We had a busy time over Christmas at St Mary’s… with two Christingle services, a candle lit carol service, midnight mass and the Christmas service it’s no wonder everyone needed a rest afterwards!  It was a great time though; St Mary’s definitely throws good parties! 

Recently we’ve started a Youth Group at the Chapel for 11-17 year olds.  There is ping pong, games, hot drinks, movies, giant Jenga and every week we learn something about the Bible and have a time of discussion about the things that matter to us.  In the next few months we will be looking at topics such as creation, love, justice and worship.  If you would like more information then please get in touch!

So what’s coming up this month for children and young people in Ash Vale?

If you missed the first Messy Church then don’t fear, Messy Church will fall on the 4th Sunday of every month.  Dates for your diary are as follows:

• Sunday 26th February
• Sunday 25th March
• Sunday 22nd April
• Sunday 27th May
• Sunday 24th June
• Sunday 22nd July

Come and join us for family fun at the CHAPEL…

CRAFTS, SONGS, STORY TIME, GAMES, PICNIC TEA

Every fourth Sunday of the month

4-6pm at the CHAPEL, Ash Vale

For more info contact Harriet at harrietstmarys@hotmail.co.uk or on 07838495116.

An aside…

Recently I watched the annual New Year’s message from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams.  This year the message relates to young people.  He poses a challenge to adults in 2012 about making one of their New Year’s Resolutions about befriending the younger generation.

He says,

‘…a good New Year’s Resolution might be to think about what you can do locally to support facilities for young people… And above all, perhaps we should just be asking how we make friends with our younger fellow citizens – for the sake of our happiness as well as theirs.’

If you are stuck for a New Year’s Resolution then we have lots of projects coming up that you can get involved with!

Soon, alongside other local initiatives we are hoping to start a Youth Café for young people between the ages of 11-16 in the community to come hang out and have fun.  The Youth Café will be a safe, relaxing and welcoming environment for young people to come to once a week after school.  We hope to have ping pong, hot drinks, games consoles, films, Wifi, board games and much more.  However, we need your help to get this up and running!  In order to get started we need donations of equipment and volunteers (who are willing to be CRB checked) to help man the Youth Café!

Give us a call on 07838 495116 or email harrietstmarys@hotmail.co.uk for more information.

That’s all for now! Happy New Year!

Love Harriet

St Mary’s Church, Youth and Children’s Worker

Come and join us for tea & coffee, bacon butties and cartoons.

Saturday, 9am – 12pm

25^th Feb, 24^th Mar, 21^st Apr, 26^th May

For more information call Neil on 07761191060 or email revneil@me.com

The first Christians however got the point. They listened to the gospel when it told them to pray without ceasing. They understood that contemplation is an essential, universal element of the human condition. Martha and Mary are sisters, two complementary dimensions of the person, not just two personality types. Without Mary’s stillness at the centre, sitting at the feet of the teacher and listening, we become like Martha, irritable, complaining, discontented and distracted. In the end we are not even very productive in the work we do. In fact Mary and Martha are both working, one interiorly, the other exteriorly. Contemplation is not an escape from one’s life’s work. It is a part of our work and helps us to do the other part better. Mary and Martha are like two chambers of one heart. They don’t just complement one another; they need each other to realize fullness of life.

John Main OSB re-discovered meditation, a form of contemplative prayer, within the Christian tradition. On Wednesday 29th February (7.30 pm) at the Chapel Ash Vale there will be an introduction to meditation as taught by John Main.

Philip Kitchen

Our last coffee morning was a great success and well attended, (Many thanks to Duffy’s Budgens for their contribution to the refreshments), but we still need more volunteers to get this of the ground.

If you wish to know more before you commit.  We will be holding another coffee morning on Monday 26th March between 10:30 and 11:30 at the St Peters Centre, Ash Church Road please come along and hear more about it.

Or telephone Julie or Sandra on 07790 457632

Email:  ashessurrey@gmail.com

The five sessions will take place over the first five weeks of Lent, varying in location and day of the week:

• Monday 27th February at St Mary’s, Vale Road, Ash Vale
• Tuesday 6th March at Holy Angels, Ash Street, Ash
• Wednesday 14th March at the Chapel, Wharf Road, Ash Vale
• Thursday 22nd March at St Peter’s Centre, Ash Street, Ash
• Friday 30th March at St Paul’s, Poyle Road, Tongham

All sessions will begin at 8.00pm, and anyone who is interested is welcome, whether or not you attend a church.

In St Mary’s Small Hall

Thursday 29th March, 10.30 am – 12.30pm

Hot Cross Buns and Easter Eggs, Books and Greetings Cards

This will be the last Thursday Café before Easter.

We start up again on Thursday 19th April.

Our local service will be held at Holy Angels’ Catholic Church, Ash, at 7.30pm, and the speaker will be Maggie Larkin. For more details ring Janet at 01252 325453 or see your church notices. Come and join in this world event here, with the Christians of Ash and Ash Vale. We would love to meet you.

Although the title is Women’s Day of Prayer, this means it is organised by women, not that it is limited to women, EVERYONE is welcome!

So what have the young people and children of St Mary’s been up to?

On the 31st October alongside St Peter’s Church in Ash and St Paul’s in Tongham we ran a Light Party for children and young people as an alternative to Halloween.  I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who came, gave and helped!  It was an amazing event and we had a total of 70 people attend in the end.  We enjoyed crafts, games, Bokwa dancing and of course lots of cakes!

I’d also like to say a big thank you to everyone who has helped organise Youth Alpha – so far it is going really well! We often start with a messy game (last week teams had to see how many cotton wool buds they could pick up by sticking noses covered in Vaseline into a big bowl- it’s safe to say we all had very soft noses afterwards!). Then we play ping pong, chat over food and explore together some of the big questions of life.

What’s coming up?

In January Youth Alpha will be continuing as a Youth Group at the Chapel for 11-16 year olds.  There will be ping pong, games, hot drinks, movies, giant Jenga and we will be learning about the Bible and having a time of discussion about the things that matter to us.  If you are between 11-16 and are interested in finding out more then please text or call me on 07838 495 116 or email me at harrietstmarys@hotmail.co.uk.  You can also find me on facebook!

On the 9th December the Chapel is hosting a Youth Event called ‘1 Night to Unite’ for young Christians around the area.  There will be prayer, painting, games, tea and coffee and music.  For more info contact Pierce Drake on jpiercedii@gmail.com or on 07510 185 913.

After Christmas, we have a few exciting projects starting at the Chapel.  Firstly, alongside other local initiatives St Mary’s hopes to start a Youth Café for young people between the ages of 11-16 in the community to come hang out and have fun.  The Youth Café will be a safe, relaxing and welcoming environment for young people to come to once a week after school.  We hope to have ping pong, hot drinks, games consoles, films, Wi-Fi, board games and much more.  So watch this space, more information will be available after Christmas!  If you are interested in being involved please do contact me… we will need all hands on deck to get this up and running!

Secondly, we hope to start MESSY CHURCH for anyone (big and small) who wants to come and get messy, have fun and learn more about Jesus at the Chapel.  There will be crafts, painting, games, a bible story, singing and a picnic tea to finish.  Messy Church starting once a month after Christmas… dates to be confirmed in January!

There is much more planned for the New Year but that’s it for now.  Please feel free to contact me on 07839 495 116 or at harrietstmarys@hotmail.co.uk if you have any suggestions or questions about the Children’s and Youth Work at St Mary’s and the Chapel.  Or if you just want to say hello…

I hope you all have a very special Christmas!

God bless,

Love Harriet Leefe

St Mary’s Church, Youth and Children’s Worker

We moved here in 1985 though we hadn’t really intended to choose Ash Vale. A strong reason was the presence of the train station which provided good access to work for my husband.

What about your family?

We have been greatly blessed to have four children and seven lovely grandchildren. Our greatest joys are our family get-togethers twice a year.

Do you have time for hobbies?

Most of the things I really enjoy are knitting and sewing (having made both our girls’ wedding and bride’s maid dresses) but these have lessened over the past few years. As a full time mum, I spent most of any spare time weighing babies at the local clinic, visiting, working at the probation office and helping with local church projects (such as Women’s World Day of Prayer and youth leading).

Do you have a favourite spot in the village?

Yes, St. Mary’s Church. It is such a warm and welcoming group of people. Members of our house group commented about St. Mary’s once: “we can feel the love coming out of the brick work!”

Do you have a favourite time of year in Ash Vale?

Autumn is absolutely gorgeous because there are such a variety of trees and therefore leaf shape and colour. The walk along the Basingstoke Canal is particularly breath-taking with the autumnal colours.

Do you have any memories from St. Mary’s that stand out?

The inter-church events have always been good fun. There was one Whitsuntide when an event was held by Churches Together in Ash, Ash Vale and Tongham (CTAAT); it was called “On Fire” and included a parade with fancy dress. Unfortunately it was a complete wash out, so wet that even the helium-filled balloons refused to fly!

Are you involved in home or study groups at St. Mary’s?

Yes. We began a home group in 1986 to continue on from a Lent Group at that time. The group still meets 25 years later with some of the original members.

I also ran the Women’s Fellowship Group until this year. Even though we have officially stopped meeting, we still get together regularly for afternoon tea!

What benefits did the groups bring to you?

Home groups have helped us to grow nearer to God and to each other through study.

In medieval times books were all hand written and most were in Latin.  Some were highly decorated with gold leaf and other costly materials.  Books were very expensive and only the rich could afford to commission a book let alone learn to read and write.

Many families employed a part time “Scribe” to write letters and to keep records. Often the scribe was seconded from a local monastery or convent and received payment for the work.  Villeins  (peasants) rarely had a chance to get even the rudiments of reading and writing unless they were destined for a life as a religious.

Church services were in Latin.  Obviously the parishioners came to know their services and got some idea of what was being said.  However, someone somewhere in the early medieval church thought it would be a good idea to “illustrate” certain aspects of the bible story for important festivals such as Christmas and Easter.  A simple stage would be set up and “actors” would recite the story from the bible, sticking to the Latin text as there was no “legitimate” translation available.  Records indicate that sometimes there was a “Herald” who would summarize the “action” in Anglo Saxon or early English so that the audience could understand what was going on.  This all happened in the Nave.

Lay Vicar? In some parishes the duty of organising the maintenance of the fabric of the church was assigned to the people who owned specific buildings such as manors or farms.  The duty was assigned to the property owner and would pass from owner to owner as the property changed hands.  In the event of a church roof needing repair it was the duty of the Lay Vicar to ensure that the repair was done and paid for and then to try sorting out some re-imbursement for themselves.  Fairly recently the Church of England agreed that such charges could be unfair and thankfully the duties were abolished.  The owners of the affected buildings gained a very nice increase in the value of their properties!