Janet Martin

Our ‘Lockdown choir‘ is being unlocked!! Whilst they will be reduced in number due to social distancing rules, it will be great to hear live music again in our Church supporting our worship. Why not book to come to our 10am Mass. The anthem is “The Lord Bless you and Keep you” by John Rutter which is one of the 30 anthems and 30 hymns they recorded during the lockdown.

Equally exciting is that we will be hearing our Frobenius organ played for the 1^st time in a year. It has been cleaned and had some ‘broken’ notes fixed and in May when we hope the weather will be warmer, it will be tuned. We are very grateful to have been awarded a grant towards the cost of this from the Reginald Baker Charitable Trust. If you would like to make a contribution towards this and support the music at St John’s, please visit our giving page or use the donate button on our website. Thank you the Reginald Baker Charitable Trust and everyone who has so generously supported us over the past year.  

… and be a part of our team at the back of the church on a Sunday morning 

If you have been attending church during the pandemic, you will have seen the Warden’s Team of Paul, Christine and Mick (assisted by Gillian) holding the fort every Sunday.

The Team needs your help in the form of

·      two more deputy wardens

·     Sidespersons to check in those who have made Eventbrite bookings for the 9am family service and 10am Mass. (Time commitment 8:30am to about 10:15am).

·      people to operate our audio-visual system for live streaming. If you can use a PC you could easily do this!

Training will be given with all these roles.

Interested?  If you, or anyone you know who might be interested in finding out more, please contact any of the wardens either at the back of the church on Sunday or by email to [email protected]

Anyone who responded a similar request before Christmas need not respond this time. 

Regards

Tim Roberson

Our APCM will be on Sunday 25th April at 11am. This will be ONLINE only.

To join us with zoom, please click on this link on the day:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81461230847?pwd=djJzUlowOFNiL1M1K1JLMEY2M2JyUT09

Please find the 2021 APCM agenda, the 2020 APCM minutes and the 2020 financial accounts

2021 APCM Agenda

2020 APCM Minutes

2020 Financial Accounts

Here are the forms to submit to nominate Wardens, Deputy wardens, Deanery Synod and PCC members. Please remember to get peoples permission before submitting.

Church Warden

Deputy Churchwarden

Deanery Synod

PCC member

Those nominated who are not currently on the parish electoral role will also need to complete an Electoral Roll application form.

Electoral Roll Application Form

Nomination and electoral roll forms should be handed to a Warden at church or scanned and emailed to [email protected]

The past year has been difficult for all choirs and musicians and as much as our choir miss singing together in church, technology has enabled us to explore different ways of continuing to make music and support our worship here at St John’s. We all know music is good for our wellbeing so, as well as producing our normal recordings of sacred music for our services, we have engaged in a new project, a collaboration with Essex based Harmonie Concert Band whose Musical Director Roy is an old friend of choir member Janet.

Here’s our recording of ‘Over the Rainbow’ which we would like to dedicate as a thank you to all our front line workers who are helping us through this pandemic. Our second collaboration with the band will be part of our Easter Day Service which will be live streamed. We are very grateful to the all the band and choir members and particularly to David Adlington who produced and edited this, for giving so much of their time to make this collaboration possible.

Our Creativity Group are busy making Flowers of Hope to decorate outside our church for Easter. If you would like to sponsor a flower, you can click here to make a donation via our website quoting Flower of Hope. We are also looking for volunteers to help make them, you don’t have to be an expert! We have created well over 100 so far and as you can see, they can be as simple as a felt daisy so it is ideal for our young people to do as well as adults. If you would like to make some flowers, please complete the form below and we will be in contact with you.

As we transition from winter to spring, flowers are a sign of Hope and for Christians the Easter Story is a sign of Hope; the death of Jesus was a dark and grief-filled moment, but it wasn’t the end of the story. We celebrate his resurrection and remember that Hope triumphs. Amidst all the fears, challenges and heartache for so many in the last year, there have been glimpses of real Hope – resurgence of neighbourliness, the discovery of new or renewed hobbies, the recognition of the true value of family and friends. We Hope you might like to sponsor and dedicate a Flower of Hope to someone, help make some flowers or share your story of Hope with us.

Here’s some more photos of some of the flowers we have made so far.

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The link from last night’s notes: https://www.stjohnsshirley.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Mark-Week-3.pdf

The link to The Synoptic Gospel Parallels with John’s Gospel for those who are interested is: Synoptic Gospel Parallels – Synoptic Gospels Comparison

Bob, a server at St Johns and his wife Francis have for many years played at our Remembrance service at St John’s. Like many others they have found a different way of doing it this year!

https://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/francesandbobsbuglesalute?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=fundraising&utm_content=francesandbobsbuglesalute&utm_campaign=pfp-share&utm_term=794b089b5986449f9a8acebabfd5e706&fbclid=IwAR18v-fyYDFbCnZL3_egDqGWZ-pTZBT2O94mAb2L2yRq1ihnQitD3Of0nOI