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Dear Friends

On St George’s Day the sun was glorious and the flag flew spendidly in the easterly breeze. Evensong in church at 6pm was well attended and our five singers sang a fine anthem ‘Rejoice Today’.

St George's primary school had a great time with special activities; there was an article and photos in the Gazette (see link below).

All our May services will have choir music and plenty of ventilation and distancing; if you haven’t been back to church since lockdown, then now is a good time!

We welcome Mr Guy Everington as our new PCC Treasurer and give our thanks to Marion Bromfield who has retired from this position having ably held the PCC purse strings for several years. We thank also Leonie Henderson and Janet Jolley who stepped down from the PCC this year.

Gregory and Jenny, Churchwardens

There are many people who say that the Church has been rather slow in taking up the environmental cause. There may be some truth in this accusation. In the first pages of the Bible, however, those ancient writers affirm that humankind has been entrusted with the stewardship of this wonderful world. Perhaps late in the day, we are beginning to wake up to our monumental failure to live up to this trust. One of the Church of England’s ‘Five Marks of Mission’ is to ‘strive to safeguard the integrity of creation and to sustain and renew the earth’.

The Church’s calendar has always, however, set aside certain times in the year, to give thanks for creation and to pray for God’s blessing on agriculture. Some of these traditional days have sadly fallen into disuse, as they came to be seen as, at best quaint, or at worst, outdated. But in recent years, as we have become more aware of the dangers facing the natural world, perhaps these traditions can speak to us with a new relevance.

Harvest Festival has survived and is still observed in many schools as well as churches. It is an opportunity to celebrate God’s creation, to give thanks for our food and also to do something practical to remember those in our world who do not share in those good things. Until recent years, Lammas Day was also observed, on August 1st, to celebrate the ‘first fruits’ of the Harvest.

In my last parish, in Maldon, in January, we observed Plough Sunday on the Sunday after the Epiphany. The Plough was carried through the High Street and then brought into church to mark the beginning of the agricultural year. We prayed ‘God speed the plough’.

This year at St George’s we will again be celebrating Rogation Sunday on May 9th. Rogation Sunday (always the Sunday before Ascension Day) and the three days following, are set aside as a special time to pray for those working on the land. It was the tradition to process to local farms and pray for God’s blessing on the fields and the livestock. The pandemic prevents us from having a grand procession through the village this year. However, we will gather in the churchyard at approx 11.20am at the end of the morning service to pray for God’s blessing on the farms of our parish.

On all of these special days the Church invites us to celebrate God’s wonderful creation and to reflect on our dependence on the crops and livestock of our farms. It is also a time to repent of our neglect and pollution of our planet and our treatment of our fellow creatures.

Christian Aid Week

We will have a bucket collection for Christian Aid at the 10.30 Service on Rogation Sunday 9th May.

Manningtree Foodbank

Pat advises that they have no juice or soft drinks. Squash is always useful and also sugar, custard, and boxes of tissues. Please leave donations in the boxes at Manningtree Co-op or in the church porch at St George’s. Thank you.

The Church of England has guidance for parish churches on how to think about reducing our carbon footprint. You may like to read about it with us. Click on the dog violets above for more information.

The Heritage Alliance issued an article on an ‘eco-church’ in Yorkshire and their project to go carbon neutral. Click on the Pignut for information.

Would you like to be involved with this in The Bromleys? Do get in touch with a churchwarden.

By the way, the anthem on 9th May is ‘Look at the World’ by John Rutter, commissioned by the Campaign for the Protection of Rural England. See the link earlier in the newsletter.

We hope the bells will be permitted to start again later in May and we really look forward to hearing them again. We are still not permitted to have congregational singing in church but we have managed over the last few months to have choir singing at almost every service. We started with a solo singer and now, with distancing, we have up to 6 singers depending on family grouping. We are also very grateful for our visiting quartet of singers who have been coming monthly to sing. All this has been much appreciated and we have enjoyed a wide variety of old and new music. We don’t know when we can start congregational singing again but since April we have the final hymn of each service in the churchyard for all to join in.

New Soakaway

The next item of work is a new soakaway near the porch - underground and invisible but vitally important to improve the flow of rain water away from the church building. Donations are very welcome to help this work which will cost about £1,900.

The Brasses

The Byschopton and Hubbard brasses have now been conserved and refixed. We are very grateful to Mr Martin Stuchfield for encouraging and organising this; our thanks also go to the Francis Coales Charitable Foundation and The Monumental Brass Society for making grants to pay for the work.

Thank you all for your support which is invaluable to the continuing work of the church. If you would like to help, please see the Donation details on the website.