On Easter Saturday we are holding an Easter Tea Dance for Church Growth Funds

£10 for Adults
£5 for Children
*Please pay upfront so we know numbers for catering.

There will be:

Music
Tea
Easter Bonnet Competition
Craft Stall
Raffle

Could all church groups please complete the questions asked by the growth team and Linda last year and hand them in as this will help with our planning.

Thank you.

There is a growth leadership meeting tonight on zoom @ 7.30pm. Please contact Iain for the zoom details.

Anyone is welcome to attend – We need a wide list of opinions and thoughts.

The next Church Growth Leadership meeting is tomorrow, Monday 29th at 7.30pm on zoom.

Anyone is welcome to attend – Please contact Iain for the codes.

We are happy to announce that Warrington Borough Council has awarded us a grant of  £1,499 from their “Supported by the Community Initiative Fund” towards installing a Life Saving defibrillator. The defibrillator will be installed outside the church and will be accessible by anyone in the area by calling 999.

We would like to express our gratitude and thanks to Warrington Borough Council Community Initiative fund for this award.

Latchford Growth Team.

We are happy to announce that the Cheshire Community Foundation has awarded us £2,000 from their “Warrington Older People’s Programme Small Grants Programme” towards our AV and Video Streaming Project in our community.

Our aim is to improve the lives of older people; those in isolation due to Covid restrictions or other reasons; those who cannot participate in social activity with others or access services; those who need emotional support eg carers, women, those in abusive relationships, those in poor mental or physical health or under stress or losing self-confidence and therefore at risk of losing their independence although these facilities will be made available to all ages, genders, abilities and a wide range of interests,

We would like to express our gratitude and thanks to the Cheshire Community Foundation for this award.

We also wish to thank Enid for assisting with our application.

Latchford Growth Team.

We are so happy to announce that Allchurches Trust has awarded us £12,000 from their Hope Beyond thematic programme towards our Video Streaming Project.

We would like to express our gratitude and thanks to Allchurches Trust for this award.

We also wish to thank Enid for assisting with our application.

Latchford Growth Team.

We have been working on a proposal to obtain equipment for Live-streaming from within our Church. This will allow a sustainable solution for not only live-streaming and video recording our services, but will allow our clubs and the wider community to use these facilities for many years to come.

We have successfully applied for a grant from the circuit and have been awarded £7,500. We are applying for grants from external organisations to fund the remaining costs of this project.

We have appointed the award winning Architects from Condy Lofthouse. This company is based locally in Liverpool and has a proven track record working with Churches as well as other types of buildings.

Covid has and will continue to delay the work on our growth plan but we will work hard to make progress. Part of this will include an introspective review of how lessons learnt from covid can be used to improve and alter our growth plans.

We will then work with Condy Lofthouse to develop a detailed feasibility study for review at a future Church Council meeting.

Growth Plan: We have successfully been awarded a micro-grant of £1,162 from the “New Places for new people; Our Calling fund” from the Methodist Church of Great Britain.  The grant is for the procurement of a popup prayer tent and portable sound system and will enable our church to further develop our mission Outreach through a planned programme of initiatives. Planning has started and so watch this space for more information coming soon.

Sunshine Bags raised £318.51. Thank you to everyone who supported this.

Litter Pick on Saturday 1^st February at 10:00am. It’s that time of the month again and we will be holding another litter pick in Latchford next Saturday. Meet at church at 10:00am, equipment will be provided, free cuppa and bacon butties available at church afterwards. Please join us, the more the merrier, as many hands make light work! We look forward to seeing you.

An evening of fun, food and mystery. There will be a 3-course French themed dinner during which the story of a murder will be told, and guests will be asked to decide who is the murderer. Tickets are £7 available from Jane or Margaret.

Sunshine Bags raised £318.51. Thank you to everyone who supported this.

Murder Mystery Evening on Friday 24^th January. An evening of fun, food and mystery. There will be a 3-course meal during which the story of a murder will be told, and guests will be asked to decide who is the murderer. Further details in the New Year. We also need 6 people to play the suspects plus one narrator. It is not necessary to learn the script but there will be a couple of rehearsals to run through it. Please let Jan Otterson know if you are interested. (Please e-mail [email protected] if you need Jane’s contact details or ask in church)

Could each team please update the notice board with their current status? Blank forms are available on the notice board, if required. Many thanks

As we’re getting closer to Christmas the Mission Team thought it would be a good idea to give advance notice of diary dates for December:

Friday 13^th  – Carol Singing at the Cheshire Cheese and Grange Social Club
Saturday 14^th at 10:30am – Distribution of mince pies
Saturday 21^st at 11:00am – Carol Singing with Churches Together in Latchford village

Anyone with Sunshine bags can you please give them to Julian or Jean.

Can anyone with a Sunshine bag please pass them to Julian or Jean.

As we celebrated our 125^th Church Birthday, reflected on the past and looked forward to the future we learnt that the “National Lottery Community Fund” has accepted our application for a grant.

The following week, as we commenced our first worship service in our 126^th year, we received word that our application had been successful. We have been awarded a grant of £6,200 for an Architectural Feasibility Study.

This study is needed to draw up the changes we need to make to our property to allow us to fulfil our mission and worship goals.

This success is due to our funding adviser, Enid, and the hard work of all our own growth teams.

This is one large step along the path we need to follow and the timing of these events suggests our Lord is blessing our direction.

We also need to say thank you for the funding from The National Lottery Community Fund.

The fundraising team are holding a handbag auction on Friday 1^st November at 7.30pm. £1 entrance fee on the door. Free nibbles! Everyone is welcome to attend for what will be a fun and enjoyable night.

The fundraising team are holding a handbag auction on Friday 1^st November and are looking for handbags that people no longer use.  Please can you give them to Joyce or Margaret F. Donations of finger food would be gratefully welcomed. “Nibbles” such as crisps, sweets, nuts or fruit such as grapes. Anything that can be nibbled or picked up with one hand.

As part of our growth plan, we have submitted what will be the first of several grant applications. This grant, if successful, will be used to engage an architect to produce a feasibility study followed by more detailed plans in order that estimated costs can be produced and a firm and fundable plan can be adopted.

The fundraising team are holding a handbag auction on Friday 1^st November and are looking for handbags that people no longer use.  Please can you give them to Joyce or Margaret F.

Could you please return your fund raising sunshine bags by next Sunday, 13th October.
Thank you for everyone for helping with our growth plan fund raising.

Annual Sponsored Ride and Stride event takes place on Saturday morning on 14^th September. The aim is to ‘collect’ churches by visiting them and this can be done in any way except car, van etc.  You can walk, cycle, ride a horse, use a motorised scooter, hop, skip and so on!  We have a map of a possible route to local churches, but you can choose to do something different even if you are away on holiday. Even if you can get to just one church that would be appreciated.  The event is organised by the Historic Churches of Cheshire Trust.  All sponsorship is split equally between the Trust and our church and by taking part it gives us a better chance to receive grant from the Trust – something that we may well need in the coming months.  In previous years a few people have done this event, but it would be good to see a large number of us this year.  Sponsor forms are on the hall noticeboard along with a poster.

As part of our growth plan we are going to be recording our Sunday services which will be available to listen to on line. We would also like to purchase some basic MP3 players that the services can be downloaded onto for people to take and listen to and bring back from one Sunday to another. They are for anyone housebound, missing on Sunday or wanting to re listen to a service. We envisage the cost of the MP3 players to be in the region of £30 each if anyone would like to give a donation towards the cost please give it to Julian.

A Ride and Stride for Churches event will take place on September 14th. It is organised by the National Churches Trust charity who is looking for sponsored participants.

If you can, please participate and/or sponsor someone from our church.

Our participation improves our chances of obtaining a grant from this trust for our 5 year growth plan.

Could all growth teams please hand in their monthly update to Jean or Iain ready for next Saturday please?

A quick reminder: Could all Growth plan teams please hand in their monthly update by next Sunday,

The Fund raising team for our Church growth plan have developed a program of exciting and interesting fundraising events for the next few months. Today, they are starting with a “Sunshine bag”.  The idea is you place 10 pence in the bag if the sun shines on that day.

If you would like to participate then please pick up a wonderfully made bag from inside church. Each bag has a different motif.

If you can, then please take two bags and give one bag to someone who is NOT a member of our church and is willing to help. A friend, a neighbours or a colleague at work? Let’s try to share the cost of fund raising so the burden doesn’t reside with just our church members and also share awareness of our church.

There will be a meeting for all members of the Church Growth Teams immediately after the service on Sunday 28^th April and we would appreciate if all volunteers could attend.  If you would like to volunteer to help on one of the teams then your assistance would be gratefully appreciated.  Please give your name to Jean O.
The teams for growth are: Property, Finance, Fund Raising, Mission and Worship.

If anyone hasn’t read our draft five year growth plan then a few copies can still be found around the Church and also on the Church website.  The plan should reflect how we, as a Church, intend to grow our Church over the forthcoming years.  It’s therefore vital we capture everyone’s thoughts and comments, both positive and negative, in order to improve the plan.  Therefore, please scribble down any comments and pass them onto any of the Church stewards, anonymously if you wish, or email them to [email protected]

We are preparing a planning submission to allow us to install an illuminated LED cross above our Church Entrance.  If anyone has any experience in writing a planning submission to Warrington Borough Council and are willing to assist then could you please contact Iain.

We are preparing a planning submission to allow us to install an illuminated LED cross above our Church Entrance.  If anyone has any experience in writing a planning submission to Warrington Borough Council and are willing to assist then could you please contact Iain.

We now have firm costs for the work that needs to be done as part of this project. A suggestion has been made that if people would like to donate either once or throughout the year a special envelope for this purpose has been created. If you would like some please see Derek.