roots down walls down
Revd Claire Holt invites you to Easter services at St Pauls on Poyle Rd.
Maundy Thursday:
Prayer stations 7am – 7pm
7pm re-enactment of last supper
Good Friday:
Exploring Easter 10am – short service, outside activities and egg hunt
2pm readings and hymns
Easter Day
5.30am sunrise
8am communion
10am family service with communion (after the service?)
StPaul’sChurchTongham
– a growing community of faith
All are welcome to come along and snap up a bargain at the next St Peter’s Tabletop Sale. This takes place in the St Peter’s Centre opposite the church with the spire.
Saturday 7th May 2022
10am-12 noon
St Peter’s Centre
Continue reading “Tabletop Sale at St Peter’s 7th May 2022”Join us at your local churches for Lent events and activities in 2022. All Welcome.
Thursday Lent Film Nights 6:30pm at The Chapel on Wharf Rd. Every Thursday in Lent, starting 3rd March for 6 weeks. Film, food and discussion. Each week will be different so you can come to one, some or all. Text to book 07730 609446.
Messy Church during Lent: St Mary’s in Ash vale invite you to Messy Church on Sunday 27th Feb and Sunday 20th March 4-6pm. All Welcome, but please book ahead! Text to book: 07730 609446
Continue reading “Join in with Lent in 2022”By Fr Robin, Holy Angels Catholic Church in Ash
As I was celebrating mass on the evening of All Saints Day, there were the ubiquitous fireworks whizzing and blazing outside. It struck me powerfully how these simple celebrations draw us in. My children rush to the window every year to gaze in wonder at the spectacle.
Continue reading “A Place of Welcome”
There’s lots and lots going on – have a look!
St Paul’s Tongham: Support for the Community
We have been offering support for the local community in a number of ways during lockdown. We had always collected for the Farnham Foodbank, but we have also been supporting local families in need as we have heard about needs and through the school. We have been amazed at the donations both of food and of money, and it has made a real difference.
We were also involved in coordinating a response in lockdowns and have helped with prescriptions, moving bins and a number of other needs for our neighbours.
We would love to look at this moving forward – watch this space!
Contact: Revd Claire clairefholt@hotmail.com
St Peter’s Ash: Care and Share Shelf
The current pandemic has been a difficult time for many people. We all want to help. Outside St. Peter’s church we have a Care and Share shelf where anyone can take food that they need or leave something to help a neighbour.
If you would like to donate, tinned and packaged food, long life milk, tea and coffee are very popular. We try to put out enough to make a decent meal. It is topped up daily. Items can be placed on the shelf or left at the Rectory door. Contact: Barbara Rose 07761808727
Fun, food and friendship at St Mary’s and The Chapel
Aren’t we lucky that Revd Neil is amazing with food? Not only has he served socially distanced teas in the vicarage garden, and pop-up take-away pancakes from the shed when regulations allowed it, but now he has built a huge pizza oven in the vicarage garden, turning outdoor meetings into a festival of flavour!
Look out for kids in the kitchen too! During the winter, Neil teamed up with Anna and Charlie to do ‘St Mary’s junior bake-off’ & stories on Zoom with some of the kids. It was huge fun, messy at times, and they even had a dance-off while their creations were in the oven. The learning has definitely stuck—one of our 9yo girls remembered the recipe by heart and made an extra batch of cakes the next morning! (Ed.—Quick, put her name down on the church coffee rota!) Now that school is back, it’s over to Alex and the Chapel Kids toddler group who are busy planting up the Chapel garden with incredible edibles. Watch this space — they are literally growing their own fruit snacks!
Now it’s getting serious: Our very own vicar is running the Chapel Project Cooking School! Fareshare and Tesco (who give us a lot of our ‘on its last date’ fresh items for the local food parcels) have created a community chefs cooking school project. We jumped at the chance to join in and now have 15 families & community cooks signed up to zoom in and cook along, learning about nutrition, kitchen skills and producing some very scrummy dinners. We love the recipes Jamie Oliver has lined up for us, and it’s a lot of fun. Cooking along at home is fab, because everyone can see how to do things in their own kitchen. Ever wondered how to create a rainbow chilli, fry fabulous fishcakes or learn some nifty knife skills? We have been doing just that!
A huge thank you from all of us to Neil, and we can’t close without thanking Vicki Fox, an amazing local chef who has been instrumental in sourcing quality ingredients, making up doorstep delivery kits for those who need them, and building our confidence with variations and top tips on the Zoom sessions too.
Bon Appetit! Contact: Rev Neil: revneil@me.com / Alex: 07730 609446
Congratulations! Community Heroes Award for The Ash, Ash Vale & Ash Green Coronavirus Support Group
We have some seriously amazing people involved in the local Ash, Ash Vale & Ash Green Coronavirus Support Group. They are simply the best, and guess what? The Mayor of Guildford has recognised the team with a Community Heroes award! Congratulations go to everyone involved and especially Carla Morson who leads the group.
During lockdown, the team took on delivering care calls, prescriptions and shopping to people having to isolate or shield. St Mary’s also joined forces with the COVID Group to create a local Food Parcels Project, delivering food to those struggling under the financial impacts of the pandemic. The recipients are from all walks of life, and our delivery list is everchanging, as people’s circumstances change in the wake of the covid crisis. As we write this there are 32 families on the list this week. (If you’re struggling and need a food parcel you can call or text 07843 489796 or 07730 609446)
The COVID group is still going strong, helping local people and bringing the community together. It’s not too late to join in! Contact us to get involved.
We are always grateful for donations too., either store cupboard food and toiletries or donations via ‘give a little’ to help buy store cupboard items and toiletries: The donations link for online giving is: https://bit.ly/33LT1SA Thank you for your support.
Contact: 07843 489796
What’s on at St Mary’s, Vale Rd, Ash Vale,
Sundays 10am –Join St Mary’s for our weekly Church Service. All are welcome, both on Zoom and in person. Wednesday Evensong is back too, please contact the office for the latest rules and timings. Contact: Parishoffice@ash-vale.org.uk
Mondays 11am: Coffee Chat Zoom Join fellow parents and carers for informal coffee chat and friendship. (Term time only) Zoom ID: 520 880 119 / Password: Grownups Contact Alex: 07730 609446
Tuesdays 10am: Babies at St Mary’s Support Group We are open Tuesdays 10am-11am in term time for parents and carers with babies under 12mths. Booking is essential. Come and join us! Contact Alex: 07730 6094446
Thursday Café Once cafés are allowed to reopen we will be risk-assessing and reopening. Contact us for details. parishoffice@ash-vale.org.uk
Sat 26th June: 7:30pm: Poetry Night & Book Launch: Chapel Poetry Group are launching their latest collection, and celebrating the winners of the “Mirror Mind” Poetry Competition. Join us on Zoom or in person at St Mary’s to hear some of the winning poems and celebrate with us! St Mary’s Church, 26th June, 7:30pm. Contact Alex: 07730 609446 for tickets, zoom links and copies of the book!
August: Summer Café: Fridays in the holidays at St Mary’s—keep an eye on the notices for details. Sign up to receive the weekly news parishoffice@ash-vale.org.uk
Summer Fair! 10th July 12-3pm Sneakin’ Suspicion are booked for an ‘end of COVID’ Gig – and the Wood Street & St Mary’s Team are cooking up a bit of a festival! See inside back cover for details.
Donations for St Mary’s: https://givealittle.co/campaigns/47eb21e6-c2b0-4a23-a526-8d13fd24fa56 Thank you!
The Chapel Project, Wharf Rd, Ash Vale
Chapel Arts Monthly Makes: Artists in Residence Debi & Jono Retallick host a ‘monthly make’ fundraising workshop for The Chapel, teaching all kinds of art and craft techniques. Email Debi for event details, Zoom links, and to book your place on the workshops: (&See page 26) Contact debiretallick@googlemail.com
Tue 1 June 4pm: Dragonflies
Tue 6 July 4pm: Painting with fibres
Chapel Kids Baby & Toddler Group: Wednesdays 11:30am: Garden Praise Chapel Kids toddler group ages 0-4yrs at The Chapel in Wharf Road GU12 3AY (term time only, text us to book) Contact Alex: 07730 609446
Chapel Poetry Group Workshops: Join the group on WhatsApp for chat with like minded creative writers, and join us on Zoom for a monthly poetry workshop. (Hopefully in person once regulations lift). Contact Alex: 07730 609446
Chapel Craft Group: Join us on Wednesdays in term time 8-10pm at The Chapel on Wharf Rd. Bring along your latest craft project and have a natter and a cuppa as we craft. We have been zooming but aim to be back at the Chapel as soon as regulations allow. Contact 07730 609446
Chapel Filmshare: Your local fortnightly Filmshare is starting back in September! If you enjoy tea, coffee and cakes and appreciate films you’re welcome to join us fortnightly at the Chapel from 7.30pm. To sign up to our e-mail newsletter contact: Dick Elsey at richard.elsey45@gmail.com or on 01252 694314.
Donations for The Chapel : https://givealittle.co/campaigns/8d80cd98-df9f-494e-9808-b8898744146f Thank you!
St Paul’s Church, Poyle Rd, Tongham:
Baby Plus :
· Mondays 4-4.30pm. Toddler Storytime – stories, actions and songs
· Tuesdays 2.30-4pm Mum Plus— friendship and facilitated discussions
· Wednesdays 4-4.30pm. Toddler Storytime
· Thursdays 10.30am-12. Baby Plus – Informal chat session for mums, with some singing and action songs for the little ones.
Baby Plus Contact: CommunityWorker@stpaulstongham.org.uk Or via the Church office: 01252 783081
Messy Church at St Paul’s :
· 17th June (pack with Facebook live introduction)
· 15th July (format tbc)
Keep an eye on Facebook / Website
Open Church Event:
Keep an eye on Facebook & the website for our “Open Church” for reflection, a grand opening of the ramp, and an outside event for the community (or we might combine this into one big 3-in-1 event!)
Web.: https://www.stpaulstongham.org.uk/
St Peter’s Church, Ash
27th June St Peter’s Day: Outdoor (weather permitting) service in the St Peter’s Centre garden, followed by a bring-your-own picnic lunch in the Rectory Garden.
St Peter’s Craft Evenings: At St Peters we have a regular craft evening which will relaunch in September. It’s a free of charge group which meets at 7pm on the 3rd Monday of each month. It’s a creative session where people bring along whatever craft project they have underway. We have some painting, card making, jewellery making and lots of keen knitters! Refreshments are offered as well as an evening of friendship. All ages welcome. For confirmation of the relaunch please check our website Web saint-peters-ash.org.uk
Holy Angels, Ash
Youth Group: Our first face to face Youth meeting will be on Sat 29th May. Rounders and picnic on the field behind Holy Angels Church. 2-5pm – praying for the weather and no further lock downs!!! If you’d like to join our groups please get in touch.
Gloria: gloria.benson14@gmail.com
All events listed above are subject to change, due to Covid-19 safety rules. Please keep in touch!
St. Peter’s Meadow and Wildlife Area
In an effort to give nature a helping hand an area of grass behind St. Peter’s Centre is being made more wildlife friendly.
The Rainbows Group that meets at the Centre made a wonderful bug house, and we have bee-friendly plants, bird roosts and a bird feeder. We have sown wild flower seeds and made a log pile and a compost bin.
Work in progress!
Contact: Barbara Rose 07761808727
The Chapel Project, Ash Vale: Going Greener
We are very lucky to have Revd Gina Hoff co-leading the Chapel Project, and she brings lots of wisdom with her as the Green Christian UK Chaplain.
The Chapel has made some eco-friendly changes, starting with where we spend our money! We buy fair trade tea, coffee and other supplies, and over lockdown have switched our gas and electric to Bulb, where we now get 100% green electric and carbon-offset gas (other suppliers are available of course!) The Chapel Kids group are in on the act as well, planting a mini ‘food forest’ in the garden and learning all about plants, pollinators and permaculture gardening. Our friend Mel W has been very busy setting up a seed swap station at The Chapel as well, so you won’t even need to buy seeds to start planting things at home, and anyone with spare seeds can pop them in the seed swap for local people to use. We will be restarting our monthly “Chapel Greens Coffee Chat” soon; pop in and say hello!
Contact: Alex 07730 609446
Facebook Link for seeds swap: https://www.facebook.com/groups/777731219796739
St Mary’s, Ash Vale: Eco Church Update
St Mary’s have a superb Eco Champion in Lesley, and she has been instrumental in helping us to earn our La Rocha Eco Church Bronze Award recently. Lots of people in our church family are environmentally conscious and help out with recycling, gardening and trying to be good stewards of church resources. We are looking at greener transport next. Watch this space for bike parking and electric cars!
Another passion at St Mary’s is food, and we can’t stand seeing it go to waste. We have joined the Foodiverse with Fareshare Go and the local Co-Op Foodshare, (joint project with the local Covid support Group) to save ‘on its last date’ food from landfill and make it part of the local food parcels project—more of that on page 24/25
Contact: Parish Office 07863 311165
St Paul’s Tongham: Charity Recycling Hub, come and join in!
The team at St Paul’s have done amazing work to set up a recycling project to support local charities. Please keep an eye on the website for the next event, and in the meantime have a look at the list below for what you can save to recycle. Thank you for your support!
Contact: clairefholt@hotmail.com
By Gloria Benson, Holy Angels Community Projects Coordinator
Blessings to all readers as we slowly come out of the pandemic lockdown. Father Robin, Parish Priest for Holy Angels Catholic Church in Ash, spent the entire two lock downs live streaming Masses for his congregation on his own behind locked doors. He, along with our Deacon John Edwards, was more than pleased when we were allowed to open our doors for albeit, small numbers of attendees, while at the same time still live streaming for those Parishioners who were isolating or feeling vulnerable because of the high figures reported.
Holy Angels can currently accommodate up to about 70 people and in the coming weeks we are hoping to adjust the seating yet again to enable more Parishioners to attend the Masses as well as other sacraments like baptism, weddings and funerals. Our Youth and Confirmation Groups have, out of necessity, been conducted via Zoom and although it has served a purpose it really cannot replace our usual face to face meetings. The renewal of these meetings will be an absolute joy to the catechists leading these groups as well as getting all the social aspects of parish life to reawaken once again. Simple morning coffee will be a joyous occasion I am sure, and how amazing it will be to have music and singing again!
We must not under estimate the well-being effect of this pandemic on people reluctant to step out and back into our churches but we also must have complete and utter faith in the Holy Spirit knowing that if we ask he will act and walk beside us to gather in the lost and afraid. We are also very aware of local hardships with families and indeed if any Holy Angels Parishioners are experiencing acute hardship please do contact the parish office. Holy Angels is part of Churches Together in Ash, Ash Vale and Tongham and there are many outreach projects where we can point to help.
We will continue to adhere to strict Government guidelines of cleaning after services with church attendees sanitising their hands on the way in, wearing masks and signing in either on the track and trace barcode or physically filling in details. SO for those current Parishioners feeling a little nervous still you are INVITED to come and see and receive a warm hello and welcome and for those new to the Parish you are INVITED to come and see and again receive a warm hello and welcome.
Gloria
email: gloria.benson14@gmail.com
By Revd Claire Holt
It is lovely to have a shared magazine and to get to know more about each of our churches! I am Claire, the vicar at St Paul’s where I have been part of the church family here for the past 9 years, whilst the church is just over 150 years old. I love the mix of all ages worshipping God and serving together. We like to encourage all to have a go at things and don’t mind mistakes!
We have a mix of services from traditional communion services at 8am and mid-week, through an informal Sunday service at 10am and then Messy Church monthly on a Thursday evening. Though most of this has been online recently or in packs!
We have good links to St Paul’s infant school and have seasonal events for children e.g. Exploring Christmas and Exploring Easter. Our aim is to be for all in the community, so we also have our monthly Fellowship lunch for retired, small groups for adults and events for all ages.
Our Sunday 10am service has groups for children and we love families worshipping together at our family services and as part of our groups online. On Sunday evenings we have a group for teens called The Hub.
We have a passion for the environment and supporting people in need (see later articles!).
And finally, we support a few local charities and mission organisations, including Step by Step and Phyllis Tuckwell. But our main mission link is with Blythswood Care. We have been linking up with a project in Romania as part of our services, collect shoe boxes for them and have a member of our church working for them which means she has been able to visit with her family – and excitingly we have been invited to take a group out there when it is possible to arrange too!
Our vision is to be a “growing community of faith” – welcoming and including all and helping everyone to encounter God’s love for themselves. We aim to resource people to live out their faith in everyday life, reflecting on God in the ordinary and everyday, and thinking about how we can serve Him wherever we are.
Claire
By Revd Keith Bristow & Revd Carol Monk
Warmest greetings from the Reverend Keith Bristow and the Revd. Carol Monk. We would like to tell you a bit about the church here, which has enabled people to worship God and serve others, for about 800 years.
We are a friendly bunch from all walks of life and all ages. As well as our weekly services we always have lots of other things going on – from our daily pre-school to events for those of more mature years! We are very excited about welcoming back lots of groups to our fantastic Parish Centre, now that COVID restrictions are lifting. Our facilities are available for hire for children’s parties, dance groups, U3A, uniformed organisations, craft groups and much more. As a church we hold a Summer Fete and a Christmas Fayre, monthly soup lunches, social evenings, quiz nights and afternoon teas, to name but a few. Prayer groups and Bible studies help us to get to know God better, and become the people He wants us to be.
We welcome many families who bring their children to be Christened (Baptised), and sometimes adults ask to be Christened too – you’re never too old! We enjoy celebrating weddings with couples setting out on the adventure of married life. We also offer Blessings for those not married in church, and renewal of vows for those celebrating special anniversaries. On a sadder note, we can be there for people when a loved one dies. We conduct funerals in church or, if preferred, at the Crematorium, and we tailor each service to reflect all that the person meant to their family and friends. Every November we invite families to a service to remember and give thanks for them all. We also have a caring Pastoral Team of trained volunteers who offer support too. You don’t have to be a regular church member for us to share in these life events with you – just contact us and we can take it from there.
Our worship is centred around Holy Communion but we also have a more informal family service each month and other types of relaxed worship from time to time. Whether you have been a Christian for years, or just want to explore what it’s all about, you will quickly feel at home with us, just come as you are! We look forward to meeting you soon.
May God bless you,
Revd Keith and Revd Carol