Once again, a huge thank you Dan Austin for another great Easter cover for the Parishioner Magazine. For those reading this on the web page you get it in glorious Technicolor too! You might remember, last year he took us verse by verse through the chapter in the gospel of Luke 24 and the road to Emmaus. This year, we have a picture of an English hedge row, with a tree that clearly represents the cross.
The painting was inspired by a wounded blackbird that Dan found in the road, and brought home to nurse. With the mother and father blackbird, and the eggs in the nest, it’s almost like a holy family. On the lft, representing our business that we are all involved with is the car, whizzing past. On the opposite side, a field, and the hope of something different. The Sun is shining, like a beautiful pearl.
Butterflies Pre-school has re opened. We are open Monday – Friday, with longer days running on Monday’s and Wednesday’s. We are Ofsted registered and accept all funding.
When the UK Government announced another Lockdown, though Pre-schools and Nurseries were to remain open, it left us initially feeling a little confused. However, it didn’t take us too long to carry out our own Risk Assessments, put a few extra measures in place and open safely after the Christmas holidays.
We opened Butterflies as a brand new Pre-school back in November 2019, then in March 2020 at 5 months old, we sadly closed our doors as everyone went into lockdown across the world.
In June we re opened and followed strict guidelines from Early Years and the Government, as well as our own extra measures to support infection control. Many children returned and thankfully we kept Covid 19 free for the entire time that we were open, with just one of our families contracting the virus over Christmas.
Throughout 2020, despite the Pandemic and closure, we managed to successfully grow our team and attending children and we hope this can continue. We run independently from the Community Hall side of St Mary’s Church and follow the Early Years Curriculum. With an outstanding Early Years team, all highly qualified with many years of experience, they continually demonstrate commitment and dedication to providing the best and safest environment we can for our children.
It is a blessing to see how resilient and happy our Butterflies children are as they enjoy playing and learning through play in their Pre-school.
With the new highly contagious variant of the virus spreading around, our infection control safety measures have been updated and implemented, safety continues to be one of our top priorities. We understand it is a worrying time for many and are happy to share all the practices we have in place, should you be interested in learning more about our Pre-school. We currently have just a few spaces left on a few days, if you are interested we would love to hear from you. For further information, please feel free to contact Natalie Andrews on 07881807337 or by email Butterfliespreschool19@gmail.com
We wish everyone in our community to remain safe and pray that all our lives can resume some normality in the not too distant future, after this challenging time.
Best wishes to all
Natalie Andrews – Owner of Butterflies Pre-school Rebecca Hitchman – Senior Manager Daniella Jaconelli- Manager Kat Corbyn – Deputy Manager Indi Dhami – Deputy Manager
Get ready for the Lost Sheep Trail this Half term!
Put a sheep on display in your window, shop front or garden and let us know, so we can add you to the list, then use the list for a Sheep-spotting walk as part of your daily exercise in half term!
By Carla Morson, Ash, Ash Vale & Ash Green Coronavirus Support Group
I’m going to start by thanking all of our volunteers, whether they are part of the Food Parcels Team or not, as all have done so much to help our community over the past 10 months. Without everyone we would have been lost and unable to do much of what we have.
With so much uncertainty we are being very slick and adaptable (otherwise known as making a new plan every time the rules change!) But we do have a plan and we will be putting the mess into Messy Church for you all to enjoy some family friendly church activities in 2021. So what’s on the list?
Sundays 10am –Join St Mary’s for our weekly Church Service. All are welcome. During lockdown we will be on Zoom only, and once the doors open again we will be both in zoom and in person. Contact us to go on the weekly email list for links and news. Parishoffice@ash-vale.org.uk Wednesday night Evensong is back too, contact the office for the latest timings.
