Our calling is to share the loving hospitality of God,
seeing Christ in friend and stranger.

Winter Newsletter 2017

What's New?

We’ve had a good 6 months raising money for the new St Mary’s Centre: we’re awaiting the result on 3 major funding applications; we had a great response to the ‘Donate a Day’s Wage’ campaign and we celebrated with Pete, Chris and James who chose the hurricane weekend to complete their sponsored bike ride to Paris…and they did it …raising £8k for the Centre. Brilliant!

And then we had another hugely successful Winter Market raising another £2200 !

The fundraising group will be meeting next in early Jan and looking to plan a programme of events for 2018. If you have ideas and would like to join the group, you’d be most welcome. Please contact Alexandra:
jcalexandralee@sky.com

Six members of St Mary’s were confirmed at a wonderful service in St Paul’s Cathedral in early November. From left to right: Amarjeet, Cezanne, Beau, Seb, Tom and Alberta.

Xmas Wreath-making workshop was great fun last weekend! Thank you, Connie.

We’ve recently starting serving breakfast for visitors to Hackney Migrants Centre, who often start queuing in the church at 7.45 am. We’re looking for a few more volunteers to help serve. If this is something you might be able to do on an occasional basis, please let Elizabeth Grande know: elizgrande@aol.com

North Hackney Welcome Group – Community Sponsorship for Syrian Refugees

The Core Group, with a membership drawn from St Mary’s, the Masorti synagogue, Muslim community group and other individuals, has been working hard on the very detailed application form and it is almost ready to submit for approval to the Council and the Home Office. We have the offer of a 3 bedroomed flat and funding in place. So good, so far.

However, last week we learned that Hackney Council will not approve any more groups for community sponsorship until they have conducted a local review of this Home Office programme. This will delay our application by some months into the Spring of 2018. We hope that it will not put an end to the plan to join together in our diverse and wonderful community to enable a vulnerable Syrian family to settle here as part of it. We continue to enlist the support of Hackney Citizens, the Home Office team and the specialist adviser at the GLA, and hope to overcome this latest hurdle.

You may have noticed that the Old Church has been shrouded in corrugated iron and scaffolding for the past 3 months. This was to enable us to do urgent repairs to the roof, the gutters and drainpipes. The work was made possible by a very generous grant from the Listed Places of Worship Roof Repairs Scheme, who have financed 82% of the work.

Upcoming Events...

Stand back and take a breath before Christmas! Why not join in the Advent Prayer Day, this Saturday at St Katherine’s, Limehouse? A day of workshops introducing you to different aspects of prayer, from poetry to meditation, Ignatian prayer to movement. A few places left but please let Dilly know straightway!

Christmas at St Marys

If you’ve yet to buy your Xmas tree pay a visit to the market outside the church. Money from the hire of this space goes towards the St Mary’s Centre.

Once again we will be running the Hackney Winter Night Shelter every Wednesday from January to March. We’ll be providing supper for 25 people and then 15 will stay overnight in our church rooms, with the others going to another church to sleep (Oh how we need a better building!). Our volunteering rota is nearly full for Wednesday evenings, but we still have a few gaps: cooks for supper, help with transporting laundry, stay overnight, clear up on Thursday morning.

We also need clothes: new underwear (for both men and women), warm hats,scarves and gloves are also appreciated. And toiletries: toothbrushes, toothpaste (small sizes please!), soap, shampoo, razors, shaving foam (small sizes are best)

If you can help, please contact the coordinator: Jonathan Gebbie 07949-169583 / jonathan.gebbie@hwns.org.uk

Also....
Do you have a few spare hours in a month and enjoy doing practical odd jobs? We need a maintenance person to help out on an occasional basis at the Old Church: changing light bulbs, mending door handles, unblocking a drain, checking water pressure etc. If you’d like a conversation about this, please contact Andrew Wildridge on: andrewwildridge@hotmail.co.uk

Christmas at The Foodbank:

Our last day at the Centre will be on 21^st December and we will reopen on 4^th January 2018. Bags of food made up at the warehouse, will be delivered to major support agencies in Hackney so that they can distribute them to anyone in an emergency over the Christmas period.

Any donations you are willing to give are always gratefully received and you can leave them any time, at the back of the New Church in the ‘BIG ‘ box under the table.

The Old Church is already half-way though its Winter Season of events - celebrated by wrapping the entire building in bows.
If you'd like to add your own bow - and include a message of hope for the coming year - feel free to do so with your own fabric, or come along to OPEN Art on Saturday, December 9 (2pm-4pm) and make one then.

See the list of the events still to come at The Old Church.
For more information please visit : www.theoldchurch.org.uk

WE WISH YOU A PEACE-FILLED CHRISTMAS AND LOOK FORWARD TO YOUR COMPANY IN 2018.

Copyright © 2017. St Mary's Stoke Newington. All rights reserved.

Our mailing address is:
St Mary's Church
Stoke Newington Church Street
London
N16 9ES

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St Mary, Stoke Newington · Stoke Newington Church Street · London, N16 9ES · United Kingdom