Parish Magazine Parish Magazine November 2020 November 2020 www.allsaintswokingham.org.uk £1.00 www.allsaintswokingham.org.uk £1.00 From the Rector Remembrance Sunday is another of the significant events in our church calendar which has been affected by the coronavirus pandemic. I am pleased that there will be a Civic Ecumenical Remembrance Service in All Saints Church this month on 8th November. The service in church itself will include almost all the usual tradi$onal elements including, I am delighted to report, members of ll Saints Church Choir singing some anthems and hymns during the service. Sadly, the whole congrega$on will not be able to sing the hymns. We will once again be welcoming representa$ves of na$onal and local government, including the High Sheriff of (er)shire and our Member of Parliament, our local Mayor and some Town Councillors, as well as representa$ves of the armed forces, the emergency services and other voluntary organisa$ons. The main difference from other years will be the lac) of the large congrega$on, of mainly young people, who usually a,end this service, having paraded through the town centre. There will be no parade to the church this year. Numbers in the church will be severely restricted. -or those not on the o.cial invita$on list there are about 25 seats available which must be boo)ed in advance. See our website or phone the Parish 0.ce on or before 2nd November. However, I am pleased that we are planning to live1stream the service to our 2ouTube channel. It is because of these restric$ons on Remembrance Sunday that we have issued a call for poems to be wri,en on the theme of Remembrance. We have started to see some poems coming in. There is s$ll $me to write yours and send it in. We plan to include some of them in the services on Remembrance Sunday, both in the morning services and in the Civic Remembrance Service at 3pm. This year, as we honour the memory of those who lost their lives in defence of our country during the wars, it is natural that our thoughts and prayers will also turn to the memory of those who have lost their lives during this pandemic4 and especially those whose service to the public placed them at greater ris). Some of the poems may re5ect that also. November is a month in our church6s annual cycle of worship when we give than)s for those who have lived on earth before us. We remember those whose lives, and o7en, sacrifices, have contributed to our 5ourishing, or have been a shining e8ample to inspire 2 PAGE 3 Rector's Letter our own way of life. (eginning with ll Saints Our Vision Day followed by ll Souls Day, we follow through with Remembrance Sunday. In this parish we observe our general remembrance of loved ones on the Sunday a7er Remembrance Sunday, this year 15th All Saints will be a loving church November, with a Service of Commemora$on and Than)sgiving. This year we are not able to offer a general invita$on to the service4 instead it will be limited to those accessible to all including children and youth, families we invite, the funerals of whose loved ones have ta)en place in the last year. This year we will not be distribu$ng or receiving name cards to be added to the prayer which is ac've in the heart of the community cross. If you would li)e the name of a loved one to be included in the list of the names of those departed whom we read out, please email or phone the Parish 0.ce. (ecause of privacy issues, among other reasons, we will not be live1streaming this service4 and where all can grow their gi)s and faith in God. though a recording of the sermon will be made available. During this month when we remember those who have completed their lives in this A22 SA.NTS PAR.S5 MAGA6.NE world we are also called to loo) with hope to a be,er world, to pray more earnestly This magazine is published by the Rector and PCC of All Saints Parish Wokingham. than ever for the coming of Dod6s )ingdom on earth as in heaven. So many of the great Opinions expressed by individual contributors do not necessarily reflect the views of inspira$onal figures of the past lived in sure hope that Dod6s )ingdom was coming, and the publishers. they lived their earthly lives as if it were already here. Please email items for publica$on directly to the editor on or before the Copy Date. lterna$vely contribu$ons can be typed or handwri,en. This pandemic is bringing a $me of hardship and loss in our society, and in our Email: [email protected] economic life, for some, though not for all. s a church community we are not immune ll Saints PCC Wo)ingham is a Registered Charity, No. 1127585 from these hardships. (oth in our personal family lives and in the church as a Editor: Steve Smith 0118 979 4407 community we are facing hardship and restric$on. In many ways it is a diminishment of ssociate Editor: Harriet Swinyard 0118 962 9313 our lives as a community, and church as we )new it may be feeling more distant. It is Distribu$on: Sheila Aongley 0118 978 4193 therefore even more necessary at this $me to remember: to re)indle within ourselves Produc$on/Distribu$on: Sheila Aongley C team 0118 978 4193 our memory of the hope and the promises of Dod which we hold dear. David Hodgson Copy Date Deadline for December .ssue: 17 November 2020 Produc'on: 20 November 2020 Publica'on: 21 November 2020 h,ps://www.allsaintswo)ingham.org.u)/virtual1worship is the star$ng point to follow our live1streamed services. 2ou can register for an upcoming service there, or you clic) Parish 0.ce The Cornerstone Norreys venue Norreys venue on the picture of the church to be ta)en straight to the 2ouTube channel. Wo)ingham Wo)ingham RD40 1EE RD40 1EE parisho.ceFallsaintswo)ingham.org.u) infoFthecornerstonewo)ingham.org.u) The front cover this month shows one of our churchyardGs more spectacular memorials. 0118 979 2797 0118 979 7778 HIci repose MIre Marie Ca$enne, Religieuse de la PrJsenta$on, Endormie dans la Staffed weekday mornings Staffed Monday-Thursday a'ernoons Seigneur le 20 vril 1909 dans la 67e annJe de son Kge, aprIs 50 ans de vie religieuse.H 2 3 October's PCC Meeting The PCC met in a Loom mee$ng on 6th 0ctober. 7er Dwelling in the Word and the acceptance of last $me6s minutes we discussed services for Christmas. We hope very much to be able to put on most of the usual services, at least in a modified form, with the theme being MComfort and Noy6. We thin) it will be possible to have a Chris$ngle service, socially distanced, as with families of four we can accommodate up to 125 people. Richard is hoping to put on a Nine Aessons and Carols Service on Christmas Eve, and there may also be three Crib Services. Midnight Communion will ta)e place without the processing, and streaming is being loo)ed into. With the wider community in mind we may be able to organise some )ind of living dvent Calendar, and Carol Singing in Peach Place and there could be a one off Messy Church. Oarious measures for ensuring safety were discussed. There will also be an appeal for volunteers to help with O streaming for Nine Aessons and Carols and e8tra sidespeople. Ne8t we discussed ac$vi$es in the Cornerstone. These are being slow to resume and there is a considerable loss of income. In the Space for ll update from nne, unfortunately it doesn6t loo) as though we will have enough money raised to do all that we had hoped in the first phase if we want wor) to begin ne8t year, and the plans will have to be trimmed. Phase 1 will be a pac)age of wor) covering 5ooring, hea$ng, pipewor), monuments and under5oor services. David told us that the churchGs web site has now been improved. The ll Saints -ellowship told us that they have sadly wound down. The change of $me of the family service to 10am to coincide with the Parish Communion was discussed. We hope this will ma)e it easier for some families to come bac) to church. We ended with Night Prayer . Hazel Todd s usual these are the personal re5ec$ons of the author and not the mee$ngGs o.cial record. 4 5 2020's Annual Parochial Meeting The combined PCM and Oestry Mee$ng was rather different this year. It was held on a Tuesday evening, it was in 0ctober Pdelayed from pril) and it was held online. (ut nevertheless a good number of parishioners turned up for the event. -irstly the churchwardens were elected. Deoff Davies stepped down this year but lun Names stepped up, so we s$ll have two wardens out of three. ItGs great that lun and Clive are willing to underta)e this responsibility. Meanwhile we heard how the church has 267 signed1up members. The nnual Report of 2019 was rather historical by the $me of the mee$ng but nevertheless there were comments on how wide1ranging the ac$vi$es at ll Saints are. We then heard about 2019Gs accounts 1 apparently 2019Gs was some improvement over 2018 but 2020Gs finances will be really bad.