THANK YOU ANGEL

Thank you Angel for your helpful comments. It is soooo good to get comments from people. I do hope that as we progress, people will comment more and more. I know to get to the Tower Appeal blog is a bit of a maze, but the important thing is to encourage people to look on the website in the first place!! If you have any ideas on how to get people checking the website, I would like to hear them!! Particularly I am interested in getting links with people in other churches and other countries even to see how they raise money to maintain their church.
I will talk to our webmaster to see if she can make a quicker link to the Weblog.

I can't tell the Vicar that he should do a weekly blog. Certainly Barry Linney is very supportive of this Weblog - he has put some details and pictures up recently, if you would like to look.
He is a pretty busy man and of course has a young family, which is limiting on his time. But I am sure he will from time to time put up some items. I , however, will pass your comments onto him.

The people in our Tower Appeal leaflet might not want to be named. Certainly one of the pictures is of one of our churchwardens and other members of the church, together with visitors, at Colville School during one of our yearly fundraising efforts. The other picture is another of our churchwardens with the children in the church doing a Christmas presentation.

One of the pictures inside and one on the outside of the leaflet shows the wedding of two of our congregation - and a gorgeous day it was!!

Thanks again Angel - keep commenting please!!!!

Its that time of year

Its that time of year when things are dark, miserable and coldish. However, today is quite nice, and although its cold, it is at least sunny! We dont really want to put our noses out of doors if we can help it ....
but ..................there are things to look forward to in 2007. The Tower Appeal fund is steadily growing due to the generosity of individuals and the hard work of people and those members of the TA Committee who are organising events. We are very grateful indeed and hope that in 2007 we will raise all the money needed for the Tower Repair.
We are looking for millionaires out there who are interested in old buildings....... DO YOU KNOW OF ONE!!
On the other hand you may have a contact who would be interested in giving a donation or interested in helping or initiating some fundraising. If so please contact me on panwrites@ntlworld.com. We will live in HOPE!!
There are events in the pipeline.............................. a concert in April with Rosemary Wheeler and friends, An Art Day in June when you can come along and do a painting of the inside or outside the church, in May theSoham Brass Band concert,later on a day when you can have your favourite Hymn sung or reading done. AND THERE WILL BE OTHERS......................... so cheer up and look ahead to things happening in St Andrews Church for the TOWER APPEAL. SPRING IS HERE.

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.

where are your comments?!!!

Any organisation is only effective if it meets the needs of its users. SO WE NEED YOUR COMMENTS on how you think the Tower Appeal is going and what we need to do to get more money in to SAVE THE TOWER.

Your opinion is important so let us know what you feel? ALL OPINIONS WELCOME, EVEN CONTROVERSIAL ONES!!!

This is an informal way to keep people up to date with what is happening with the Tower Appeal at St Andrews Church Cherry Hinton in Cambridge. You can find details about the building and the problems it is having with its Tower on the main website. This is something many old churches are facing. Time has eroded the fabric of the Tower and it needs a large sum of money to put it right. Hopefully it wont fall down before that!!!

The maintenance of the church is the responsibility of the congregation, but it impossible for the congregation to meet the large bills - hence the fundraising activities.

We have just had a stall on the Cherry Hinton Festival Weekend on the recreation ground at Cherry Hinton. It was a fantastic weekend - glorious weather and the fun of seeing the large variety of stalls and meeting the people in Cherry Hinton who had come together to make this weekend a resounding success.

St Andrews had a small stall, but there were lots of fun things to do to keep people interested. Do you remember those games we had as a child - covering the coin in a bucket of water and highest score for the old fashioned bagatelle game? Well those went down a treat for the old and the young. There was a paper quiz and shoulder massages for 40p to relieve any tensions.



A large board showed pictures of things happening with the church community.
The Tower Appeal brochures were handed out and many people were interested about the problems with the Tower and many kindly put a donation in the box provided.

I came away from the weekend with the feeling of fun and happiness - the atmosphere was great and everyone felt they had gained a lot from the experience. The Festival Committee deserve a large gold star!!