Women's Guild 2009 Report

 Created on Thursday, 20 May 2010 12:02

Our meetings start with a time of worship and meetings are chaired by the President and two Vice Presidents in turn, with the Secretary filling in as required.

As a matter on interest here are a few statistics:

On the Register 36

Number of weeks we met 31

Average attendance 27

Highest attendance 33

Lowest attendance 21

We are fortunate in having three pianists who take it in turn to play for our meetings. We are so grateful to Mary Govey, May Purves and Maggie Troman for their loyal support. When we are without a pianist we use taped music. May Purves has kindly offered to play more than once a month, so thank you May, we do appreciate your kind offer. Another person who gives us loyal support is Albie Alpin. He comes each week and sets the room up for us and helps on special occasions, nothing is too much trouble and we appreciate all his help and his happy disposition.

Each meeting we have the use of the projector which Joy Funnell sets up and operates for us. Thank you Joy for all your hard work, and for dragging us into the 21st century.

We have varied afternoons drawing on speakers from the church family, from our own members, and from outside organisations. We’ve enjoyed visits from Hearing Dogs, Canine Partners and DebRA. We had special collections for each of these organisations. We always have our building fund tin on the table at each meeting. Early in the year we had a special box for Jack’s Place and were able to send off £200 to help with the completion of this project.

Thank you for the way you give so generously to the causes we seek to support. We had a fun afternoon with Gillie Houghton ‘Then and Now’ the way children are brought up now and all the many gadgets and help available to mums today – and the difference in the way it was for us! We enjoyed afternoons with Pastor Brian Hill and the Revd Bill McCrae both very good friends of Guild. Jan Hayter was our speaker at our Anniversary Service in March and Penny Hill was our soloist. The outing was to Haskins at Longdown, a happy afternoon for all who went. We enjoyed a trip to Broughton to join in the Anniversary Celebrations of their ladies ‘Bright Hour’ and Bev Hall drove the mini bus for us. August saw us with a trip on the briny, and we had our usual cream tea afternoon at Church – the Gentle Exercise Group joining us on both these occasions.

One afternoon we always enjoy is an afternoon of music with May Purves and her daughter Jean Nimmo. They arrange the whole afternoon and we just sit back, relax and listen. We always have a good attendance on this afternoon. We also enjoyed an informative afternoon with Praizin’ Hands Puppets. We round off our year with our Christmas dinner and we are grateful to Val Blasby and her helpers for their catering skills on this occasion.

Several of our members have been very busy during the year knitting woolly hats which Maureen Mason collects up and takes to the collection point from where they are sent abroad through Operation Christmas Child.

In many ways 2009 has been a difficult year for Guild. Several members have had health problems, and as one member returned to full duty another went off sick. I was indebted to Albie Alpin who for three months ferried me to and from Guild as I was unable to drive. But the Lord was watching over us at all times. On a happier note the whole of Guild received an invitation to join in celebrating the Diamond Wedding Anniversary on 29th August of Maria and Albie Alpin, and how we celebrated. It was an evening of dancing, fun, fellowship and food. This is an occasion we shall long remember especially as Maria and Albie were able to take to the floor and dance, which was a real achievement for Maria. Thank you Lord for this lovely memory we all have of two friends very dear to our hearts. Sadly, for Albie and the family and for Guild too, Maria died on November 6th. She is gone from us, but not forgotten. Maria was an inspiration to us all and literally served her Lord to the very end. Praise God for her years of service and that she is now with the Lord.

Our friend Sheila Platt died on 24th December in Oakhaven Hospice. She was a loyal member and will be sadly missed by us all.

We seek to serve the Lord in this place. We support our Church both financially and with prayer, and seek to show God’s love to all those we make contact with in our daily lives. By God’s grace we look forward to 2010 knowing that the Lord is in control and will enable us to use what talents we have to bring glory to His name.

I place on record my sincere thanks to the Committee for all their support and hard work during 2009. We are a team who work hard and function well together and are very privileged to be called to serve the Lord.

Thank you to all our members for your loyal support and love, and most of all for the many words of encouragement which we receive from you.

Always – ‘To God be the Glory’.