Guest Speaker: Fr Mark Birch,
Chaplain of Helen House, Oxford
Thursday 19 November
St Alban’s Church
7.30 pm Mass – Requiem for Fr John Bradley
8.00 pm Fr Mark Birch: Reflections on Human Dignity from a Children’s Hospice.
ALL WELCOME
Further details from: Liz Badman
Messy Church
Ever thought that church was too neat and tidy? Well, come to Messy Church instead. There will be an hour of craft, a short service and then we’ll all have dinner together and finish about 6 o’clock.
Once a month at 4pm at Westbury Park Methodist Church.
For all ages – but especially primary school aged
children and their families and it’s absolutely free.
Come straight after school and have a drink and
biscuit before we start at 4pm.
Contact us for more information. The next Messy Church is on October 14th.
You are invited to
a service of celebration
for all that Westbury Park Methodist Church has been
and all that the partnership will be
at 10.15am on September 20th
at which our preacher will be
Revd Ivan Selman
(ex-Minister of WPM)
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
Edit – apparently, Songs-of-Praise was pushed back a week to avoid Wimbledon. Songs of Praise (BBC1) on Sunday 14 July will feature the Exaltate singers in St Alban’s.
This year’s Westbury Park Festival starts with a concert by Westbury Park School on Monday 29th June, wrapping with a festival service on July 5th, and then open gardens for the afternoon. The week-long festival is packed, and includes a guided tour of the downs’s trees, botanical gardens, a quiz night, an art exhibition, the big street party and a choir explosion in St Alban’s for Only Choirs Aloud.
Full details see the Westbury Park Festival website.
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.
The first of two episodes of Songs of Praise shot in St Alban’s was broadcast on Sunday 3rd May. If you haven’t watched it yet, you can still catch it online on the BBC website. To warn those not expecting it, the accompaniment is jazzy, which suits some of the hymns better than others. You can enjoy the ever-fun game of spotting people you know and seeing St Alban’s in a different light. To help you, here are some stills taken from BBC iPlayer. Unfortunately, the prayer that Emma so patiently recorded was cut from the final edit.
The next episode, featuring the Exaltate singers, will be shown on Sunday 5th July.
The assembled childrens choirs. Image courtesy of BBC Songs of Praise.
The assembled adult choirs. Image courtesy of BBC Songs of Praise.
Update: More pictures of St. Alban’s in Songs of Praise
Post updated 11th May: new pictures, fixed dates.
