The Forerunner – May 2014

 

Calendar for May 2014

 

 

The next stage in the process to appoint the New Vicar will be interviews of selected candidates on 13 May.

 

The next PCC meeting will be on Monday 9 June at 7.30 pm in the Village Hall.

    

     Diocesan News                 www.gloucester.anglican.org/news/publications

                                          www.gloucester.anglican.org/news/blog

     Nailsworth Benefice         www.stgeorgesnailsworth.org.uk

    

     Kingscote Community      www.kingscoteonline.co.uk

 

The Curate’s Letter

 

May is a delightful month when the dawn chorus of bird song reaches its full crescendo and the there are signs of new life everywhere.  There are new lambs in the fields, ducklings in the streams and the first sightings of the swallows’ arrival.  It’s a time to plant out the seedlings and everywhere people are vigorously attending to their vegetable plots and gardens.  It is a time of hope and anticipation for the new season, that this year it will be the best ever !

 

The Bible is full of stories about people who had hope when faced with the challenge of the changes in their daily lives.  Challenges that could bring them either growth and success or failure by the choices they made.  There are moments in these stories with which we can all identify with and which cause us to reflect and think further.  Challenges which we have to face in our spiritual lives and how we make our decisions and conclusions.  At the end of the month on 29 May the Christian Church celebrates Ascension Day when it remembers Jesus’ ascension into heaven.  It is one of the earliest festivals dating back to the very early church, which marks the conclusion of Jesus’ earthly ministry and the beginning of his new heavenly phase.  In his resurrection ministry we receive a fresh hope for a new season in our daily lives, knowing that Jesus ever intercedes on our behalf.

With every blessing,

Sue Sobczak

 

Flower Rota           

Sundays 4th and 11th May	Zoe Nichols
Sundays 18th and 25th May	Sue Spandler
Sundays 1st and 8th June	Jane Nichols

Wedding:  Sunday 4 May, 2.00pm, Douglas Bendle and Margaret Smith

 

Lorna Reynolds

 

 

Cleaning Team

The next church cleaning session is at 2.30 pm on Monday 12 May.  We are always delighted to welcome anyone who would like to join the team.

Teresa Day

  

Village Hall Programme 

Village Hall AGM – Tuesday 13 May, 7.00 pm in the VH.  If you would be interested in joining the committee please contact Ken on Tel. 861 113.  Anyone is welcome to look at the VH accounts for 2013 either by contacting the treasurer Viv Ainsworth on Tel. 861 683 or by visiting the community web-site.

Coffee Morning – Tuesday 20 May, 10.30 to 11.30 am.  Coffee and cake in the Reynolds Room, £1.50.

Spring Supper – Friday 30 May, 8.00 pm, bring food to share (salads, savouries or desserts) and celebrate the season.  Admission free, pay bar.  Please let Carol know on Tel. 860 649 what food you plan to bring. 

Carol Paton

 

Grumbolds Ash Group

On Tuesday 13 May we visit the Bowood House Rhododendron Walks which open at 11.00 am.  Entry to the garden walks costs £6-75 / £6-25 and a combined House and Garden ticket costs £15-50 / £14-00.

Note that the entrance to the Garden is at  SN11 9NF, off the A342 Chippenham to Devises road, and signs to the House should be ignored for that.

Meet at the Village Hall at 10.00 am to share cars.

Jutta Tubbs

 

Book Club at 8.00 pm

Wednesday 14 May, ‘Secret History’ by Donna Tartt, at the Village Hall.

Wednesday 11 June, ‘Harvest’ by Jim Grace and/or ‘The Rosie Project’ by Graeme Simpsion, at Jane’s. 

Angela Wooldridge

 

Kingscote Parish Council

The Parish Assembly will be on Tuesday 13 May at 7.45 pm preceded by the Village Hall Committee AGM at 7.00 pm.  All parishioners are invited to attend.

 

Planning approval:

Scrubbets farm, Bagpath, proposed shelter for cattle.

Planning applications:

Woodlease Farm, Kingscote: proposed cattle/fodder store building.

2 The Park, Kingscote: fell holly tree and beech tree; trim yew, apple, plum, greengage, maple, willow, silver birch, cherry trees.

The Parish Council has been consulted concerning an application within Stroud District for an anaerobic digester at the Old Dairy, Chavenage, which is close to the Kingscote Parish Boundary.  Any comments should be directed to SDC.

 Anna Davison, Tel. 860 244

VILLAGE FETE – Saturday 28 June

There will be a Great Kingscote and Bagpath Bake-off to be judged on the day.  Please make either a Victoria sponge, or 4 scones or 4 cupcakes (or all three if you wish !).  Details of when to deliver the cakes to the fete will be announced in next month’s Forerunner.

There will also be a children’s Vegetable Monsters competition – let your imagination run riot !  Again for timings and delivery details please see next month’s Forerunner.

For those of you who keep empty jam jars and lids, we invite donations of filled jars as prizes for the tombola – sweets, crayons, dry pasta, jam/pickles, buttons whatever takes your fancy.

Also if you have gazebos or tents that could be used by stall holders please contact  Viv Ainsworth on Tel. 01453 861 683. 

Many thanks, Village Hall and PCC fete organising committee

 

Free-range eggs for sale

Mrs Pat Cooksley of 2 The Windmill normally has some free-range eggs for sale at £1 for six. Best call afternoons.

 

Mobile Police Van

The Mobile Police Station will visit Kingscote between 3.15 and 4.15 pm on Wednesday 21 May. Please support this initiative.

 

Mobile Library

The next visit will be on Friday 16 May when the van will park as usual in front of The Walled Garden from 9.30 to 11.30 am. 

 

Weekly Recycling – Green food boxes and wheelie bins

All current collection points – from 7.30 am, Fridays.

Fortnightly Recycling – Black boxes, White Bags and Blue bags

All current collection points – from 7.30 am, Fridays 2, 16 and 30 May.

 

Fortnightly Waste – Grey wheelie bins to landfill

All current collection points – from 7.30 am, Fridays 2, 16 and 30 May.

 

Bus Timetable Enquiries – Ring traveline on  0871 200 2233.

 

Magazine 

Any material which may be of interest for the next issue of the Forerunner should be sent by 20 May to H. Tubbs,  3 The Walled Garden,  Tel. 860 194.

The Editor

 

 

How the Christian Faith began for David Suchet

(Extracts from an article in The Times on 19 April describing the experience

of the actor, famous as Hercule Poirot in so many well known films)

 

In the beginning was a bath tub and David Suchet was in the bath tub.  “ It began in Seattle in an hotel in 1986,” he says.  “ As I was lying in my bath I was thinking of my grandfather, Jimmy, who was sort of my spiritual guide.  I thought ‘Isn’t that funny that I think he’s with me ?  I don’t really believe in life after death.  I don’t want to believe that.’  I thought: ‘Is there a Bible ?’  And I opened the drawer of my bedside table and there wasn’t.”

 

That might have been that.  Suchet, who was shooting the movie Bigfoot and the Hendersons, could just have headed to the bar and had a drink with his fellow actors.  However, Suchet is nothing if not assiduous, and he dug out the Yellow Pages, found a bookshop and went out to buy a Bible.  That night he read Paul’s Letter to the Romans.  “ I was grabbed in a way that I never, ever thought I would be.  I was looking at a world view that I had been searching for ever since the Beatles.

 

So began more than 20 years of exploration, leading to Suchet’s conversion to Christianity.  Suchet’s father, a hospital consultant, was Jewish and his mother a nominal Christian, but neither was religious.  At Wellington School he enjoyed reading from the King James Bible in chapel, but more from the perspective of an aspiring actor who relished the language than for the message.

 

The bath tub moment did not exactly herald a Pauline conversion.  “Paul had the flashing bright light and the world changed.  That’s not me.  The way that I prepare for a role was the way I prepare for my faith.  I was determined to prove it wrong.  I was determined that the Resurrection never happened.”  From 1986 to 2007 he “did the A to Z of churches”, trying to find the right fit.

 

Eventually he settled on the Church of England Chapel Royal at the Tower of London.  One day the chaplain there noted that he was taking communion and asked where he had been confirmed:  When Suchet said that he hadn’t been confirmed the chaplain said that technically he shouldn’t be taking communion.  He was later confirmed by the Bishop of London.

 

He is anxious though, not to be seen to be banging on about his faith.  “I am the last person to want to be considered in any way an evangelist.  It’s just not in me.  I’m not embarrassed about my faith either.  I will talk about it to anybody who wants to know.  But I’m certainly not going to push it into people’s faces without being asked.  It has given me a lot of strength in my life.  It’s not for everybody, but it’s my life.”

 

Not for him, though, any thought that the Church is on its last legs.  “ I presume, like every fashion, we are coming towards the end of the pendulum, and one day it will go all the way back again as it has done throughout history.  I don’t think it is a crisis in the church.” 

Ukrainian History

  

It seemed a good idea to provide a short item describing the history of the Ukrainian nation.  It was quickly found that this comprised almost permanent chaos, with frequent cycles of invasion, occupation, exploitation, revolution, partition by neighbouring powers to the East, North and West for over a millennium.  Tensions between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches were also involved due to strong influences from Russia and Poland.

 

A significant feature of society in 19th C Ukraine was the class of small landowning Kulak farmers who in many cases formed the focal point of community life.  These became victims of Communism being hounded by Stalin to facilitate collectivisation, concluding with the genocidal famine in the 1930’s which resulted in the death of over 3 million rural peasants.

 

As we are seeing ourselves now, there is nothing straightforward in the Ukraine.

 

The Editor

 

 

 

For the Children:

 

The Song of Mr Toad

(Composed by Toad) 

The world has held great Heroes,

As history books have showed;

But never a name to go down to fame

Compared to that of Toad !

 

The clever men at Oxford

Know all that there is to be knowed,

But they none of them knew one half as much

As intelligent Mr Toad !

 

The animals sat in the Ark and cried,

Their tears in torrents flowed.

Who was it said, ‘There’s land ahead’ ?

Encouraging Mr Toad !

 

The Army all saluted

As they marched along the road.

Was it the King ?  Or Kitchener ?

No.  It was Mr Toad !

 

The Queen and her Ladies-in-waiting

Sat at the window and sewed.

She cried, ‘Look ! Who’s that handsome man ?’

They answered, ‘Mr Toad.’ 

Kenneth Grahame

 

 

 

 

 

 

Parish Directory

 

Vicar:                        Interregnum – awaiting new appointment.

Curate:                      Reverend Sue Sobczak, Horsley, Tel.  01453 833 526

Reader                       Sue White, Nailsworth, Tel: 01453 835 693

Churchwardens:         Harry Tubbs, 3 The Walled Garden, Kingscote, GL8 8YP.        Tel: 860 194

                                 Godfrey Ainsworth, Kingscote House, Kingscote, GL8 8XY, Tel: 861 683

 

Hon. Sec. PCC:          Georgina Harford, Ashcroft House, Kingscote, GL8 8YF, Tel: 01453 860 227

 

Hon. Treas. PCC:       Jane Nichols, Asheldown, 3 Ashel Barn Cottages, Kingscote, GL8 8YB,  Tel. 01453 860 534

 

Members of PCC:          The Churchwardens, The Hon. Secretary, The Hon. Treasurer, Elin Tattersall, Zoe Nichols, Chris Alford.

 

Flower and Clean Team: Teresa Day, Vivienne Ainsworth, Angela    Wooldridge, Pauline McTear.

 

Nailsworth MU:          Trissa Jones,   Tel:  832 551

 

Editor of Forerunner:  Harry Tubbs, 3 The Walled Garden, Kingscote,  GL8 8YP Tel: 860 194

 

Gift Aid and Envelopes:   Jane Nichols, 3 Ashel Barn Cottages, Kingscote, Tel. 860 534.

 

Church Flowers Rota:  Lorna Reynolds, Tel. 860 231

 

Organist:                   Rosemary Sims, 15 Badger’s Way, Forest Green, Nailsworth,  GL6 0HE  Tel: 832 446

 

Sidespersons:             Harry Tubbs, Rod Tibbert, Elin Tattersall, Godfrey Ainsworth, Jane Nichols.

 

Electoral Roll:            Elin Tattersall, 3 Boxwood Close, Tel.01453 860 182

 

Mowing Team:           Tim Sage, Harry Tubbs, Sebastian Cooper, Rick Bond, Roger Lucy, Godfrey Ainsworth,

Ken Davies.

 

Village Hall:               Bookings: Pauline McTear, Kingscote,  Tel. 861 311

                                 Secretary:  Carol Paton, Bagpath, Tel. 860 649

 

Parish Council Chairman: Graham Nichols, Asheldown, 3 Ashel Barn Cottages, Kingscote  Tel: 01453 860 534

 

Parish Council Clerk:   Anna Davison, Bagpath Court, GL8 8YG, Tel. 860 244

 

Village Agent:             Aileen Bendall, Tel. 07810 630 156 or 01452 426 868

 

Printer of Forerunner:  Godfrey Ainsworth, Kingscote House, Tel. 861 683                                                   

 

 

 

The Forerunner is published by the P.C.C. who are usually most willing to

accept copy from village groups and individuals. However, please note that the opinions and views expressed by the contributors within the Forerunner are not necessarily those of the Church, P.C.C. or Editor.