Miscellany

This is the content of the latest email miscellany I sent out. If you would like to receive these occasional roundups of news and information straight into your inbox, please send me an email with "Subscribe" in the subject line.
The Peter and Paul project. I have just launched a project in preparation for our Patronal Festival at the end of June (Sunday June 27th – the feast day of St Peter and St Paul is actually June 29th, but we celebrate it on the nearest Sunday). I thought it would be fun to try to contact and exchange greetings with as many other churches dedicated to St Peter and St Paul as I can find - I really only want churches that are dedicated to BOTH saints together, not one or the other!
There are 17 such churches in this Diocese alone, and many others elsewhere. It was a very popular dedication, probably because St Peter and St Paul are the joint Patron Saints of Rome - both were martyred in Rome, according to legend.
With the help of our young people’s group, I have set up a blog where people from P & P churches can leave greetings, and sent emails to about 30 or so which I found by googling. You can see it here http://peterandpaulproject.blogspot.com// . Within an hour of setting up the blog earlier this week I had my first message, from the vicar of St P & P Blandford Forum. This is where Philip’s father lives, so it was especially nice that they were first! Since then I have had eight more messages – the most distant being from Australia. I have just been interviewed for the Diocesan Link about the project, so I am hoping this will give us some more publicity!
If you know of or come across any P & P churches, do pass the details to me – it is better to do it this way, rather than contacting them yourselves, otherwise there may be some churches which will be bombarded with emails! I do need an email address for them – if I have to do this by snail mail it will be very cumbersome and expensive, but if churches want to post me a greeting I am very happy to enter it in the blog for them
***I have contacted all the P &P churches in Rochester Diocese.****

I am hoping to display the greetings at the Patronal Festival, with a map showing where they have come from. We’ll also be praying for our sister churches, who will also be celebrating that day.
This month’s parish newsletter is now available. You can read it online here http://www.sealpeterandpaul.com/maymag10.pdf.

As you will see I have focussed on Christian Aid in this month’s front page letter. I am hoping that Sally Thompson, our Christian Aid organiser, will be back today from Australia, where she has been stranded by the Icelandic volcano, to pick up the reins of the preparation for Christian Aid week, but to help her out, if you normally collect for this please would you sign up on the sheet at the back of church to say that you will be willing to do so again – if you haven’t collected before you would be equally welcome to sign up to do so this year.

On a sad note, I am sure that many of you are aware that Mrs. Edna Stent died last week. Her funeral will take place on Friday May 7th at 2 pm in church. All are welcome, and if any of the choir are available it would be good to have a lead with the singing. Our prayers are with Edgar, her husband, Rodney, her son, and Rosemary Clary, her daughter.

Nicky Harvey also asks our prayers this weekend for Seal Cubs, who are away on their first camp together. The weekend weather does not look promising, and the prospect of a large number of damp Cubs in a soggy field is somewhat daunting… Please pray for that they will be safe, and have fun despite the challenges!