The drawing
that Anne Gale chose as a farewell present for Peter Gardner is of special
interest in that it shows our church as it was in the mid-19th
Century, before its enlargement. The lithographed drawing is taken from Raphael
and J Arthur Brandon’s Parish Churches,
published in 1848. (The book is rare
but is now available on Google Books, if anyone wants to see the complete work!)
Not only is
the church shown from an unusual angle – from the south-east – but there is
no evidence of a vestry. This is also the case on the plan that accompanies the
drawing (and which I reproduced on page 24 of The
History of Leckhampton Church).
As part of alterations carried out in 1835, when the gallery was
introduced into the south aisle, the then Rector, the Reverend Charles Brandon
Trye, had undertaken to have a vestry room built at his own expense, as a venue
for parish and public meetings. If the drawing and plan are anything to go by,
this clearly did not happen until after the authors made their tour. The
external entrance to the tower, also not in evidence, was introduced later.
The Brandon
brothers visited 63 churches in central and southern England; the only others in
Gloucestershire were at Badgeworth and Barnwood. They invited James K Collings
to provide the illustrations for their Parish
Churches. Like them he was both an artist and architect, and his drawings,
based on careful measurements, drew the highest praise from his contemporaries
for their draughtsmanship and attention to small details. The memento from
Leckhampton thus has both artistic merit and historic interest.
Eric Miller
July 2010
I would like to thank
everyone for the gifts presented from St. Peter’s Church on my retirement, the
unusual lithograph print of the church, and the beautiful flowers for my wife.
I would also like to thank you all for your support over the years.
I have had a most
fulfilling and rewarding career. To
be appointed as Headteacher of Hartpury C.E. Primary School aged 29 in 1979 and
then be appointed Headteacher of Leckhampton C.E. Primary School in 1986, I have
often asked why? For some strange
reason God called me to the privilege of headship, and headship of two Church
schools, and I am truly humbled. During
the last 24 years, I have received the warm, loving encouragement of St.
Peter’s Church, as the School and the Church together have contributed to and
cared for the community of Leckhampton.
The Church has
provided three Chairs of Governors - Canon George Smith, Eric Phillips and Anne
Gale - and many Foundation Governors, who have all contributed greatly to the
strategic vision of the school as well as monitoring the collective worship,
school ethos and spiritual development of its pupils.
The clergy have provided pastoral care for staff and pupils and regularly
presented thought-provoking worship. The
interest and support of the Parochial Church Council and your prayers have
sustained your Church School. Over
the years, so many people have contributed to the school’s success by ensuring
that the school has been provided with the best facilities, resources, teachers
and support staff – a school in which each child develops
all-round ability and talent.
It
has indeed been a privilege to be Headteacher of the “family” of Leckhampton
C.E. Primary School, and to have been associated with St. Peter’s Church.
Your gift will be a wonderful reminder of knowing such lovely and
friendly people. I will be sustained
in my retirement by many happy memories.
Christine and I send
our best wishes and a very special thank you.
Peter Gardner
July 2010
Petertide was
celebrated by a weekend of activities at St. Peter’s.
On Saturday, the
smell of newly-baked bread filled the Cottages as the children made rolls, later
used for Communion. Upstairs there was great activity where dozens
of glittering fishes were fashioned and symbols representing incidents in
Peter’s life were constructed. Thanks
to Kate Collins and her team for their efforts.
The sight of two
beautiful new banners, one on either side of the chancel arch, welcomed us on
Sunday morning. These have been designed and embroidered over the past months by
our excellent team of banner-makers – Veronica Biddle, Pat Long, Barbara
Mears, Liz Read and Helen Taylor
On entering church,
each person was handed one of the decorated fishes. We each added our names.
.The fishes were then collected by the children who placed them together in a
net symbolising our following of Jesus.
The Brownies had also
been busy making an altar frontal showing scenes from Peter’s life.
The hymns were led by
Sally Marlow and her enthusiastic music group. The music also included a new
anthem-“Hymn to St. Peter”- written specially for the occasion by John
Wright. Melanie Smallwood gave a
“farewell” performance of “Laudamus te” from Bach’s B minor Mass, as
she was moving from Leckhampton with the family later in the week..
The children,
promoted to the choir stalls for the occasion, sang a song, taught by Helen
Wright, telling the story of Peter catching fish and following Jesus.
There were enthusiastic “splashes” from the younger children!
Following the
celebration service, the cottage garden was the scene of a presentation to Anne
Dowdeswell and an appreciation of her work at St. Peter’s. She goes with good
wishes for her future ministry at
Helen Yates and the
Social Committee had ,as usual, organised an excellent lunch with strawberries
and cream to follow. Sally Marlow
and her “band of merry men” provided a musical background to the
festivities.
Altogether it was an
enjoyable weekend with many examples of team work in evidence.
Thelma Martin
July 2010
Prayer Visiting
St. Peter’s is
organising the Prayer Visiting for this year. Some of you may not know that this
church activity takes place annually and means a team of church members
visiting, in pairs, a designated area of houses This year we are visiting in Old
Bath Road, part of Leckhampton Road and the Everest Road area. Sheets have been
sent to the churches of the South Cheltenham Team Ministry for their members to
sign if they feel able to take part.
A Training Evening
will take place on Monday 9th August at St. Peter’s Cottages at
7-30p.m.
People visit in
pairs, initially to drop cards into the houses where they will visit, to say
that they will return in about a week to ask if anyone would like us to pray for
any concerns they might have in their lives. Some might say they do not believe
in prayer but we can say that we do!
After this we plan a
Service in St. Peter’s Church on Sunday 12th September to pray for
the people living in the roads we have visited and for their concerns and prayer
requests.
Jennie Hawdon and I
have taken part in Prayer Visiting on several occasions and can report what a
worth-while and spiritual activity this is. At first you may feel somewhat
daunted at knocking on doors to ask about prayer but people know that you are
coming to do this and in my experience most people are very friendly. This is a
way for us to take the knowledge of faith and prayer into the community and to
spread the Word !
Please direct any
questions to either Jennie Hawdon or Audrey
Turner
Audrey Turner
|
|
|
You will need to have a copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to be able to view or print .pdf documents. If you do not currently have this installed, click on the icon below to download and install a free copy.
Bell Ringers needed
Everyone
loves hearing bells being rung and a wedding is not complete without them.
At
Leckhampton we are in need of some more Bell Ringers and would be very happy to
teach you (any lapsed ringers would also be most welcome).
We
practise on Monday evenings (between 7.30 – 9.00pm) and ring for the Sunday
morning service (between 9.10 – 9.50am) – you would need to be able to
commit to attending the majority of these sessions. It takes a while to master
the basics of handling the bell, followed by ringing rounds/call changes and
then moving on to ringing methods. Having reasonable hand/eye coordination helps
and you do need to be able to hear your bell and keep in time with the other
bells (this comes with practise).
Bell
ringing is a wonderful hobby that exercises both mind and body. It is something
you can do at almost any age from about 12 up to 80+, requiring technique rather
than strength. As a bell ringer you have the opportunity to ring at over 5,000
rings of bells, all different in some way (mostly in Britain plus a few
overseas). Whilst on holiday, I have often turned up at another towers practise
night and been warmly welcomed. I believe bell ringing is a unique hobby that
offers as few or as many challenges as you want.
We
are fortunate at Leckhampton to have a relatively light and easy to ring set of
bells. The existing band are a friendly group of people and we will do our best
to make you very welcome.
If
you think this might interest you, please contact Stuart Tomlinson (tel: Chelt
581610). We can then arrange a suitable time for you to come and see a bell
being rung (including a trip up the tower) and learn more about what is
involved.
Following
on from the Journey in Prayer, I would like to draw attention to two
opportunities for prayer which are offered by the people of St Peter’s.
One is the Julian Group which meets on the first
Thursday of each month at 7.30pm in members’ homes.
It is a time of contemplative prayer, which usually begins with a short
sentence of scripture, followed by 20-30 minutes of silent prayer.
Julian meetings first came into being in 1973 in response to letters
written by Hilary Wakeman, and published by the Church Times, the Catholic
Herald and the Baptist Times, who had, for some years, been conscious of a gap
in the worshipping life of the Church. At
that time many were becoming aware, and particularly the young, that the
contemplative dimension of prayer expressed through silence (though not
necessarily exclusively so) played little or no part in the Christian worship.
The response to these letters was wonderful, and came from across the
whole country, and from these responses grew up the Julian Group movement.
For many people, what is vital about the Julian Meetings, and the thing
that differentiates them from other Christian meditation groups, is that they
encourage those who are drawn to this way of prayer to find their own way
into silence. If you would like to
know more about this group, please contact Helen Taylor.
The other opportunity of prayer is the Prayer Chain,
which is a group of people linked together who are willing to offer their
private intercessory prayer for particular people or concerns.
If you think you would like to be involved in this, or want to know more
about it, then please contact Sue Marlow.
Prayer is such an important part of our corporate life as
Christians, and it is clearly God’s will that we bring into our prayers those
whose lives God has closely interlocked with our own and those with whom we
worship. We are all very
grateful for all those who give of their time to undergird the prayer life of
our community, and I do commend the two groups above.
Felicity Bayne
If you are not on the rotas already, but would like to read the intercessions or become a welcomer or read in church please contact Peter Davies, Chris Woodham or John Drinkwater respectively. Newcomers always welcome.
In particular, Chris Woodham would be very pleased to hear from anybody who would care to become a Welcomer at the 1000 service. Numbers have fallen in recent months and although other aspects of church life have benefited from that, nobody has stepped up to fill the breech, which means that the existing Welcomers find that their turn comes round more often. We could really do with a further half a dozen people, if possible. You need no special skills, just the ability to make people feel welcome and perhaps a sense of humour and the ability to be flexible. Chris will be happy to provide more details on request.
The church and churchyard are maintained solely by the
congregation. We receive no
assistance from Government (apart from Gift Aid on donations to the Church) or
the central church.
The cost to the congregation of maintaining this church and the ministry in Leckhampton is over £2,000 per week. If you feel that you would like to support us financially in our efforts to maintain this church for future generations you may wish to make a regular or single donation.
Click here for further information.
St Peter's has a Child Protection Policy.
The nominated person is David Webber whose number can be found in the church
magazine or obtained from the Parish Office.
|
|
|
| 30 KB | 13 KB |
You will need to have a copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to be able to view or print .pdf documents. If you do not currently have this installed, click on the icon below to download and install a free copy.
| January 2009 |
|
|
You will need to have a copy of the Adobe Acrobat Reader installed on your PC to be able to view or print .pdf documents. If you do not currently have this installed, click on the icon below to download and install a free copy.
It was lovely that
eleven members of the Prayer Link were able to attend the meeting in February.
After looking at the purpose of the Prayer Link, and how it should
function, we concluded that it is for people in crisis, such as a new diagnosis
of something serious, undergoing an operation or chemotherapy, moving into a
care home, and so on.
Mary
Newby
CCP needs food for
people in times of crisis. All non-perishable food items are needed such as:
Tea, coffee, sugar, long-life milk, pasta, rice, tinned tomatoes, tuna, corned
beef, vegetables, tinned fruit –
anything that can be easily made
into a meal.
If everyone could add one extra item to their shopping list to donate on a
regular basis it would make CCP's task in providing for their destitute clients
so much easier.
There will be crates in the porch each week for your donations which will be
delivered to CCP on a regular basis.
Your generosity will be greatly appreciated.
We all care about our stewardship of our church, and many of us are regular and generous givers during our lifetime. However, few of us have probably thought about leaving a legacy for the benefit of St Peter's, so that the church and its parochial activities can benefit after our deaths, when we have no earthly use for our money or other assets.
In keeping with many other churches we have now appointed a Legacies Officer (Richard Collins) who will act as a confidential focal point for anyone who would like to know more about how to make a will (if you do not have one already) or how to add a codicil (a kind of formal "PS") to your existing will so that, if you so wish, you can include a legacy in favour of St Peter's.
Richard can be contacted by telephone or by leaving a note at the Parish Office. He can let you have an easy to read information pack, which explains why it is important to make, and regularly review, a will, and the different ways in which we can make arrangements to give something to the church that has been such an important part of all our lives.
Please also look out for the poster in the church and the information shortly to be added to our website.
Richard Collins