St Mark’s had a great Holy Week, with some of our Junior Choir joining in the Palm Sunday Celebration! Service, (despite the loss of an hour’s sleep as the clocks went forward), and a very enjoyable Easter Teddy Bear’s Picnic. We had some challenging Holy Week Reflections (thanks to Margaret Williams and John Cooper), and a thoughtful Good Friday Service. St Mark’s members joined in the Churches Together events. On Good Friday, Anne Roper carried the cross for the first part of the procession from EBC to the Bandstand, and Colin provided the music. Dave, having the loudest voice, led the Easter morning Sunrise Service on the beach. It is great the Swanage churches are able to join together for these events. Easter Sunday was amazing with the largest attendance many people could remember for a long time, an anthem from our growing choir and some brilliant flower arrangements. Thanks to all involved! Just before Easter we held our Annual Meeting. We welcomed Anne Roper and John Way back for another year as Church Wardens, said thank you to Stephen Higgins as PCC rep. and to Ann Higgins and Uta Keats as Church Committee members. We promptly welcomed Uta back as a PCC rep. (such devotion to duty…) and welcomed Anthony Malpas and Gerard Jensen as new Committee members. Thanks to all who serve faithfully as Church Leaders – we are grateful for all you do. It was unanimously agreed at the Annual Meeting that Colin Burgess should be known as Director of Music, rather than Organist and Choirmaster. To emphasise the point, Anne Roper presented him with a badge (and a celebratory bottle of wine) the following Sunday. We are immensely grateful for all the music that Colin provides! Looking forward, there is a lot happening. Pentecost will be a Celebration! Service – what a great chance for some lively music; Trinity Sunday will remind us that God is more complex than we can ever imagine, and all our musicians are gearing up for our annual Afternoon Concert of Light Music, (followed, of course, by wine and nibbles, in true St Mark’s tradition) on 14th June. On a personal note, I reach the age of 70 in June. This is the normal age for clergy to retire and hand back their Licence to the Bishop. I am grateful to Bishop Karen for agreeing to extend my Licence for a further 2 years. After 45 years of ordained ministry (and 2 years as a Reader prior to that), I am still excited about the Gospel of Jesus, and I am pleased that I can continue to officially proclaim that Gospel. Rev David Richards
As I write our news for April, I am looking out of the window on this cold and windy day mid March and wondering when the rain will stop and the sun will shine, heralding the start of Spring!!! The beautiful yellow daffodils have been trying their best, in the wind and rain, to brighten the gloomy days and the buds are starting to form on the trees, hedges and shrubs, so fingers crossed Spring is on its way. Oh! for some warming sunshine!! We have had an eventful March, and here are some highlights. With Holy Week and Easter, in April, we have much to look forward to. We celebrated St David’s Day, on 1st March, and after the service several of us enjoyed a lovely Sunday roast lunch, at the Globe, and even surprised Dave with his very own St David’s Day Hat and daffodil! At the World Day of Prayer, on 6th March, held at EBC, St Marks Church was well represented by Suzanne Hudson and Carol Richards, who wore beautifully coloured Nigerian costumes, especially for the occasion, as Nigerian Christian women had prepared the special service. The Lent Course, at St Marks, continues to be well attended, with people from all the churches in Swanage coming together to listen, reflect and discuss the Lenten course. Our Lent Lunch for Christian Aid, on Friday 13th March was a great success and the ‘A Team’ of helpers were there to make sure everyone was fed and well looked after. Mothering Sunday on 15th March was celebrated with everyone receiving a lovely posy of daffodils to take home. Our AGM is on Sunday 22nd March, when we elect our church members to serve for St Marks Committee, PCC, Deanery Synod, and as officers on the various voluntary groups within the Parish. With grateful ‘Thanks’ in advance, to those who will be elected. On Sunday 29th March, Palm Sunday, we are looking forward to giving a true St Marks welcome to Revd Natalie Davies, at our Celebration Service, with cakes and refreshments, as usual! Later that same afternoon at 3pm, we are holding a special Easter Teddy Bear’s Picnic, for children aged 3 – 8 (accompanied by at least one grown-up.) There will be a FREE Picnic food & drink for children as well as tea, coffee & cake for grown-ups. John and I, on behalf of everyone at St Marks, would like to give a special mention and ‘Thank You’ to David Hudson, who has beautifully repaired and expertly crafted our new Church Staffs, which were vandalised, a couple of years ago, and were awaiting repair. We will be immensely proud to show these off, to Bishop Karen, next time she comes to visit!! In April; we will continue our Lenten journey, from Palm Sunday celebration, through Holy Week, to Gethsemane, the Garden of Tears, and finally to Golgotha, ‘Place of the Skull,’ and the Cross….. The Easter Services, in all the churches, will give us all a chance to come to reflect and worship and especially on Easter Sunday, to come together to Celebrate and Rejoice, Christs’ Resurrection and triumph. On Sunday 26th April; the celebrations will continue when we will come together to Celebrate St Marks Day, at the ‘Party Church’. A prayer to close…… On the first day of Creation, God said, ‘Let there be light!’ On the first day of Resurrection, The Father said, ‘Let there be Jesus!’ Rejoice therefore that the darkness is passing, As the dayspring from on high dawns upon us. Halleluiah! May God Bless and Keep You. Anne Roper Church Warden
What! Is it March already? After the wettest January and February anyone can remember, we are looking forward, I’m sure, to Spring weather. The weather forecasters call March 1st the first day of meteorological Spring, so we can live in hope! By the time this magazine is in your hands, Lent will have begun and we feel that Easter is on its way. Lent is a season of preparation and with that, one of reflection on the nature of our faith and, in Swanage parish, we traditionally mark it by activities which prepare us for consideration of Holy Week and Easter, as well as giving us opportunity for study and fellowship. The Lent Study groups are already in action with the one arranged at St Mark’s every Tuesday at 7pm (and others who are interested in the subject of prayer) are welcome to join us. Lent lunches are also underway and all are welcome at St Mark’s on Friday 13th for some good food (with the money going to Christian Aid) and opportunity to talk to friends, old and new. St Mark’s church committee did two valuable things during February; On the 11th, some members of the committee had a meeting at which there was training and opportunity to discuss the important and topical subject of safeguarding. With all the cases in the news it is a regrettable necessity for churches to keep up to date on this. There will be opportunity later in the year for the other members of the committee (and new members voted in at the AGM on 22 March) to undergo the course. Some new members of the committee will be needed, so please decide if it is your turn to be nominated. At the committee meeting on 23rd February we thought about the direction of travel of St Mark’s for the months and years to come – also very valuable. As March draws to a close our minds turn to the Passion season and Easter. On Palm Sunday we have our Celebration! Service at which we hope to welcome the Herston Junior Singing Club to join our choir and band and lead our singing following their triumphant appearances at our Christmas Carol service and the January Celebration! Service. At the time of writing, we are hoping to see the Singing Club at the February service beginning a pattern on the last Sunday of each month. Then in the afternoon of Palm Sunday we welcome the younger children and their parents and grandparents to the latest of our Teddy picnics. On the following days, bringing us to the end of the month, we have our Holy Week Compline services, to which, once again, we welcome members of other churches as our final preparation for Good Friday and the glorious season of Easter. John Way, Churchwarden.
St Mark’s Notes for February 2026 LOOKING BACK….. As usual, we put a Christmas card through every door in Herston – many thanks to our dedicated team. St Mark’s had a good Christmas, with a most enjoyable Christmas Dinner at the Village Inn, a post-Service Christmas party on the Sunday before Christmas (when we also celebrated Anne Roper’s 70th Birthday) and a more than capacity crowd at our immensely popular Carols by Candlelight on Christmas Eve. As usual, we hosted the Team Epiphany Service. A surprising number of people, from all 4 Team churches, and EBC, turned out on a very frosty night. Many thanks to our Choir and Band, and to Colin Burgess, whose vision, skill and patience are endless. The Junior Choir had a busy Christmas. They sang at the Christmas Tree Festival and a smaller group joined the adult choir to lead the singing at the Carols by Candlelight Service. A particular highlight was when the children joined the adults in singing “The Star Carol” by John Rutter. LOOKING FORWARD….. We had a very positive Church Committee meeting in January. We fixed dates for special events in 2026 and took further steps towards re-ordering the church to provide a more flexible space. We also set a date for the whole Committee to undertake the basic Safeguarding Training Course, recognising our responsibility to make St Mark’s a safe place for everyone. Our fortnightly Bible Study transforms into a weekly Lent Group from Shrove Tuesday; this year we will follow the Church of England Prayer Course, developed by 24/7 Prayer International. With reports of a quiet revival gaining ground, prayer is a vital skill for all Christians. As we look forward to 2026 we are always conscious of our purpose as God’s people. We not guardians of a listed building, not a music or flower-arranging society, not a social club or a self-help group; we are called to be Salt and Light in our community, and witnesses to the Good News of Jesus. We pray that all that we do will further His kingdom. David Richards, Resident Priest
