As we look at the snow around us, here is a reminder of what St Alban’s hall and church looked like in the snow before Christmas:

Between church and the hall.

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Title: Carols on Redland Green
Location: Redland Green, by the swings
Description: An all-community opportunity for Christmas cheer, organised by local churches. Please join us for this popular event.
Start Time: 18:00
Date: 2009-12-22

St Alban’s choir woke up from their sleep-over in the church to the sight of this year’s giant Christmas tree being raised, and subsequently contributed to the decoration.  If you are in the church on Sunday, or come in for a concert or carol service, be sure to take a look.

The Christmas services have now been added to the calendar.

Thank you to everyone who turned up to Simply Sing on Sunday 18th October, it was a fantastic event.  The concert raised £400 for Children’s Hospice South West, the choir raised £241.91 towards their trip to Holland, and the Guides cake store raised almost £30.

The events we put on for the young have exploded!  To help you organise your life, Emma has given us a complete list:

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Title: Christmas Fayre
Location: St Alban’s Church
Date: 2009-12-12

Description: Father Christmas is coming and there will be activities for children to keep them happy while you shop.  The money raised is distributed by our United Missionary Committee who will decide the charities.

This is always a happy event so do please support it.  Please put items for sale at the back of church each Sunday (see list of stalls on the back).  If you would like to join in making this rewarding and fun event a huge success (morning, afternoon or both) please contact Pauline Nichols (direct or via the webmaster) – cover for one of the stalls, help setting up or tidying up afterwards are all welcome.

At a recent meeting of Westbury Park Methodist Church Council it was decided to ask for permission under Standing Order 611 from the District Synod to merge the accounts of Westbury Park Methodist Church and St Alban’s into the Ecumenical Parish Council and to place all rights and responsibilities of the local trustees into their hands. The recent circuit meeting agreed to pass this on to Synod (which meets in September). A new constitution and building sharing agreement needs to be finalized but we hope that all of this can happen by Christmas this year.

This should not affect the current building users in any way – indeed, we hope to further develop community use in all of our buildings. This is the obvious next step in our partnership and we hope that all concerned will benefit from it.

At the same meeting, the church council also decided that the time had come to stop Sunday morning worship at Westbury Park Methodist Church. So from October all worship will be United Worship at St Alban’s. This does not mean that the building will not be used for worship – indeed we hope that all sorts of worship will happen there, but that it will not be in the same form as we have been used to.

~ Emma Langley

Title: Harvest Supper
Location: St Alban\’s Hall
Description: A community meal, with entertainments by the clergy and other church groups.
Start Time: 18:30
Date: 2009-09-26

Songs of Praise (BBC1) on Sunday 14 July featured the Exaltate singers in St Alban’s. Click on the photo below to see more.

Exaltate Singers at St Alban's, July 2009

Our organist (and choir master) Nigel Walton celebrated 50 years as an organist at a special evensong on June 7th.  We were pleased to see so many people, including many who rarely (if ever) have heard evensong. The music, including Zadoc the Priest, Balfour Gardiner’s Evening Hymn and Nigel’s preferred responses, were of course chosen by Nigel.

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