Plastic Free July

Plastics can be very useful and are an almost essential part of our life today but they come with loads of problems. One of the good things about plastics is that last a long time but one of the bad things about plastics is that they last a long time! Once you have finished with most plastic items and you throw them away they could still be around for centuries to come.

I have been looking at the Seven Rs of sustainability. When it comes to plastics we need to Rethink how and when we use them, Refuse to use them when there are safer alternatives, Reduce the amount of plastic we use, any plastics we do use we need to Reuse as many times as we can Repairing any plastic items that get broken as often as we can, Re-purposing them at the end of their useful life if at all possible before Recycling them into something else that we can use. If we did this with all plastics (and with all our goods) we would end up with a circular economy, a way in which as little of possible actually becomes waste. A way that better looks after this beautiful world that God created.

Plastic Free July aims to help us reduce plastic waste by following the steps above. If you would like to know more then explore the Plastic Free July website

Sunday Service 2 July 2023

Bits of the service this morning were pretty rubbish but Richard got a round of applause for his sermon! You’ll need to watch the service to find out why!

Recycling the congregation

This Sunday, we had at least a dozen bicycles at church covering three generations (from teens to 60+). We have plans for a new cycle shelter to be built, hopefully in the next few months and hopefully from green timber with a green, living roof so that we can lock our bicycles up safely.

Some of the cyclists about to leave.

Sunday Service 11 June 2023

This Sunday Graeme gave us his (action-packed!) reflections on faith and, after the service, Paul Magnall lead us in a biodiversity survey in the sunny church garden.

Sunday Service 4th June 2023

Today is Trinity Sunday and our service this morning was led by Toby, Tim shared his reflections with us after a recent trip to Iona, and Heston led us in the Feast of Life.

Dancing on the roof!

As mentioned in the service on Sunday, the scaffolding was being taken down during the service. Before the service, Heston and a few of members of the church were able to go up the scaffolding to inspect the finished roof. It is a year and a week since the scaffolding first went up and over 10 years since we decided to stay in the church building and to work towards fixing the roof. It has been quite a journey!

Here are some photos from Sunday and also from Monday morning once all the scaffolding was taken down plus a photo to remind us of the leaky concrete tiles we used to have.

Sunday Service 30 April 2023

Richard led our worship on the last Sunday in April. Toby reflected on the juxtaposition of joy and pain, both in Psalm 23 and also in our own lives.

Organ removal

At All Hallows’ we have an organ that hasn’t been played for at least 18 years. Since we consider this redundant to our requirements and would like to use the space for other purposes we have applied for permission to sell it. This requires us to post a document on our website for a month to allow people to comment. At the end of this period, if no one has a serious objection, we will be selling the organ.

If you know anyone who might be interested in purchasing the organ please let them know about it or contact us.

Sunday Service 23 April 2023

This morning, Pauline led us in our worship and Paul shared with us some thoughts about food in relation to Rainbow Junktion, the Bible and the Feast of Life.

Sunday Service 16 April 2023

“What does the Resurrection mean to you? Does it matter? And if it does matter, how does it affect you?”

Jonathan shared some fascinating and thoughtful insights (as ever!) as he helped us to explore these questions and reflected on how we might think about the Resurrection in this age of science, and in the light of its historical context.