Plants for sale

Pam Coop will be selling plants in aid of the Restoration Fund.

There will be hanging baskets for sale and Pam will offer a refill service for baskets until the plants run out.

The address is Hill Cottage, 78 Southam Road, Radford Semele.  Alternatively you can contact Pam on 01926 427636.

Restoration work begins

The work has started at St Nicholas and we are thrilled to welcome Croft as our contractor. They have already made very exciting progress in the first few days of being on site. The floors are being levelled and the archways dismantled, under the watchful eye of the archaeological team, and they are doing a stunning job !

Update on Saturday, May 5, 2012 at 10:10AM by Clare

Three more photos have been added to the slideshow, including the start of a hidden spiral staircase in the tower!

Update on Tuesday, May 22, 2012 at 02:31PM by Clare

4 more new photos from the last fortnight added

Update on Sunday, May 27, 2012 at 07:09AM by Clare

Another 3 photos added this week

Website upgrade

We are pleased to annouce that the website has been move to a new, and hopefully more stable, location.

In the process we have also upgraded some of the features.  If you have any issues following the move, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Bulletin No. 21

Dear friends,

It is now almost exactly 4 years since the fire, and this is news you have all been waiting for !

I am delighted to tell you that we have today been able to issue a letter of intent, appointing a contractor to start work on the church.

The tenders that came back in January were all above the budget set, and so we have had an interesting time, reducing costs and altering the specifications. As a result we have omitted a number of items that can be added back into the job at a later date, should we be able to make further savings or find extra funding.

But the good news is that work will begin, and the contractor is being invited to start work on April 16th – once the Easter break is over.

I can’t begin to tell you what a relief this is – it has been such a struggle to get over the various hurdles that have been put in our way, and I am sure that once work begins, and the church begins to take shape, there will be a growing excitement and anticipation around the village.

The appointed contractor is Croft Building & Conservation, based in Cannock, who are just completing a major work on Hardwick Hall in Derbyshire. They have great experience in restoring heritage buildings and have worked with some members of our design team already. We are very confident that they will produce some top quality work for us, and we are really looking forward to them arriving on site.

It seems appropriate that they arrive just after Easter – a time in the Church’s year of celebrating new life and hope. It’s a time of emerging and discovery, a time when the pain and confusion of the cross is replaced by the healing and clarity of resurrection. It’s when new life takes shape, and the construction work at the church can be modelled in our own lives of faith. So please do feel free to join us in our Easter celebrations, and please continue to pray for the work of restoration in our church and village.

Easter Services
April 1st : 10.00am Palm Sunday Quality Time
A short service for all the family to celebrate Jesus’ arrival in Jerusalem

April 6th : 10.00am Good Friday Family Service
A service to remember the events of the first Good Friday, followed by Hot Cross Buns ! (For those who want to trek across to Bishops Itchington after this, The Pilgrim Puppets are at St Michael’s church at 11.00am too)

April 8th : 9.30am Easter Day Celebration

April 29th : 4.00pm Village Songs of Praise

ALL WELCOME !

Bulletin No. 20

December 6th : Well, it’s St Nicholas Day, and we have an early Christmas present !

An email has arrived today from the Chancellor of the Diocese granting us the Faculty we need to start the restoration work ! It carries some further directions and qualifications, but we can at long last look forward to work starting early in the new year.

I can’t express the relief I feel that at last we can begin to move forward, and please may I say another “thank-you” to all who have helped to get us this far, and for the community’s patience. It feels we have turned a huge corner today.

What a lovely touch too that it comes on our St Nicholas’ Day, remembering an ancient Bishop who is best known for his unexpected gifts to those in need around him.

I saw an extraordinary advert recently ! It was for Disneyland Paris, and the suggestion was that a trip there would make an ideal Christmas present. I couldn’t quite believe it, not because Disneyland isn’t a fun place to go (unless you hate queuing and it’s in France in December!), but because we are already being told that this Christmas is going to be a miserable one due of the recession.

We have heard people bewailing the fact that they won’t be able to afford to get the children what they want (or what they expect) this year, and see retailers in permanent sale mode.

So the suggestion of a holiday at Disneyland as an ideal gift is perhaps a little odd. In fact it’s the first time I think I’ve ever seen a holiday being suggested as a Christmas present. Maybe it’s an attempt to suggest to people that it really isn’t that bad, and all this talk about recession is over-dramatised. I wonder how long the advert will run …

The statements above remind us of what Christmas has become for many people – a chance to spend a lot of money. That’s why we seem to be being prepared for lots of disappointment from families who didn’t get what they want, and from retailers who found people didn’t shop until they dropped.

It’s true that part of Christmas is about celebrating with families and exchanging gifts. After all, there were angelic celebrations the night Jesus was born, and the wise men brought him valuable gifts …

But an important part of our Christmas celebration is who Jesus was and why Jesus came. The carols we sing are full of this wonderful news.

Our celebrations are not just about seeing family, buying presents, eating well, and watching James Bond – though all these things are great fun ! Christmas is about celebrating the birth of the one person who can really make a difference in our lives – clearing away the rubbish that lies there, and giving us a fresh start.

Why ? Simply because God loves you.

May I wish you a very happy Christmas, and a new year filled with hope and new beginnings.

Rev Martin Green