Hello Marcus

Thank you to Marcus for his kind and positive comments to one of my blogs about the Tower Appeal for St Andrews. I take the point about a personal perspective on the blogger. My nickname is Pan (not Pam by the way)
and I have had this nickname since a child (to do with my liking for Pan Yan Pickle - for those who can remember it!) . I tend to use this name when I am on the computer, as my name seems quite long and clumsy. We have a very small fundraising team, including the Vicar and one of the churchwardens - and three other volunteers plus a Treasurer. I am one of the fundraising team ( a woman) See my picture!! I am going to take a picture of all the team soon to put on my blog. I am a regular member at St Andrew's Church and sing in the choir. My interest in saving the Tower is because of the history of the building, some parts going back to the 12 Century. It has been a central part of our community all this time, although in recent days many people do not use the church as much as in the past. In those days the congregation used the church and its grounds as a central part of their daily life. I feel strongly that the building should be preserved for future generations. In earlier times, the congregation maintained the building with many people being tradespeople (and without the health and safety regulations!). St Andrews is used for many other activities, not just for church services, and
there is certainly more scope for the church and our small Centre to be used in other ways to include all our local community. Personally, I find the church community very supportive and I feel my life would be less rich if I didnt have the people in the church community to be in touch with and be supported by. We also have a lot of fun and laughter and ...............another one of the important things in my life ............MUSIC.
Unfortunately, the costs of maintaining the church these days are frightening. The Tower Appeal repair costs are increasing on an annual basis and the general running costs to keep the building lit and warm are very high.
So we need to keep on trying to find funding for the Tower and for the church maintenance where we can.
You live near the church Marcus, come and see us sometime. I am surprised that you didnt get one of our small brochures that we posted to every house in the Village - detailing all the problems with the church tower and ways of helping. If you let me know where you are by email (mine is panwrites@ntlworld.com) then I will pop one round to you.
We need to have ideas and feed-back fromthe people in our community to help us achieve our fundraising tasks.
If you felt you could help us in some way Marcus, even with ideas (and you seem to have very good ones)
we would be delighted to hear from you. And you dont need to be a member of the church or of any particular faith to be part of our community. THANK YOU very much for your comments Marcus.