ISSUE 651 BARNHAM BROOM and DECEMBER 2020 and JANUARY 2021 UPPER YARE GROUP NEWS Welcome to the December and January Group News. With the rising number of home deliveries now taking place, please make sure your house numbers and house names are easily visible to help ensure your parcels are delivered to the correct door! Seasons Greetings to everyone in our group of villages. Keep safe and well. Light-up a Tree It may be more difficult to mark Christmas this year, so we thought we could show we are still very much celebrating Christmas by lighting-up trees, perhaps in the windows of homes, perhaps outside in gardens or outside churches where possible. Please see the two back pages for the current Service grids for December and January. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby’s free national phone line, bringing worship and prayer into people’s homes. The free line, 0800 804 8044 is available 24 hours a day. 14 Christmas Trees to find! Group News is produced and delivered to your door by volunteers. CLOSING DATES FOR THE FEBRUARY ISSUE: Adverts and News by January 6th. Thank you to all the Group News Deliverers. MINISTRY TEAM Rector: Rev. Dr. Tim Weatherstone, The Rectory, Reymerston NR9 4AG [email protected] 01362 858021 Assistant Priest: The Venerable Arthur Hawes 01362 822441 Assistant Curate: Rev. Dr. Louisa Pittman, The Vicarage, Honingham Road, Barnham Broom, NR9 4DB 01603 759641 Email: [email protected] Reader: Roger Walpole, 1 Woodfarm Cottages, Reymerston, NR9 4QZ 01362 820284 GROUP OFFICERS Group Office: The Rectory, The Street, Reymerston, NR9 4AG [email protected] 01362 858021 Group Treasurer: Adrian Rodford, Church Barn, Southburgh, IP25 7TF 01362 822186 Lay Chairman: Philip Richardson, 16, Vicar Street, Wymondham, NR18 0PL 01953 607564 Website: www.groupof15.org.uk F Facebook link: https://www.facebook.com/Groupof15/ Twitter link https://twitter.com/groupof15 GROUP NEWS EDITORIAL TEAM p Rev. Dr. Tim Weatherstone, Rev. Dr. Louisa Pittman, Joy Smiley, Fiona Winser, Advertising and Finance: Mr Francis Woodcock Flat 2, Kimberley Hall, Barnham Broom Road, Editor: Jane Howard NR18 0RT Summer Barn, 07879 379181 Mill Road, Email: [email protected] Hardingham, NR9 4EH Distribution: Christine & Ivan Revell-Burrows 01953 851215 3, Low Road, Carleton Forehoe, NR9 4AP Email: [email protected] 01603 759695 Email: [email protected] Guidelines: adverts should be sent in Doc., Pub., JPG ADVERTISING RATES: files. Please do not send a PDF. The Group News is 1 issue 6 issues 11 issues printed in black and white. For best clarity please send bright images in black and white. Coloured 1/8 page 9 x 6.3 cm £15 £75 £115 logos or posters cannot be printed clearly. LANDSCAPE Inserts & Leaflet Distribution: When making an 1/4 page 9 x 13 cm PORTRAIT £26 £143 £227 enquiry about leaflets, please advise on the size and type, and indicate which villages you would like 1/2 page 18.5 x 13 cm £47 £266 £432 covered. Prices are from 5p for each single A5 leaflet. LANDSCAPE Please address any enquiries about advertising and leaflets direct to Mr Francis Woodcock (see above) For historical reasons, no one-off, unpaid for, ‘For Sale’ advertisements can be accepted. Our Group website is www.groupof15.org.uk For our advertisers, we can offer to place their advertisements online on the website for a small additional monthly charge. Payments to ‘Group News Community Account’. Details: Sort Code 20 - 28 - 20 Account No. 4389 5424 Payment to include the invoice number. If you know anyone outside the Group who would like to receive Group News, this can be arranged for a small fee. Please contact anyone on the editorial team. Group News is published by the Barnham Broom and Upper Yare Group of Churches. It is managed, edited and distributed by volunteers. Donations are always welcome to help with printing costs and can be sent to Francis Woodcock at the above address. Cheques should be made payable to Group News. Please See page 3. Any views expressed in Group News are not necessarily those of the publishers or the editorial team. Whilst every effort is made to ensure accuracy, we cannot accept responsibility for errors or omissions. Group News accepts advertisements in good faith and we cannot guarantee the goods or services offered by advertisers. GROUP NEWS IS PRINTED BY: HOLLINGER Print ltd, 01603 309000 www.hollinger.co.uk 2 An important request from the Lay Chair of the Barnham Broom Group of churches May I wish all our readers continuing good health as the country struggles to gain control of the coronavirus pandemic. It seems likely that worship in our churches will again be severely curtailed or prevented altogether over the next few months, and I take this opportunity to express the gratitude of us all, at the tremendous efforts made by our clergy team of Tim and Louisa in both maintaining online services throughout the year, and in offering much needed pastoral support to many people in our Group of parishes. However, on a secular level, in my capacity as Lay Chair of the Group I must report that we will not be able to pay our Share of Diocesan expenses in full this year. Individual churches may struggle to cover even their own running costs. Some have remained closed for much of the year and even where services have been held, numbers attending have had to be limited because of social distancing rules. Fund raising events have been similarly curtailed. As a result, although many people have been generous with their online giving, total income received by the Group is well below normal. May I ask you to urgently consider either a one-off donation or a standing order for regular giving, either to your local village church or directly to the Group treasurer. Details of how you can do this are set out below. With grateful thanks, Philip Richardson SUPPORTING OUR VILLAGE CHURCHES If you feel that you could help, Text a donation: please send your donation to Adrian Rodford, Church Barn, Southburgh, IP25 7TF £1 Number: 70201 £3 Number: 70331 £5 Number: 70970 £10 Number: 70191 (cheque made payable to Barnham Broom Group Fund) Barford Reymerston HYDF011 HYDF004 or directly into the bank. Barnham HYDF009 Runhall HYDF016 Broom Barclays Sort Code 20-99-08 Brandon HYDF015 Southburgh HYDF014 Account number 80153273 Parva Carleton HYDF010 Thuxton HYDF005 Forehoe Collections. Cranworth HYDF013 Westfield HYDF007 Parishioners who normally like to give to the collections at services might like to set up a Garvestone HYDF002 Whinburgh HYDF006 standing order for giving to their church. Hardingham HYDF008 Wramplingham HYDF012 Bank details can be obtained from their PCC treasurers or churchwardens. Kimberley HYDF003 All churches HYDF001 3 With thanks to Joan Welsby for writng the Editorial for November and not minding it to be held over for the December issue. ‘Fight the good fight with all thy might!’ (Rev.John Samuel Bewley Monsell 1863) During these last few weeks, with the continuing Coronavirus situation – R rates rising and falling, another lockdown imposed, government rules changing at times on a weekly basis, and NHS staff battling to care for the sick and save lives, the words of the hymn: ‘Fight the Good Fight’ kept popping up in my head. Given that I wrote this editorial for the November issue of Group News, my mind also turned towards Remembrance Day and all the memories and thoughts of the people fighting different battles that that conjures up. Two very different types of waging war: but looking through the words of the famous hymn, there are many similarities from which to draw strength. Looking for explanations on how to fight the good fight of faith it seems that people often ask such questions when they are going through difficult times and are wondering how they can be faithful to God in the face of opposition, oppression and adversity, which seems to describe what the world in general is going through right now. At times, it is very difficult to remain positive. However, reading through the verses of the hymn, powerful words of inspiration and encouragement stand out: Fight the good fight; Lay hold on life; Run the straight race; Life with its way; Trust and thy trusting soul shall prove; Cast care aside; Faint not nor Fear – every verse full of advice! A veritable set of instructions to help us get through many of life’s adversities and to ensure that we focus on words that are just as relevant today as they were when Paul wrote to instruct Timothy, a soldier, often engaged in warfare (1 Timothy 6.12). As Paul says, anything that is done by faith will require a fight of some sort in order to win – living a life in faith isn’t always an easy passage. God calls us to concentrate our efforts and stand firm to achieve our goals. As the battle to ward off this dreadful pandemic continues, with all its attendant worries and fears, we remember the words from 1 Peter 5.7: ‘Cast all your anxieties on Him because He cares for you’, and we can take courage from the words of Moses to Joshua (Deuteronomy 31.8): ‘The Lord himself goes before you and will be with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged.’ And finally, the last two lines of the hymn give us the only instruction we really need: Only believe, and thou shalt see That Christ is all in all to thee. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ GARVESTONE METHODIST CHURCH Dereham Road, NR9 4QT.