The Church of England is celebrating the wealth of glorious English church architecture with the Church Door Challenge. To join in, take a photo of your church door, upload it to your favourite social media site and use the hashtag #ChurchDoorChallenge. There's no limit to how many photos you can upload.This image shows the main door of All Saints' Church, Charlton All Saints, resplendent in the July sunshine and sporting some patriotic bunting. Note the Victorian greeting painted on the arch "Draw Nigh to God, and He will Draw Nigh to You".#ChalkeValleyChurches #CharltonAllSaints
This year, in a break with tradition, we started at 3.30pm on Saturday 13 July with the coffee & cake stall, craft stall, give & take stall and the bar with wine & local beer. Once everyone had some cake, we started the Fun Dog Event in the front churchyard. A dozen or so dogs and their owners were put through their paces by our local dog trainer, finding their way through a maze, trying to come when called despite being distracted by sausages and doing a speed trial. They finished off with a Sniffari - an area with multiple scents - which dogs find enjoyable and relaxing.To encourage our youngest villagers to come, we had a colouring table and a treasure hunt of letters which spelt out a word. We provided our usual BBQ fare of meat and veggie sausages & burgers, and chicken drumsticks an hour earlier than in previous years, which went down well with (most) of the guests! As always, our talented BBQ chefs did a great job and our home cooks provided a wide variety of delicious salads. We ended the evening with the traditional raffle. Very many thanks are due to all the stall holders, helpers and cooks, but also to everyone who came along to spend their money to help support our Church. We raised £1050 towards the upkeep of the building.Same time next year?
As part of the Church of England's Eco Church project, Charlton held its first Eco Picnic & Nature Count on 16 June. Local villagers ranging from 2 to 90 gathered at All Saints' Church to hear more about the project, whilst eating some delicious cakes donated by our talented cake makers. The Give & Take stall - give what you don't want and take what you do want - was a very popular extension of our Phone Box Swap Shop, and in line with the principle of recycling.Next up was the installation of two bird feeders, to be checked, washed, moved and filled daily with sunflower seeds by volunteers, with the aim of encouraging more birds into the churchyard. We hugged our large yew tree near the porch and found the girth to be about 2.7m, including the ivy covering of the trunk. After consulting the Ancient Yew Group, who surveyed our yew trees in 2008/9, our tree is a female and a juvenile. Accurately ageing a yew tree is an inexact science, but it is likely that she was planted around the time the Church was built, in 1851. Yew trees can live for 2,000 to 3,000 years.Our youngest villagers delighted in building a bug hotel using donated and recycled materials, for use by Charlton's insects. As it looked so splendid, we decided to upgrade it from a hotel to a castle, much to the pleasure of the children.The final part of the afternoon was to join the Nature Count, for Churches Count on Nature. This is a citizen science project, similar to the Big Butterfly Count and the Big Garden Birdwatch. Using paper and pencil, and identification guides, or the iNaturalist app, participants noted all the plants, animals, insects and birds that they could see or hear in the churchyard. This information has been forwarded to Churches Count on Nature/Beautiful Burial Grounds and will be included in the National Biodiversity Network's Atlas of nature data.Very many thanks are due to all who came and supported this new event, to all who made cakes, donated items, and those who helped behind the scenes.#EcoChurch Permissions have been sought and granted to use the image above
Eco Church is an initiative from the Church of England and other Christian organisations, to encourage churches and parishioners to help tackle the great environmental challenges of this decade. It is run by the A Rocha UK organisation.There are five areas identified where we can change what we do in order to help us achieve this. These areas are * Worship & Teaching* Buildings* Land* Community & Global Engagement* LifestyleThe suggestions are presented in the form of questions in an online survey. Depending on how you answer the questions from the choices available, you are awarded points. And as we know, points mean prizes. A coloured scale alters when you reach the required points for bronze, silver or gold. This is an innovative use of the game theory approach, which has worked well to encourage us in Charlton.Examples of the changes we have made* Complete an energy audit as the first step in reducing energy use* Encourage biodiversity in our churchyard with bird feeders & bug hotel* Make a new churchyard maintenance plan, with meadow areas, to encourage wildflowers* Use Fairtrade products when we can* Reduce, Re-Use, Recycle* Commit to pray for climate justiceThese are just a few of the inexpensive things we've done. If you'd like to learn more, please come along to our Eco Picnic & Nature Count on Sunday 16 June 3-5pm and join in our first wildlife survey for Churches Count on Nature.We look forward to seeing you there!#ecochurch #churchescountonnature
