Announcement from Revd Nicki Chatterton This will come as a surprise - as it did to Adrian, but I have decided to retire. This decision has not been made lightly but after a period of prayer and much consideration. I have truly enjoyed working within the Stourdene community and it has genuinely been a pleasure to serve with and alongside the Churchwardens, PCC’s, you the congregation and staff with the schools in the Benefice. However, having just had my 63rd birthday and working full time for over 45 years - the last 12 years in the church and prior to that as a health professional - I have decided it is time for me to retire. My last Sunday will be 28th June which we will make a Benefice service at Ettington. It will be a 10am Cafe Church which includes breakfast. I hope that many of you choose to join that service.
Eco Church is a learning community of churches of all shapes and sizes open to all denominations. It provides a framework to support your church and its leadership to take practical action on caring for God’s earth, through the Eco Church survey.
We knew that we needed to update the facilities, were we tired of answering to the question"Where are the toilets?" - answer: we do not have one. Once we had ideas of what we needed. Finding the connection for the water and sewerage proved to be frustrating. In the end the only viable solution was the most expensive longest route. Infor a penny in for a pound, we set about getting a faculty from the Diocese to proceed and to start fund-raising. With £5K from the Diocese we were on our way, 8 months later the pandemic struck, and put an halt to our fund-raising events. The only thing to do was to apply for grants. Slowly but surely things began to move with a grant from National Churches Trust, and others. Time went on, however we were delighted to be asked if we would enter a competition from the NCT to try for a one off £10,000 grant. We had not foreseen that this would include preparing a video in the space of 3 weeks explaining our project and why we needed the grant. Video complete,and submitted we waited. We had been shortlisted as the Midlands entrant,one of only 4 for the Friends vote. It was an achievement to get so far, but we do have to say we were disappointed not to win. However, we had not envisaged the potential being shortlisted had given us. We were able to include this in further grant applications then the grants rolled in and before we knew it we had the funds! Having been patient for so long we were stunned to think that we could go ahead. We took on a project management team, instructed the builder with the start date of November 2023. Like all building projects it took a bit longer, we had to lock the church except for Sunday Services, but we managed to cope.We are now open again and delighted with the works. The path has smartened the churchyard.