Advisory Committee. 

This has cleared the way for a submission to the Chancellor of the Diocese to be made for a faculty (final permission to proceed with the work) with a good hope of permission being granted. 

PCC members also agreed which contractors would be engaged on the basis of their estimates and agreed to release reserves from existing funds which had been donated already for this purpose. 

The glass screen will enable both music and bell -ringing to be carried on within the church building at the same time.

Church's Annual Meeting takes place in April

Rector of All Saints, Canon David Hodgson writes:

"The Annual Parochial Church Meeting will be held this year on Sunday 24th April in The Cornerstone at 11am. Please come to hear about all the various different aspects of the current  life and mission of the church and of course to elect your churchwardens and members of the Parochial Church Council (PCC).

The meeting will comprise three elements. There will be the Annual Meeting of The Cornerstone. All attendees are invited to elect representatives to be part of the Cornerstone Steering Group.This will be followed by the Annual Vestry meeting when churchwardens are elected; followed by the Annual Parochial Church Meeting when PCC members and other officers of the church are elected.

Papers for the meeting will be posted on the church website in mid-April."

Parishioners donate for Easter flowers and remember departed loved ones

Easter flowers by the High Altar in 2014

Parishioners in Wokingham are invited to donate to the cost of flowers to be arranged in All Saints Church for Easter Sunday. Departed loved ones will be remembered and their names, if requested, will be displayed in the church.

Hazel Matthews of All Saints Flower Guild writes:

"Easter is a little earlier this year, falling on Sunday 27th March and is a time when not only do we celebrate the resurrection and new life but also remember those no longer with us. We value your donations to purchase Lilies and Easter flowers. On the Prayer Table, just inside the church door, you will find brown Flower Guild envelopes. If you wish to donate, please complete the form on the front of the envelope. Names of those remembered will be listed within  the black memory frame  during the Easter period.  

Envelopes may be given to either Hazel Matthews, Gail Houghton, Lois Barrell or a member of the Flower Guild."


"As always,  foliage is greatly appreciated.  So before you trim it down think of Flower Guild!  Please leave it outside the Vestry door by 9.30 on Saturday morning.   Chipped conifer is also needed for the Easter Garden."

"Easter Arranging will take place on Saturday 26th March commencing at 9.30am.  Any children who would like to help with the Easter Garden would also be welcome. If you are available to help in some way please contact me,  Hazel Matthews."

The Easter Garden at All Saints in 2014

SAVE THE DATE! Summer's coming in and so is Wokingham Summer Music Festival at All Saints Church

Save the date!

The concert team writes:

Our summer  music festival will be launched by the world-renowned soprano, Emma Kirkby on Friday 17th June and runs until Sunday 26th June.

Other highlights include The Tashi Lhunpo Monks of Tibet, who are visiting All Saints as part of their UK 2016 tour. And a return to All Saints of the Wokingham Choral Society in a programme of opera choruses.  

Before then we have concerts in our Baroque, folk and world music concert series starting on 27th April with a show case of talent by the Royal Academy of Music – all the details and tickets are on the website 

What is happening on the roof anyway and why do we have scaffolding now inside the church as well as outside?

Progress on the roof repairs

Starting at the beginning…… when the Listed Places of Worship: Roof Repair Fund announced their scheme for grants for roof work in November 2014, we thought this was a great idea and  envisaged a small piece of work for All Saints to repair the valley between the clergy vestry and the chancel and on the south aisle.   These were critical elements in our quinquennial survey of the church fabric and it was good to have the Roof Fund “trigger” to get going. 

When we won the award, the Church Commissioners who have responsibility for repair work on the chancel came and looked at the chancel roof and said it would be better to do the whole roof – and they would pay.   So our project grew. 

As you can see from the position of the scaffolding the contractors are working on the whole of the roof from the vestry door to the north slope of the Lady Chapel roof.

Photo 1 - View of stripped eaves of the Vestry. The timbers are in good condition.

With any major repair project in a very old building you only discover what the position really is when you start work.   In this case we needed to take the tiles off to see what was happening underneath.

   

Some of what we have discovered is good – for example the timbers are in much better condition than we expected and some is bad. 

  

The bad is the strength of the rafters and their depth.   It is bad in two ways – firstly it means the roof is weak and secondly it means that we cannot fit additional insulation in the roof.  We will still have the benefit of the sarking board which will provide some insulation (the flat board you can see being laid on top of the rafters). 

  

In order to strengthen the roof, there will be “collars” installed at high level between the joists.  This is why we currently have the scaffolding in the Lady Chapel.  We will also have to strengthen the vestry roof and put scaffolding in there later.  Apparently the Diocese can give us permission quite quickly for this work to proceed as a variation to the faculty.  There was a safety issue in the Lady Chapel which is why that area had to be cordoned off with no warning, as half of the roof still had the weight of all the tiles.  In the vestry there is no such problem there are no tiles on the roof!

Photo 2: Detail of stripped roof slope, showing slender and poor condition of firring timbers fixed to the upper face of the common rafters.

Budget wise we are roughly on target with things we don’t need to do, like replacing lots of timbers, and things we cannot do, basically the insulation, making up for the need for the collars to strengthen the roof.

A big thank you to all those especially John Smith and Jo Asplin who have coped with the sudden demands of contractors, and everyone for managing with the inconveniences in churchyard and church at the moment. 

Anne King - 9th March 2016