I hope you and your family are all well. Those of us who live in Halton or Warrington are having to get to grips with a whole new set of restrictions which I have to say seem to get even more complicated each week. Nevertheless, worship in Church can still go ahead at present.

We had two pieces of good news about Sam and Majid. Sam has been granted leave to remain for 5 years. Majid has been released from the Detention Centre he had been moved to. Gill is trying to find out more.

A lot of effort has been spent on the Church building this week. All good investment for the future when we can reopen properly. The burner on the boiler has to be replaced after 15 years. Our engineer tells us that we should be able to get another 10 years out of the existing boiler if all goes to plan. There’s nothing worse than going into a cold church – it just confirms people’s prejudices about churches.

We have a recurring problem with one part of our intruder alarm system. This is thought to be down to the quality of the power supply to the church. Scottish Power have over many years worked on the overhead lines in the village and to the church but clearly the still needs to be more to be done. Alarm panels are now so sophisticated electronically that any slight power problem can cause it to be activated – normally in the middle of the night! Our insurance policy requires us to have a functioning alarm, in return for which we get a discount on the premium.

Looking after a Grade 2* Listed Building requires constant attention. If you let things slip, then the costs quickly mount up. A stitch in time saves nine! It also needs us to build up quality working relationships with contactors we can trust. Thankfully the Facilities Team of the PCC keeps a close eye on things, for which we should be very grateful. Daresbury Church has always been kept in good condition and long may it continue. We’ve recently have just had our 5 yearly architect’s inspection, and he made very favourable comments about the church building’s condition.

You can learn more about the Facilities Team work in the Annual Report which I attach again in case you have missed it in my earlier email this week. You can also learn more about what they do, and the many other aspects of our church life, by coming to the AGM on Zoom this coming Wednesday 7th October at 7,30pm. Here are the meeting details again:-

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86116693853?pwd=RTJhYTF0ZmVpT0RDa0JPY0NOaTlrZz09

Meeting ID: 861 1669 3853

Passcode: 277642

This Sunday we are celebrating Harvest Festival. We shall be thinking about our stewardship of God’s world, our abuse of it and what we must do to be able to hand it onto future generations. We shall be giving particular thanks for our farmers and all those who work in the food and distribution industries who have kept us fed particularly over the last 6 months and will keep us so in the years ahead.

For many years we have given our collection at Harvest Festival to Send A Cow a charity that was formed in 1988 by a group of dairy farmers who in the early days literally sent cows to farmers is Uganda. If you wish to learn more about their work, please go to their website https://sendacow.org/. You can make a donation please go here https://sendacow.org/donate-now/

With God’s blessing,

David