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

THANK YOU !

First may I thank you all so much for the support you have given for the Out of the Blue Festival last month. It looks at the moment as if we have topped £9,300 towards the Restoration Project as a result of the week weekend, but more importantly, it was great fun to gather together as a wider community for a weekend of great events! Even sitting in a chair getting wet sponges thrown at me did not dampen the warm and positive atmosphere of the Saturday afternoon, with the schools’ performances, the puppets and the many and vaired activities that made up that Family Fun afternoon.

The Friday evening with Adrian Plass had us rolling with laughter and the Saturday evening was a concert with high quality, uplifting music. Sunday’s service drew over 200 people from around the area to enjoy the puppets and the Bishop, and a few stayed afterwards to enjoy a picnic.

All in the all, it was a great success, and people are already asking whether we can do it again !

May I say a personal thank you to all those who participated in any way, especially to the small team of people who helped oragnise it. But most of all to Chris and Avril and the team at the Exhibition Centre who gave us the weekend to use, and who worked so patiently and helpfully with us throughout the weekend. We are extremely grateful to them – and what a great venue it is, right on our doorstep!

Plans with Coventry Diocese
You will also be delighted to know that we have finally been able to submit all the detailed plans to the Church authorities in Coventry for final approval. They meet in July to discuss the plans, and we hope to have a decision from them fairly quickly. Once the formal approval is received, we will have to display it at the church for 28 days, and then the plans will be put out to tender to various heritage-approved contractors. And then … then we will get a contractor on site !!!

I know it has been a long haul, and thank you for your patience, but we are nearly there in terms of getting the work actually started. As there is a year’s worth of building to be done, I am pressing the Church authorities to move swiftly so we can get started, with an aim to have it open for Christmas 2012. I am hoping they take this on board, and that nothing else holds us up.

Church Open Day: August 13th (12-4pm)
The final piece of news is that before the contractors arrive, we will have an open day at the church. Earlier this month, we took years 5/6 from the school into the church room, showing them what was left and then looking inside the ruined church. It occurred to us that hardly anyone in the village will have been able to do this. So we will aim to open the church and church room on Saturday August 13th from 12:00-4:00pm, lay out some of the items that have been salvaged for people to look at, and then offer brief and helmet-ed trips into the building. It might be a good way to raise a little more towards the Restoration Fund, so we may have a small entrance charge, but I hope that won’t put anyone off coming.

At last, some good news !

At the end of January, we heard that we have been granted planning permission – so we can at last go ahead to the next stage of preparing the tenders. The delay awaiting this decision will mean that our projected start date is put back, but we are still hopeful that we might be able to get contractors on site later this year, if we have no more delays.

The building team have now met with all the design consultants again to start this detailed preparation process, and we are keeping in close touch with the Diocesan authorities who will be giving the final official permissions, called a Faculty, so that our work dovetails with their meeting schedule. Please keep praying that this process goes smoothly. We want to get the contractors here as soon as possible now.

In the meantime, some of you may have heard about a fund-raising Out of the Blue “festival” being organised this summer at the Warwickshire Exhibition Centre on the Fosse Way on June 17th-19th. An exciting programme is taking shape for the weekend, and the Saturday afternoon is planned to be a family fun event ! We are hoping to have all kinds of sideshows and games and activities that we can all enjoy, and raise some money for the restoration project while having lots of fun !

We already have the Warwickshire Archer and some creative art workshops booked, and the delight of cream teas, but we need lots of sideshow games and activities. So if you would like to be involved and could offer to provide and run a simple activity, please get in touch by returning the slip at the bottom of this bulletin. And if you aren’t able to be involved, do book the dates and come along. The weekend is a gift from the Exhibition Centre to help us raise money for the church project, so let’s make the most of it.

And finally, a reminder for the forthcoming concert :

At ST. MARKS CHURCH, Rugby Rd, Milverton, Leamington Spa
Friday 18th March @ 7.30pm
Presented by RUGBY SCHOOL, THE ARNOLD SINGERS

It will be a memorable evening of fantastic and varied music that will move and enchant you.

Tickets now available £11, £10 conc, £5 under 16
from: Don Simpson (01926 426652) or the Post Office, Radford Semele

All proceeds will go to St. Nicholas Church Restoration Fund

At last we have some more good news.

The DAC, which is the church of England’s body that oversees the care of church buildings, has given their formal approval for the plans we presented to you to go forward. This is the church’s equivalent of planning permission, and they are very happy with the plans so far. We will have to get their continued permission as the interior detail develops, but this is an important step forward.

We are still awaiting the decision form the local planning authority, but as soon as that is granted, we can at last begin to develop the detailed plans for the church. It has taken such a long time, and I think none of us anticipated this process being quite so drawn out, but each stage we reach appears to have its own timescale to it and we have no control over how long that is to be. But we are getting there !

So in the meantime, let me tell you of some fund-raising activities, with the emphasis on fun :

Quiz Night & Fun Food Auction
Radford Semele Bell Ringers invite you to a Quiz Night & Fun Food Auction on Saturday 20th November 2010 (7.00 for 7.30 start), in the Community Hall, Lewis Road, Radford Semele. Tickets £5 per person in advance – bring a team or get a team together on the night. Tickets available from Claire (01926 886408) or Fiona (01926 425442). Come with a plate (or 2!) of food to be auctioned! Drinks & a Raffle!

Christmas cards
We have produced some Christmas Cards to be sold in aid of the restoration project. There are 3 beautiful designs, and they will be sold in packs of 6 cards (2 of each design) at £4 a pack. They will be sold in various places in the village – the Radford Rendezvous coffee mornings, church, post office, RED hair stylists, store and directly from Helen Robertson (01926 339978)

Please consider supporting us by sending out these Christmas cards this year.

Classical Guitar Recital
We are delighted to tell you that Ray Burley, the internationally renowned classical guitarist will be giving a classical guitar recital on Saturday Feb 5th at St Michael’s Bishops Itchington. Tickets will cost £12 (£10 concessions) and are available from Rev Martin Green (01926 613466).

This will be a stunningly good evening, so make sure you come along and bring friends! Tickets are already going, so buy yours early … we have limited numbers.

That’s all for now, but watch out for more events as they come …

With best wishes,
Rev Martin Green

We have some good news !

The Planning Application has been submitted at last … Since the village meeting in January at which the Architects presented their plans and model for the restoration of the church and despite the church being “under wraps”, much has been happening.

It has taken some time to get the detail right, but it was agreed at a meeting on July 15th to go ahead and present the plans to the planning authority and the Diocesan Advisory Committee. Both these bodies are crucial in the progress of the project, and we have kept them informed with details of how it is all developing, so hopefully their decision should not take too long.

Once permission is granted, the project will be drawn up in minute detail and costed ready for putting out to tender. So we have taken a big step in moving on to the next stage of this, and are praying that nothing will hold up the process.

Fundraising

May I also take this opportunity to turn your attention towards our fund-raising efforts. As you are aware from previous Bulletins, the insurance company will pay a large part of the re-build cost but in order to create facilities within the church for both present and future generations, a further £90,000 is needed to install toilets, a kitchen and an office as well as providing facilities for wider community use.

We are encouraging anyone who would like to run a fund-raising event, whatever that might be, to simply have a go.

We have already had some excellent events – the Village Voices concert, a poetry evening, a few metal-detecting afternoons, and a talk about hearing difficulties have help raise over £3,000 so far – a magnificent sum.

Our fundraising total now stands at over £14,000.

So if you want to hold or help run an event to raise funds for the restoration project, or to make a donation, please contact James Fleuty (883708) or Don Simpson (426652).

Donations can also be made via the website www.stnicholasrestoration.com

Rev Martin Green

Thank you to all those who came to the village presentation last month – the Community Hall was full and people seemed both interested and excited by the plans. The picture here shows the architect’s model of the new design for the North side of the church (the South side will look largely the same as before) with its new gables and extensions. We are currently exploring the heating options, still with a view to having an environmentally friendly system if we can, and the drainage system. Do have a look on the website, where we have put the ground plan, and more pictures of the new church model from different aspects.

Fund-raising
A small fund-raising team has now met and there are some exciting plans for various events and initiatives, including metal-detecting in local farmland (the first of which has already raised £240) and a concert in May by the Village Voices choir. We are also planning to make opportunities for people to make a donation for specific items in the church – more of that in due course. If you have any ideas for an event or fund-raising activity, please get in touch with Don Simpson. He is coordinating all these initiatives so that we don’t have things that clash. His number is: 01926 426652

So here’s a date for your diary – Saturday May 15th : Community Hall, The Village Voices Concert. More details will follow in due course.

If anyone would like to make a donation to the Restoration Fund, now that we have a target, this can be done too by making a cheque payable to “St Nicholas Restoration Fund” and giving it to a church member, or sending it to me by post (1 Manor Rd, Bishops Itchington, Warks, CV47 2QJ).

Budget Target
As you know from previous bulletins, we are looking at a budget shortfall of around £90,000. However, we may also have to face a VAT bill of unknown size on top of this. At the moment, the government has a scheme by which VAT can be reclaimed for work on heritage buildings (of which the church is one). Sadly this scheme is due to end in March 2011, and although there are some strong lobbies at the moment, there is no indication of whether this scheme will be extended or renewed, or not. Last week the General Synod of the Church of England put in a strong plea to extend the scheme, and I have written to both Bishops, urging them to add their weight to the lobby.

If you want to write to the local MP to encourage the extension of the scheme, that would help enormously. Until we know what is happening with this question, we will not know the extent of any extra amount we might have to find in addition to the £90,000 we know about.

Timing
I have just delivered the first of many Faculty applications to the Diocese – these are requests for permission from the church’s planning authority for work on the building. We need to have permission at each stage, and it will inevitably slow the process a little, but in keeping the Diocesan authorities up to speed with developments, we hope to minimise any loss of time. For those who missed the village meeting, the expected timescale for rebuilding is that, with a year’s worth of physical building work, we are aiming at an opening of the new church in July 2012. That means this year will be spent setting the plans, getting all the permissions in place and raising the extra funding needed. There is much to do, but we can do it if we work together.

Rev Martin Green

We have already had to spend nearly £300,000 of this on the first stage of the project, making the church ruin secure and covered, and you will have seen that the tower covers have been replaced again.

I also know that some of you have been waiting until this point to know how much extra we have to raise before making a donation to the Restoration Fund. We have instructed our architects to work within a budget of £2.2m, which will mean that we are able to add a small extension behind the tower for much needed toilet facilities, and another at the East end behind the vestry to provide an office.  This brings the facilities currently divided between church, church room and Vicarage shed, into one place.

This leaves us with £160,000 to find; we have already accumulated about £70,000, so we have an overall target of around £90,000 to raise.  Until construction starts and we have bills to pay, we plan to invest most of the cash payment received with the insurance settlement, and expect that the interest this investment earns will make a useful contribution to the target.

So what’s next ?

The first thing is that I am trying to arrange a village meeting, when the architects can come and present the outline plan to you and answer any questions you might have.  The PCC has already approved this outline design, as have English Heritage and the Diocesan Advisory Committee, but this has all been conditional on budget. Now that we have a basic budget to work with, we know what is feasible, and therefore can invite you to come and see what is proposed within those limitations.

The second thing is to press on with obtaining permissions from the various statutory bodies as the plans we have are made more detailed and specific. This could take time, but is essential.

While this is going on, we also need to set about raising our target figure of £90,000. We plan to set up a fund-raising group who can mastermind various events and activities, so if you would like to be part of this, or have any fund-raising schemes and ideas, please do get in touch with Don Simpson (426652) . I am hoping that this process will actually be quite fun, as it will mean doing things together as a community, and then celebrating the end result together.

So I am delighted that we are moving into this next stage of the process – it has taken a long time, but we hope to make faster progress from now on.

Thank you again for your patience and support – we will get there !

Rev Martin Green

First, may I apologise for the gap since the last Bulletin I issued in November. The trouble is, as you will have noticed, there has been very little activity at the church, except the replacing of the plastic sheeting over the tower roof whenever the wind has torn it off!

The current snowy weather reminds me of the snow we had last April, just a few weeks after the fire, when it looked quite stark and ominous – that was when the photo was taken that was on our Christmas card. (Thanks to Fiona who took the pictures …)

You will, I hope, be pleased to know that in this apparent absence of action, we have been busy behind the scenes, preparing detailed documents that will form the basis for the insurance company settlement. This has now been submitted, and I am anticipating that once their engineers have looked over the paperwork, we shall enter a not-too-lengthy process of negotiation to reach an agreed settlement.

Once this is done, we will know what budget we have to work with to rebuild the church.

Alongside this, we have been exploring the next stages in rebuilding, and the architect has been working on an initial brief gathered together from a comprehensive survey we did some months ago with church members.

Some of the important elements which we hope will be part of the new church are as follows :

• The view of the church from the main road should remain unchanged
• The new church should have toilet facilities and basic kitchen facilities (currently in the old church room, which is on its last legs)
• There should be more flexibility within the building so that it can be used more during the week by the local community (without compromising the excellent facilities already in the village).
• There should be some basic office facilities for future incumbents (currently a deteriorating shed in the garden of the Vicarage !)
• There should be the opportunity to have the church open more during the week for people to visit for pastoral and spiritual needs.
• We should use sustainable energy sources for heating and lighting where possible

Basically, this brings together the facilities that are currently in the old church room and the shed into one place, providing more regular access and more flexible use for the church and community.

There will of course be some structural differences – it is almost certain that we will not be able to replace all the stained glass windows with the original designs, through the Millennium window can be remade as it was. Modern building regulations will also determine how we proceed with construction, especially for these extra facilities.

At the moment, these are ideas rather than specific plans, but once permissions have been given to go ahead with this idea and detailed plans are drawn up, there will be a public consultation to present these plans and fine-tune any specifics. I will, of course, let everyone know when that will be once we get to that stage.

In the meantime, if anyone has any creative suggestions, do please get in touch (email is probably best if you can – revmcg@kerrins.net) and we can add them to the general discussions.

The restoration of St Nicholas Church gives us the opportunity to provide a thoughtful and prayerful facility for the village which can be used, enjoyed and loved by the community for future generations. Do please pray for us as we move ahead slowly, even when you can’t see anything happening at the church – and thank you once again for all your support.

With my best wishes

Rev Martin Green

At the beginning of November, the new Bishop of Coventry, Bishop Christopher, will be installed in Coventry Cathedral and for a week in mid-October, he cycled around the Diocese, acquainting himself with some of the parishes and the geography of his new home.

One of the stops he made on his first day of cycling was at St Nicholas church, to look at the devastation left by the fire, and to pray for us as a community. His words of encouragement and hope for the future were heartfelt, and I pass them on to you to encourage all of us as a community.
Do pray for him as he takes up the reigns of the Diocese, with many challenges ahead – he is praying for us.

Not much has happened since I last wrote, and the church lies under its now-mended plastic shroud, awaiting decisions from the many different bodies that will be part of the rebuilding process.

The Structural Engineer has completed a thorough survey of the church ruins, and has sent this to the architect and Quantity Surveyor to begin the work of assessing the costs of reinstatement – a requirement of the Insurance Company.

Alongside this, the Diocese have been discussing reports submitted to them about the significance of the church in our community and our hopes for the future, and an archaeological survey has also been completed. Representatives from English Heritage, the Victorian Society, and the Council for the Care of Churches have all been part of these discussions, and their recommendations and support will mean we can then to move on to the next stage.

Having said this, some of these decisions could take a few months to make, as they have to be done carefully and responsibly, as you would expect.

But the church continues to worship in the Community Hall, for which we are very grateful, and a couple of things coming up need special mention.

Service of Remembrance – November 11th

Over the last three years, we have held a special service in the church on Armistice Day, and this year we plan to do the same, except it will be in the Community Hall.

We are holding our monthly Communion service at 10.30am on November 11th for anyone to come to – it will include an act of Remembrance with the names from the war memorial read, and a time of silence at 11.00am, and the laying of wreaths. Do please join us, and stay for refreshments once the service is finished.

Christmas – Carol Service – December 21st

One of the highlights of the Christmas programme is Carols by Candlelight. Without a church and the physical facility we had there for a candlelit service, we are planning a carol service on December 21st at 6.30pm in the Community Hall. However, we are inviting people to congregate at St Nicholas church at 6.00pm, and walk through the village in a lantern-lit procession, singing carols. Do join us for the procession and service – it promises to be a memorable moment in this year’s celebrations.

With my best wishes,
Rev Martin Green

Things at St Nicholas have been relatively quiet over the summer. We have had an archaeological survey completed and I have put a picture below showing part of the original medieval wall that they uncovered. The Victorians seem to have used these ancient walls as the foundations for some of the pillars and walls when they enlarged the church in the 19th century. I am still awaiting the formal report, but it was fascinating to see the team from Warwickshire Museum working.

We are also in the middle of a thorough Structural Survey of the church, assessing the damage to the walls and deciding how much more of the church will need to be dismantled before any building work can be done. There has been a great deal of fracturing since the fire, and it looks like the gables and pillars may need to come down. Again, I am awaiting the report, which should come out in the next few weeks, and we shall know then the scale of the project ahead of us.

Alongside these surveys, we have been working with the architect and insurance company, providing details of what was lost in the fire, and beginning to look ahead to the rebuilding process.
As part of this, we have visited some churches that have been through what we face at the moment, and are taking note of some of the stunning results. It has been a real encouragement to catch a glimpse of the other end of the journey.

Not much more to report, but may I draw your attention to the revised Winter times of opening the churchyard.

New times for opening the Churchyard, from October 1st :
Wed evenings : Closed
Sundays : 2.30 – 3.30pm

From November, we shall be opening the plot on Sunday afternoons only, until the clocks change again in the Spring.

The Harvest Festival will be on Sunday 5th October at 10am at the Community Hall. All are welcome. Please bring Harvest gifts.

Rev Martin Green