News

BYC – November update

We are pleased to report that the builders are progressing well with the refurbishment of the ancillary buildings, and are broadly on schedule and on budget!

As at the end of November, after substantial work on the structures and electrics, noticeable changes have emerged – such as new skylights, new heating and air conditioning equipment, solar panels on the roof, and progress on the conversion of the stage to storage – see the various pictures below.

The spaces already feel very different – and we are getting very excited about the imminent installation of (many!) new windows and the doors.

The major part of the builders’ contract work should hopefully be completed by or near Christmas – but there are many steps still needed to allow St Andrew’s back in our home, to make it fully fit for purpose and once again ready to serve the community of Oxshott.

By the grace of God, we currently anticipate the likely sequence as:

  • By end December: Major contract works completed.
  • By end January: Snagging, decoration, furnishing, etc.  Commissioning of new equipment, etc., etc. largely completed.
  • Mid-February:  Reinstatement of the Office – furniture, IT infrastructure, etc.; recovery/sorting of items in storage and across the village; reinstatement of AV in church, etc.
  • By the end of February: Our whole Church of St Andrew’s is born again!

Thank you again for all your, patience, ongoing support and faithful prayers.

 

 

The Finnies’ Christmas Soup Kitchen Appeal

We are once again launching a Special Appeal for the Finnies’ Christmas and weekly Soup Kitchens at The Gathering in Cape Town, South Africa. The situation in South Africa has continued to deteriorate for the most marginalised. The Gathering is doing all they can to help some in their immediate area. Recently Paula wrote the following:

2024 has really been a very rough year economically for South Africa. Even though our President assured everyone, at the NY Stock Exchange, that our economy is in recovery, we as a church, and many other NPO’s are seeing a very different story! Numbers coming to our soup kitchen have increased exponentially, and the need for other basics, such as toiletries, clothing, blankets etc has also been off the scale. As a result, we really want to continue to be a huge blessing in our community this festive season as, for many, this will be the only “treat” they will receive.

We are going to make 250 litres of pea and ham soup for three Thursdays in December and will put together a very specific goody bag for each recipient coming to the third kitchen – approximately 200 bags (see picture). This will certainly contain basic toiletries, socks, one or two items of basic food, such as lentils, rice etc, and then some lovely sweet treats for everyone. Each bag will be sealed with a sticker, affirming our friends of God’s great and lavish love for them! We are also going to bless our five HOPE Home Based Carers with a grocery voucher each, to say a small thank you for the absolutely wonderful work they continue to do. We also have fifteen families with whom church members have been walking very closely this year, loving them, helping where possible with meals, school fees etc and inviting them to church – we want to also give them a grocery voucher each.

Finally, one of the two small soup kitchens that we support in Macassar is run by a Gathering church member, so we will join with her in helping to fund a sit down Christmas lunch in December for 50 people in her community.

Please know that every single pound we are given will be used directly to fund these ministries and initiatives and will provide so much love and much-needed hope at this time of the year!

As a result of what Paula has shared we are, therefore, seeking to raise at least £3,000, to enable The Gathering to provide the Christmas Special Soup Kitchen and all the other activities. If you are able and would like to contribute to the Christmas & Soup Kitchen appeal, please visit our online donations page, or preferably, make a bank transfer to St Andrew’s Church Oxshott,

sort code: 20-90-56, account no: 80374598

please give this reference: “SOUP (and your) SURNAME”.

For more information, please speak to Carl Jackson’s Life Group, or to members of the Mission Partnering Committee (Mark Currie, Liz Mulhall, Kirsten Penner and Warwick Lamb).

 

BYC – September update

As planned, the builders are now on site and hard at work tackling the clearance of the ancillary buildings, in preparation for their refurbishment!  As you can see from the pictures below, they have been removing ceilings, walls and cupboards as required, and dealing with the electrics, alarms, etc.; they are on schedule.

St Andrew’s is now in full ‘business as usual’ mode! The arrangements for using different venues across the village are working well. But we still need to be flexible, so do check the Weekly News and elsewhere on this website for details of the timing and location of services, meetings and other events.

The Church Office has been relocated for the duration of the project to the southwest corner of the church itself – a complicated move in itself, with power, telephones, printers, wi-fi, etc. – so opening hours will be more limited, but contact by email or telephone will be picked up as promptly as possible.

Thank you again for all your ongoing support and prayers.

Hall
Vestibule

Quiz Night — Thank you from Christian Aid

A big thank you to all those that took part in the St Andrew’s quiz last Friday night at the Royal Kent School. After nine hotly competed rounds of quizzing the Quizzy Rascals team (connected to the Monday Evening Life Group) became the proud holders of the St Andrew’s Quiz trophy.

They will have to pass it around the team quickly as they will only hold on to it until the next quiz evening in May next year! Due to the generosity of all those involved we have been able to send a donation of £1,350 to Christian Aid this week to support their work in helping people like Aline Nibogora from Burundi to work their own ways out of poverty. Take a look at the video below to see what a difference your generosity can make.

Thank you from Aline, Christian Aid and Mark Currie.

Me and My Mug

Whilst we are bringing our own mugs to church at the Royal Kent School, we are inviting people to share the story behind their mug. If you and your mug have a story, please let us know, and share it!

You can read the stories we have received below.

Teresa Newman

My mug reminds me of a lovely day last July.

After having enjoyed an excellent meal at Lunch Club, the children who were leaving the Royal Kent at the end of that term came across to the Village Centre and gave us all a beautifully decorated bag they called a “Bag of Kindness”, full of goodies that included my mug.

I was so impressed how chatty they all were, and full of fun. They had raised money themselves for the gifts. I thought what a wonderful example they all were, representing the Royal Kent School, and how proud their parents must be of them.

 

Polly Zabari

This is Mum’s mug.

It was given to her by her Canadian friends as a momento of a wonderful evening spent on a boat in the middle of The Lake of Bays, Northen Ontario, hearing the loons (Great Northen Divers to us) and watching the most amazing incredible of Northern Lights many years ago.

 

Charlene Lamb

For the love of a dog

My mug represents my appreciation and love of dogs. When Warwick and I moved to Oxshott from South Africa in 2018, we brought our three Jack Russells to England with us. Chilli, Vlekkie and Sammy went everywhere with us, and were, and are, very much a part of our family.

We see and feel God’s creation all around us; in animals, humans and nature. Sammy is still with us and loves attending the evening service in his pram once a month and enjoys being pampered and fussed over! And so, these gorgeous doggo mugs remind us of our three musketeers in all their uniqueness and splendour.

Psalm 36.6  “… You, Lord, preserve both people and animals”.

 

Rebecca Mayhew

When I first came to Oxshott I was on maternity leave. I joined TWIG at St Andrew’s – a group for the parents and carers of 0 to 5 year olds and their children. It was through this group that I did Alpha. We had fun activities to do with the children and some adult social events for the evenings.

We went to a Ceramics Café a couple of times, and I painted this mug in what I thought was a Van Gogh style. It’s a good size for a coffee, and makes me smile. TWIG days were good days, and were instrumental in bringing me to faith. The Friday Morning Life Group came out of that Alpha in the autumn of 1999.

 

Jack Jeffery

The ‘Weald Challenge’ route is based around parts of the Wealdway and Vanguard way. This is a lovely run through the beautiful Sussex countryside and with a relaxed time limit of 5 hours is suitable for a wide range of abilities. This mug is given to all runners who finish – and the ‘medal money’ is given to the homeless – a warm meal, instead of a medal!

A half marathon run around the countryside, over stiles and through fields – great fun! My mug means a huge amount, and brings me great joy every cuppa!

(Patrick adds: Jack is also a great tree surgeon! He has helped with work to trees and bushes at church, and for several church members – his website is www.jeffery-tree-management.co.uk)

Ruth Burns

This is my newest mug but it reminds me of two things I’ve held dear for a long time.

1. The hills of Galloway, and therefore God’s creation, because it was made at the studio of Hannah McAndrew and Doug Fitch, just north of Corsock, surrounded by the green countryside I grew up in.

2. Beautiful things can come from a muddy mess given time and patient hands because on my second visit to the studio in May, when I bought this mug, Hannah showed me how she made it. My mug is slipware so it started life as a sticky, slippy brown lump in Hannah’s bucket. If God is trusted and allowed to take the lead in a situation, He can make something amazing out of the most unpromising looking material just as Hannah did when making my lovely one of a kind mug.

www.fitchandmcandrew.co.uk has some video of the process.

Richard Bath

I got this from Guildford Cathedral gift shop and it reminds me and us about love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self -control – and the cross is just something extra!

(Our St Andrew’s @4 service on 13 October was about the Fruit of the Spirit, which are on Richard’s mug…)
 

Adele Wright

A Mug’s Story

I’m usually sitting on a shelf amongst Cosy Bear, Spots, Memories and Best. These are all mugs my owner Adele uses depending on how she is feeling on a particular day.

I feel quite chuffed because I’m often her go to mug when she needs some peace and quiet over a cuppa. It reminds her that God is close, he is in control, and this always makes her smile. Suffice to say other people see me too!

Patrick Davies

When I was training for ordination at Trinity College in Bristol, I would often take a walk across Durdham Downs to Clifton Village during our weekly quiet morning – a dedicated time of silence, for prayer and reflection. I would usually find a nice little coffee shop, and spend an hour or so with a book and a mug.

My favourite place served its drinks in these mugs, which were made locally – so when I came to leave from college I bought myself one – which now serves to remind me of the importance and joy of slowing down and spending time in quiet with God.

 

A change to Sunday 10am services during the building work

Dear Church Family,

As we commence our long awaited and much needed building refurbishment, I am writing to you to advise of, and explain, a temporary change of venue for our Sunday morning 10am services.

After prayer and careful thought along with our Churchwardens, and with permission from Bishop Andrew, it has been decided that from Sunday 22 September our 10am Sunday services will be held each week at the Royal Kent School.

As a church our vision is to ‘Grow in Faith, Grow in Number, and Serve our Community.’ The Diocese of Guildford’s vision is to ‘Grow Disciples, Grow Diversity, and Grow Community’. We are committed to providing a warm welcome, excellent ministry with families and children, wonderful hospitality and strong fellowship, particularly around our main 10am Sunday morning worship service. The limitations of soon having no running water, very basic chemical toilets, and only the main worship space in church will cause significant challenge to achieving this.

Fortunately, we have the very kind offer to use the Royal Kent School for Sundays – a venue which has all the facilities we need – meaning we are able to hold onto these important characteristics and priorities as a church together in this season.

Moving venue will not mean a change to our current style or pattern of services – and we will keep this decision under constant review – returning to the church building as soon as it is ready and able meet the needs of our worship, mission and ministry within our vision and values.

I recognise that this is not what we all would ideally prefer – however, I believe that the benefits of moving temporarily to the RKS do outweigh the disadvantages. For those who would much prefer to be in the church building for worship, our Mid-Week Communion each Wednesday at 11.30am will remain at St Andrew’s, and the worship space will be made available for prayer during the week. We will also ensure that certain ‘special’ services do take place at St Andrew’s – including a Memorial Service at the end of October, and an act of Remembrance in November.

Interestingly, I recently discovered that regular Christian worship was taking place at the Royal Kent School (on its site in the High Street) for many years before St Andrew’s Church was built – so it is somewhat fitting to return to the RKS’ present site for worship as our church’s building is renewed.

As I mentioned in my sermon on Sunday 8 September, we are a family as church together – God’s family – and it is love that makes the family work. It is my prayer, therefore, that we would turn the inevitable inconveniences and irritations into opportunities to live out generous love toward one another as brothers and sisters in Christ.

With much love,

Patrick

 

We have a new Vicar!

At a very happy and packed service on 4 September, Patrick officially became our new vicar.

As Bishop Paul said, it is difficult to think of a more worthy and appropriate successor to Frances, held in our prayers along with Jolyon and her family. We believe that Patrick was chosen for this post by God and not by us, as wonderfully illustrated in our reading from John 15.

Patrick was ‘collated’ to St Andrew’s by the Bishop – making him legally responsible to care for the souls of all who live in our parish, and then ‘inducted’ by Archdeacon Martin to own and care for the building. Area Dean Renos and members of the church ‘introduced’ Patrick to the church building that he already knows so well, and was welcomed by representatives from across the community.

We sang praises to the Lord, and celebrated with people young and old from all over Oxshott. Bishop Paul thanked all those who have cared for the church during our period of vacancy, as well as those who organised this joyful event; the celebrations continued after with wine and canapés at the Royal Kent School.

A church, much like every Christian, depends on regular renewal and we have now started a new and exciting chapter in the life of our parish.

If you missed the service you can watch it below.

BYC – August update

The good news was announced in church this Sunday (11 August) that the long-awaited refurbishment of our ancillary buildings will start next month!

As you will be aware, we have been working with our advisers and contractors to produce an exciting scheme of refurbishment, within our generous budget, and we now have sufficient clarity to announce that work will start in September, straight after Patrick’s collation and induction as Vicar.

A priority will be fixing the (leaking!) roof, so the corridor and rooms off it will be the first to be impacted….  but we fully intend to carry out as many of the usual St Andrew’s activities as we can. We already have various arrangements in place for use of the Village Centre, the Royal Kent School and the new Scouts & Guides centre, so please be ready to be flexible and alert to changes in venue over the coming months!

We will bring you more news shortly, and appreciate your ongoing support and prayers.

Mount Snowdon conquered!

Caelyn and Elijah Lim successfully completed their epic trek up Mount Snowdon, along with their Mum, to raise vital funds for the London’s Air Ambulance Charity – the first people to respond when their dear Papa needed help. In August it will be 10 years since they lost their Dad in a cycling accident.

They have raised a whopping £6,412! It’s not too late to donate. If you would like to support their challenge, please visit their just giving page.