A couple of years ago I blogged about Voces Cantabiles a choir run by the two sons of a couple who attend St James who played a couple of concerts for the Church, the second of which ended up being by candlelight thanks to a power cut. The choir has gone from strength to strength winning a number of prizes around the world. They also have a smaller ensemble known as Voces8 consisting of just eight singers who have won awards in their own right. Digging around on YouTube I found that they now have their own channel where they are steadily uploading examples of their performances, and showing their range. Everything from this performance of The Lamb by John Taverner – something that I know from experience is fiendishly difficult. At the other end of the spectrum you have their latest video – “I’m a Trainâ€?.
Tag Archives: Church
Pew Idol
You think there is controversy over the results on Strictly Come Dancing? That’s nothing! I’ve just got back from a meeting where amongst other things we spent the best part of forty minutes discussing what we are going to do with the twenty or so pews in the Church, all of which have to be disposed of before the conservation work begins.
Various people whose rear ends have suffered on them over the years thought we should just have some sort of celebratory bonfire with them, but as charity trustees we’re required to try and get the best price for them. Despite the fact that they are all warped to some degree or other, and all have damage from death-watch beetle we have had people looking to buy them in bulk, plus parishioners wanting to purchase the pew they have sat on for many years as a souvenir. Of course with multiple congregations we already have the problem that several people have expressed an interest in the same pew.
Anyway, as a result we’ve had to come up with a scheme to sell the pews, whilst keeping all the various interested parties happy. We also needed to come up with a system that didn’t mean that pews with a sentimental attraction just went to the highest bidder. So a few people have been kicking around ideas, and we’ve now ended up with a multi-stage ballot process that offers the pews at a fixed price based on their length, draws based on lots for pews with multiple bids, and then at the end of the process offers any that are left to the highest bidder – hopefully in that way people who want specific pews all get a fair chance, and ensures that all the pews are removed in time. That of course is another key requirement – buyer collects, and only in the fairly small window after the Christmas services are complete and before the work begins.
Who’d have thought that selling a few woodworm eaten pews would be so contentious?
Churchwardens Anonymous
So yesterday I found myself in the Church hall in Shinfield, with about fifty other people – a variety of ages and backgrounds. One by one we stood up and introduced ourselves – “I’m Richard from St James’, Finchampstead, and I am a Churchwardenâ€?…
It was the annual Churchwarden training day laid on by the Diocese. Led by the Archdeacon, with the main speakers being the Diocesan Registrar and the secretary of the Diocesan Advisory Committee (the DAC are the people who give us permission to do physical work on the Church – and tell us off when we do work we’re not supposed to!) this was a chance to let all the new Churchwardens known what they should and shouldn’t be doing!
The first problem of the day was actually finding somewhere to park. Like many villages parking is a bit limited. Apparently these training days usually only attract about twenty-five people, but with the Churchwardens Measure now in place providing a number of new people, plus the increasing complications of health and safety rules about double the usual number had booked. We managed to all park along the lane through the middle of the village, but I guess the locals must have wondered what was going on at 9am on a Saturday morning!
The first part of the meeting was a talk by John Rees our Diocesan Registrar. This was particularly interesting as alongside being our registrar, he is also a pretty senior lawyer in the Church, so has been heavily involved in the recent cases such as the ongoing case involving Tom Ambrose in Trumpington. Needless to say he couldn’t comment on the case directly, but he did stress the importance of the Churchwardens in making sure that situations don’t get so intrenched that the only way out is by going to the courts. He stressed in particular the dual roles of the Churchwardens as the chief representatives of the laity, and also as the officers of the Bishop in the parish. Other interesting snippets that came up were also that as Churchwardens we needed to be aware of what else our position might land us in. For example he has currently been dealing with situations where a village school had closed and as the Churchwardens of the local parish Church were named as trustees on the original trust deed the local authority had passed responsibility for the buildings back to them.
The talk by the Diocesan Advisory Committee followed, telling us a variety of anecdotes about what she’d seen. She was well aware that to most people in the Church DAC approval is seen as a real hassle, but she was keen to highlight that her remit was more worship focused and that in her opinion if we had to deal with local authorities things would be much worse. She also said at times she was there to save people from themselves. The example she used was a Church where the daughter of the Churchwarden was getting married. Since the Church was looking a bit drab, they went to the local hardware store and bought some paint to tidy things up. Needless to say they just did it, and although the Church looked very nice for the wedding a few years later the walls were being stripped and dried out because the conventional paint that had been used had been totally unsuitable and the building had sucked moisture into the walls, resulting in a much more expensive problem to solve.
After coffee we had about an hour of questions and discussion. Chief topics of discussion were how to handle the clergy – inspired somewhat by the comments of the registrar earlier on no doubt. There was also discussion about the process of picking a new priest for a parish, particularly the tension as a Churchwarden of wanting to get anybody if you’ve had a long vacancy, but at the same time wanting to get the right person. The most important bit of advice at this point was from the Archdeacon saying that you can refuse everybody as the parish representative. He highlighted one parish that hit problems with a new priest where one of the representatives admitted to not being happy with the choice on the day, but to not having said anything at the time because he didn’t want to make a fuss!
Perhaps the most major topic of conversation was health and safety, particularly the smoking signs, and more important the effects of the Fire Safety Order 2005. Although there were one or two Churches like St James who were lucky enough to have specialists in the congregation who could help, many were struggling. Luckily there is a fellow Churchwarden in the Diocese who has said she is happy to help out with the all important report that the order requires to be produced. One interesting comment came from John Rees who said that despite what the actual order might say, the authorities had said – in some cases in writing – that they were continuing to treat Churches differently. The example he gave is one which has caused problems for us – our 1590 door is too narrow to be a fire exit, and opens the wrong way. However it is the only door at that end of the church so has to be the exit. The rules require that it should open outwards, but being grade one listed we wouldn’t be allowed to re-hang it to open outwards, nor would we be allowed to put another fire exit in place. Under the letter of the law we should therefore limit our occupancy to a maximum of sixty people… John Rees commented that it would very much depend on the use of the building, and that our primary aim should be to satisfy our insurers as to the safety and mitigate any risks as best we could. Although obviously it would be better if we could meet the requirements, for those of us with ancient and protected buildings it does seem to imply that we can go on using them.
All in all it was a worthwhile way to spend a morning – gives you a chance to meet the variety of other people doing the job around the area, and also realise that we all have much the same problems wherever we are!
‘Why Didn’t You Chase My Cow?’
If you as an average suburbanite came around the corner to find a cow on the loose – what would you do?
Last night after work I needed to stop by the Church for a copy of the notice sheet, and as you may be aware, close to St James is Church Farm. As a result of the recent Foot and Mouth outbreak the owner of Church Farm has been complaining quite vocally that due to the movement ban his cattle are stranded in a particular field and he is not allowed to relocate them. The important point to consider if this sounds a bit odd is that the field is crossed by a public footpath, and the local council also won’t close the path.
With this in mind it was quite a surprise as I drove up Church Lane to come around the corner and find a large black cow trotting towards me. Unlike my wife I have little experience with cattle, so whilst there have been occasions when I’ve been called on to help, for example the occasion we came down the road to the ranch and found one of the cows very determinedly walking along the road to town, I basically do what I am told and rely on the greater experience to encourage the animal back to where it should be. Not quite knowing whether the cow on Friday was running from something, or just on a curious wander I just stopped totally so as not to scare it.
Interestingly the cow did the same, came to a stop, and then slowly walked up to the car checking it out, it then wandered over and started investigating the hedge on the other side of the road.
Then a woman came around the next corner obviously looking for the cow, which didn’t seem to bother the animal until the woman was followed by the owner of Church Farm running after them both, at which point the cow bolted again and ran on down the road behind me.
With the cow already disappearing away I then moved off up the lane – primarily to get out the way of them chasing the cow back up the road, however I then got an earful from the owner of Church Farm as he passed. Primarily I think he was probably worked up over having one of his animals running around on the road, but still I apparently should have got out and chased the cow back up the road for him rather than do what I did. My lack of farming experience shouldn’t have stopped me standing in front of the animal running down the road it seems. Anyway, a little further up the road, just beyond the gate through which the animal had escaped was another bemused motorist who had no idea why a strange guy in an overall had asked him to stop, so I stopped alongside him as the cow was chased back up the road and finding us in the way went back into the field.
What is interesting though is that I think I probably did what any average suburbanite would do when confronted by a large animal loose in the road, indeed the standard advice in the Highway Code when meeting animals on the road is not to scare them. Certainly the idea of getting out of the car to chase a possibly slightly freaked out comparatively large animal in the opposite direction wouldn’t seem to be high on the list of wise things to do. So the question is, what would you do?
The MacGregors come to Finchampstead
Back in May, Ian MacDonald posted about a Canadian Band called the MacGregors who were coming to the UK looking for opportunities to play at Churches and Youth Events. They already had bookings around the London area, and were going to be finishing off around Oxford, so trying to arrange something for them in the Wokingham area seemed like a good idea. We thought about maybe doing something at St James at that point, but with a big Youth Group event a couple of weeks before, and multiple conservation fund raising events, not forgetting the Harvest Supper, all falling around the same time, there didn’t really seem to be a slot. I tried to help by putting them in contact with people around the Wokingham area, and again nothing seemed to work.
Since having visitors from Canada seems to be something we do quite regularly (can’t quite think why that is 😀 ), I’d also been offering suggestions about the best touristy things they could do whilst they were in the area, it was a bit disappointing when neither the Wokingham gig, nor something at Finchampstead seemed to come together. However it also posed a problem for the band as they still had a gap in their schedule, so in a nice offer they said that if we in Finchampstead could provide them with some accommodation, giving them a chance to go do the touristy stuff like Windsor and Stonehenge, and by way of a thank you they’d play us a concert for whoever wanted to come along and listen. We’re currently trying to find them all beds for the week that aren’t too scattered around the village (any other offers of beds most welcome too).
So, as a result, we have the MacGregors playing a concert in the Parish Centre at St James on the evening of Friday 12th October, at 7:30pm. We’re totally unsure what support we’ll get from the congregation, as the Harvest Supper is the weekend before, and there is another big conservation event the week after! Tickets will be £7, plus a contribution of pudding or main course for a bring-and-share supper, and any profit that we make will go into the conservation fund (less than £100,000 to go!). So if you’re not doing anything on the night of 12th October it would be great to see you at the Parish Centre, although they have been really nice about the prospect of not having many people, it would be great if we could get a good number along to support them. Also if anyone knows of someone with a a six input powered amp with speakers and two mics with boom stands I need to get hold of those for the night too.
Finally, if you want to hear what they sound like before you decide, you can find their album on iTunes. The following also sums up what they have been up to in Canada:
From playing at huge shows, like the Bell Centre (13,000 people), to playing at coffee houses, The MacGregors are drawing listeners from across Canada and the world. Combining ear-catching harmonies with their mature and creative songwriting and acoustic and electric instrumentation, they create a sensation when they play. Mixed in with their live performances has been radio airplay on local and national stations. Although they are young and entering full swing into the music industry, they already have had tremendous success. They completed their first EP “Rain” when they were 12 and 13. Two songs off of that EP received recognition in the well-respected International Songwriting Competition 2003. Rachel won first place in the teen category and Alisha received an honorable mention. Rachel attended Berklee College of music on a full scholarship to their summer program. They won favorite New Artist in the Okanagan Musician Awards 2004. Alisha 15, and Rachel 17, recently finished their first full length CD, Dark Beauty. Again this year, both Alisha and Rachel are winners in the 2005 International Songwriting Competition. This time Alisha took first place and Rachel took 3rd. Alisha will be travelling to Boston to Berklee’s summer program on a full scholarship. They competed against teens from around the world and the competition had 15,000 entrants in total (www.songwritingcompetition). Rachel’s song Dark Beauty is also a finalist in the John Lennon Songwriting Competition (www.jlsc.com) competing against songwriters of all ages. Most recently, The MacGregors won an all expense paid tour through Music BC called “Get Outta town Tour”.
Update: Okay we’ve got places for them to stay – indeed enough that they could change host part way through the week if they wanted. We’ve also got someone who has volunteered an amp too. Ticket sales are going okay – as expected lower thanks to the Harvest Supper but a real mix of the congregation – quite literally eight to eighty! Still room if anybody else wants to come along though.