A drive through event taking in displays outside churches in the Forest with additional content on social media. There will be two trails around the Forest of Dean with around eight stations per trail. This will run from Saturday 19 to Thursday 24 December. For more information contact Jonathan Kear on <a>jonathan@togetherforyouth.co.uk</a>
The parish of Lydney is creating a street advent calendar with a different window for each of the 24 days of Advent. There will be 24 windows to find, one each day, and each window will stay lit from its lighting time until that household ‘lights out’ – ideally from the date it is revealed, every night until Christmas Eve, when the last window is opened. Check out the Lydney Parish Facebook page to find the street name (not full addresses or household names) for each date and hunt for the window on that street.
The churches in Lydney, Woolaston, Aylvington and Aylburton joined forces to fund Christmas dinner packs for local families.Local people sponsored and delivered meals for local families who have had a tough year financially and could do with a bit of extra TLC this festive season.Nearly 100 Christmas dinners, cooked by Stroud based social enterprise The Long Table, were delivered to 24 families across the local area, along with a tub of chocolates, some mince pies and some Christmassy biscuits.<span style="font-size: 1rem;">Katherine Clamp, who helped with the project said, “It’s been particularly wonderful to see the way this project is building relationships between church and school communities across our area. It’s been a rough year for a lot of people and we’re delighted to be able to work with our local school by providing families with meals and spreading a little comfort and joy. We want people to know that their church is there when they need it, and that Christmas can never be cancelled.”</span>Emma Mignaud is Head at Primrose Hill Primary Academy, one of the Diocese of Gloucester Academies Trust schools. She said, “Our relationship with our local church is one that we really value and which is getting stronger by the day. It’s good to know that the school is an important part of the worshipping community in Lydney and we hope to continue building our links in the coming years.”To hear more about the project, listen to Radio Gloucestershire with Richard Atkins at 1:06 into the show to hear from Tom Herbert and at 2:40 into the show to hear Katherine Clamp speak about how it’s working on the ground.