The last month has been fairly quiet: cancellation, rather than booking, has been the order of the day, as regards official duties. At the end of February, I shall lead worship at Newcastle Unitarian Church, on Zoom, taking care not to cause any copyright-problems; this is becoming an important issue, as churches record services and transfer them to You Tube or similar platforms; indeed, we shall probably have to seek information as to where we ourselves stand, in the near future. During the last few weeks, Roger and I have visited Ipswich twice, to join their service; on the second occasion, we were fortunate to hear Rev. Cliff Reed preach---an extremely polished, professional service and sermon, entitled "Interesting Matters". Another Sunday took us to Mansfield, where Rev. Maria Pap gave us a very warm welcome, as well as conducting an excellent service on "Smuggling"; the members were very friendly, too, and we have been invited to return, which we'll be happy to do. Other Sundays have seen us visit Padiham and Bury, and I shall be spending the next week or so putting together my Zoom service for Mothering Sunday, at Bury; I'll be looking for readers for March 14th---be warned! Other than services, I've exchanged emails with our Chief Officer, about arrangements for the GA Annual Meetings, and this has led to telephone-conversations with Bob Janis-Dillon, our new Congregational Connections Lead, about my experience of attending, and leading, worship at our various churches. The "Leading change in the congregation" course is demanding, in terms of time and thought, but I hope it will prove useful, as we emerge from lockdown.

Kate and I have been extremely busy preparing for our forthcoming Congregation AGM; it is no easy task to hold this virtually, using only letter, email and phone, but we hope it will be successful. Please do respond to the various papers you receive, this month, and, in particular, send in your votes; we need at least 25 returned votes from church-members, in order to be quorate on the notional date of the AGM (March 28th), otherwise our work will have been in vain; every response is important, and every vote will count. Please help us!

At the time of writing (February 23rd), we have been told about our "roadmap" out of lockdown, and we are hoping that it will not be too much longer before we will be released from many of the restrictions that have prevailed during the past year. It has been most unfortunate that we have been unable to meet, all together, since then, and I do apologise to anyone who may have felt excluded by Zoom; we have tried to do our best, in difficult circumstances, and our main aim has been not to risk the health of our members. Kate, in particular, has been very active in her efforts to provide everything we need: services, pastoral support, calendars, information, and additional sessions of all kinds, and we need to be aware of her hard work, and appreciative of it. In thanking Kate, I also thank Ade for all his work, both in supporting Kate, and in looking after our premises.

I sincerely hope that it will not be long before we can open our church fully and permanently, but we must be patient for a while yet, it seems. My garden and my daily walks remind me that Spring is well on its way; vaccinations are in hand, and many of us are waiting for our second injections now. Roger and I send our love and best wishes; we continue to work hard on behalf of you all, and we look forward to the day when we will be able to join together, at church, as we were accustomed to do previously.

Click here to read all Anne's diary entries since her installation

We have a range of social, educational and recreational activities and the Church is regularly used by other organisations.

Click here for a list of special occasions.