March 2024 message from Revd. Hilary Young

St. Mary’s Letter for March

Dear Friends,

As I write, Christmas and Epiphany season are already fading to past mem- ory, with all the special services and events which happened then. Lovely carol services, a marathon Christmas Sunday/Monday and a wonderful New Year candle-lit concert were highlights for our churches. Tibbs charity receiv- ed £450 from the concert, for which they are most grateful; Potton Music for Memory will be one of the benefi- ciaries there.

Well done, and thank you, to every- one who contributed to each of these services and events, and to all who helped me manage a horrendous virus which hit at just the wrong time for our family. Despite the virus, we managed all but Hatley’s planned early Christmas morning service, thanks to help and support from various people.

March sees us through Lent and into Easter season. We are already into preparation for that great festival with prayer, reflections on ‘cleaning up’ our personal lives, and acts of generosity. Mondays see a simple lunch and study time to which all are welcome. If you are interested, please contact Hilary – anyone is welcome at any point through Lent, which began on 14th February and ends with Holy Week.

Easter, this central festival of the Church through the ages, falls this year right at the end of March. Holy Week begins with Palm Sunday on 24th March, then Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Saturday pre- cede the festival day itself on Sunday 31st March. Ahead of that, Refresh- ment Sunday (Mothering Sunday, now celebrated widely as Mother’s Day) falls on 10th March. The churches in these parishes will be marking all these days in ways advertised here and elsewhere, welcoming both church

regulars and anyone else to join in to explore and acknowledge who God is in Jesus.

It is also the season for our Church Annual Meetings, so do watch for notices about those – especially if you would like to be included on the electoral roll of your local church or attend a meeting to learn what’s been achieved in 2023 and planned for 2024.

An update on the management of the churchyards

As Spring is springing (it seems to have started much too early this year, with birds singing Spring songs in mid March!), work will be ongoing in the churchyards of our parishes. All our churches have taken decisions to look to-wards sustainability and reducing carbon emissions in churchyard man- agement, while encouraging wildlife habitat. Our churchyard management plan is a partnership between Church and Parish Councils, who both have responsibilities for the churchyard now it is closed (i.e. no more burials).

I have written before about the rationale for why the churchyards are being managed in this way: it falls in line with the responsibility of human- ity to be good stewards of the natural world, so it has a strong basis in our Christian calling – and it also fits with the climate action commitment of our village, as understanding grows that we all have a part to play in helping to slow the heating effects in the atmos- phere of human activity.

Our current churchyard manage- ment approach reduces the use of machinery (which needs fossil fuels) and weedkillers (which not only dam- age wildlife but also require extensive resources in manufacture). It encour- ages nature to flourish in places we might previously not have thought important for that. I am pleased to remind readers that we have received a bronze award for our work from the Cambridgeshire Churchyard Con- servation Award Scheme, run by the Wildlife Trust for Beds, Cambs and Northants.

This year’s work will include some petrol mowing and some manual cut- ting (scything) – specifically:
• Close-mowing of some sections for amenity value. This will include paths and their margins, selected amenity areas and the base area sur- rounding the church wall itself.

• Zoned seasonal cutting to encourage wild flowers. This means large areas of the churchyards will initially be left uncut. Some areas will be cut once the spring flowers have had time to take the nourishment they need back into their storage organs or set seed; other areas will be allowed to grow on, making way for the summer flowers that will nour- ish the pollinators.

We have surveys of the plant species already established, and these – along with better signage/communication and management of the area that used to be shaded by the diseased beech tree – will be part of the coming year’s work towards silver and gold standards.

Of course, all of the above requires physical work to take the place of machines, and I record a huge thank you to those who have worked on this: it is a lovely partnership between church members and the wider com- munity. If you have been wondering about joining in and haven’t yet made yourself known, please do! We hope to run an-other course (refresher or new starter) for those wanting to help with scything, either in the church- yard or in other meadow-managed grassland.

Anyone interested in old-fashioned hay from the churchyard should con- tact me (Hilary) to let me know. We are removing ragwort to ensure hay is suitable for horses, and we could make this a higher priority if there is interest. It will require drying and bale-making after the cut, so volun- teers for that will be sought if there
is sufficient interest. It is quite hard physical work, but fun, and more pro- ductive than attending the gym!

Finally, I have noticed some Social Media comments about disrespect in relation to the churchyard manage- ment plan, which I find interesting. If you are concerned, please do come and have a chat with me about respect and how it can be expressed. I would be particularly interested to hear from anyone who has a connection with the now-illegible marked graves in the churchyard. I was not aware that any- one remains in the village who knows who is buried where. We have redis- covered several graves in the work that’s being done.

Love from Hilary