It was great to see so many people gathered for our APCM on 13 April.
Jane Berridge and Jack Jeffery were elected as new PCC members.
We are pleased to report that Ros Ebbutt-Hadman, Steph Rustom and Jill Perrett remain our Deanery Synod members.
We are delighted that Jill Perrett and Rebecca Mayhew remain as Churchwardens.
Carl Jackson presented the church accounts for 2024 and the budget for 2025. Both were endorsed by the meeting.
You are invited to join us on Sunday 13 April at 7 for 7.30pm as we hold our annual meeting (officially known as the APCM – the Annual Parochial Church Meeting).
If you come at 7pm you will be offered a free glass of wine!
Come prepared by reading the APCM Report and Budget If you need a hard copy please ask the office.
Come and vote for new members on the PCC.*
Come and pray for the year ahead.
*Please note that only those who are on the Electoral Roll can vote.
Our Church garden and grounds can be such a wonderful blessing to people and wildlife in our community – and looking after God’s creation is important to us at St Andrew’s Church – so, a BIG thank you to Cielle, Connor, Jasper and Ruby who all did an amazing job litter picking on Friday – gathering two big bags full of rubbish from around the church site. Well done!
Progress on the refurbishment of the ancillary buildings is good!
As you can see from the pictures (below), every piece falling into place adds to the excitement of the new spaces. As well as the obvious progress on decorating, there are items being installed and completed every day. The builders’ accommodation has gone, the external stonework has been cleaned, and furniture is arriving.
The ongoing delay to delivery of some of our external windows and doors is frustrating, especially as this means we are reluctant to commit to a formal opening date, BUT we are still confident that with everyone’s ongoing prayers, and God’s grace, the end of this month (February) will see us starting to use our exciting new facilities!
We are pleased to report continued progress with the refurbishment of the ancillary buildings. By the time the builders paused for their Christmas break, the interior walls and most of the (very smart) internal doors were in place (see pictures below) and we now have new lighting and power in most areas.
Very visible are new windows – though some have unfortunately been delayed. It is a measure of how out-of-date everything was that this is the very first time we have had double glazing anywhere in the buildings!
During January, the remaining building work, new kitchen and toilets, decoration, furnishing, etc. will happen, and the commissioning of new equipment, snagging, etc., will be in hand.
As we have said, the new spaces do feel vibrant and fresh, and whilst it is frustrating that the last couple of external windows and front doors have not been delivered to enable us to commit to an opening date, with everyone’s ongoing prayers and God’s grace we remain optimistic that we will be back fully functional before the end of February.
If you missed watching the live stream of Frances’ funeral ‘live’, you can watch it again above, or on YouTube.
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:
Thank you again for all your, patience, ongoing support and faithful prayers.
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).
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.
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.