I think that Christmas at St. Bertoline’s 2024 was rather special. Mind you, I suspect I say that every year!
The church looked just wonderful with the vast and imaginative array of flower arrangements. There was such a warm and welcoming atmosphere for the Nine Lessons & Carols service, with the candles, readings and singing followed up by mulled wine, mince pies & sausage rolls. A great evening. This service attracted an attendance of 122 and there was a further 106 at the Crib service on Christmas Eve. Here it was nice to see lots of children in the church.
The Autumn social events were very well supported, kicking off with the Harvest Supper ( shared with the Village Hall ), the Cheese & Wine Quiz, the Christmas Fair. Just before Christmas, a small intrepid band of carol singers braved the elements to take Carols around the Parish on two nights. Our thanks here to our hosts at the end of each evening who provided
badly needed refreshments. These events raised in total £3,409 for our church, so a big thank you to all for your support.
The foregoing activities, of course, didn’t just happen by chance. Much planning and hard work went on behind the scenes. St Bertoline’s is blessed by a large number of talented unpaid volunteers who contribute so much to our church. Volunteering for church work is a labour of love often with material expenses added in and sometimes the feeling of being taken for granted inevitably creeps in. There is no easy answer to this, but maybe an occasional read of the Visitors Book will confirm the scale of
appreciation felt.
The upkeep of a Grade I listed medieval church plus striving to stay independent with our own resident minister and services every Sunday morning, means that finance is always high on the agenda at St Bertoline’s.
Some may well ask, where does all the money go? Well, the routine, day to day expenses for St Bertoline’s last year averaged £936 weekly. Of this, nearly half, £431 per week, went to the diocese for parish share. Almost a third ( £300 weekly ) went on electricity, insurance, routine maintenance & servicing.
You can see the detailed church accounts on the church notice board by the north door and on the website.
Finally, just a mention of attendance at St Bertoline’s. For the last year, the average Sunday morning attendance was 39 compared to 35 for the previous year. An increase like this might prove difficult to repeat but it’s worthy of comment.
Len Griffin – Treasurer