Church is moving outside on August 31st when we will be holding an outdoor service and picnic in the field next to Badshot Lea Community Garden at 11am.
It will be a united parish service (so no services in any of the churches that day) and everyone is welcome. Bring your own chairs, picnic blankets, picnics and your friends and enjoy worshipping God outdoors. There will be some gazebos to provide a bit of shade and the garden will be open for everyone to visit too.
Badshot Lea Community Garden is run by the Badshot Lea Bloomers and has allotment spaces to rent, heritage hops growing, a wildlife friendly pond and lots of plants encouraging biodiversity. They hold community events, support schools, encourage gardeners, keep the village tidy and colourful and are just an all-round good group.
Join us outside on August 31st at 11am. All welcome.
St John’s Church needs just another £5,500 to fund repairs to its tower which, at 181 years old, is crumbling.
Repairs to the tower will cost more than £32,000 and we have raised almost £27,000 through donations, fundraising events and grants. As the work is urgent and a stonemason is available in mid- September, we need to find the final £5,500 in time to pay the bill. There is another fundraising evening coming up in September. For details, click here.
The church was opened in 1844 and was designed by Benjamin Ferrey, a pupil of the famous architect Pugin. It looks older than many Victorian churches as it is in the Romanesque style which dominated church architecture in the 11th to 12th century. It was extended in 1897 to accommodate a growing congregation following the expansion of Aldershot as a garrison town.
Rector Rev’d Lexi Russell said: “What an incredible effort from everyone involved! The community has come together with creative ways to raise the funds to repair the tower of our beautiful church. We are now on the home stretch, with one final push to reach our goal before mid-September. St John’s has stood as a beacon of hope on Hale Road for generations, and with your continued support, we can ensure it remains so for generations to come.”
The parish has received grants from Farnham Town Council, the Church of England, Marshall’s Charity, the Surrey Churches Preservation Trust and Benefact Trust, and has fundraised through events such as the recent Pugs and Prejudice, a celebration of dogs in literature, especially that of Jane Austen. Individuals have also given generously, meaning that there is almost enough money to repair the tower of this much-loved church which has been part of the Hale landscape for almost 200 years.
To donate to tower fund, contact Rev’d Lexi Russell on 07792 233477 or rev.lexi@badshotleaandhale.org, or visit our fundraising page here.
Enjoy a musical afternoon and raise money for the St John’s tower repair fund
St George’s will resound to the music of the 60s on the afternoon of Saturday, September 27th, when the band Out of the Shadows will give a concert to raise funds to repair St John’s tower which is crumbling and in urgent need of repair.
Out Of The Shadows are sixties covers band who enjoy putting on fundraising concerts in the Farnham area. This one will start at 2pm and will involve tea and cake! There will also be a cash raffle.
Tickets are £10 on the door or ahead of time – to guarantee entry – from Sue Lampard on 07596953138.
Come along and enjoy the music, tea and cake and raise money for the tower repairs.
On the afternoon of Saturday, August 23, a group of pilgrims from St George’s Church, Wash Common, Newbury, will arrive at St George’s Church, Badshot Lea, as part of a pilgrimage from Newbury to Guildford Cathedral.
They will be greeted by members of St George’s, St John’s and St Mark’s who are putting on a Top 10 Summer Hymns event to celebrate, and will be firing up the barbecue so that everyone can enjoy a meal together.
The pilgrimage is a regular event for the group. Peter Wright, the pilgrimage organiser, said: “St George’s has been undertaking a walking pilgrimage each year for the last 30 years. The current format is to walk for four days (40 to 50 miles) each August. We have never visited Guildford Cathedral, which is why we opted for Winchester to Guildford (starting at St Swithun-upon-Kingsgate) and using the St Swithun’s Way footpath.”
Pilgrims from St George’s Church, Wash Common, about to set off in a minibus to their starting point.
The pilgrims expect to arrive about 4pm for tea and cake and the barbecue will be at 6.30pm, followed by everyone singing the ‘Top Ten Summer Hymns’. The hymns will be chosen by votes which cost £1 a go. Votes are being collected by Kris Lawrence and need to be in by Sunday, August 17. There are voting slips and more details in all the churches or Kris can be contacted on warden.stgeorges@badshotleaandhale.org .
The barbecue will be £5 a head to cover costs and Kris will need numbers by August 17. Please contact her on the email above.
The pilgrims will stay overnight in St George’s before leaving for the cathedral in the morning.
Peter Wright continued: “The pilgrimage started off as a youth pilgrimage led by the then vicar in the early 1990s, but the adults soon wanted a pilgrimage of their own. Typically, we walk 40 to 50 miles over four days, staying in church or village halls and ending at a cathedral or abbey. In the last few years we have travelled Sherborne to Bristol Cathedral, Whitchurch to Christchurch Priory and Stratford on Avon to Lichfield Cathedral. Some of the pilgrims are from other churches in the diocese.”
The summer heat is really upon us but our magazine is full of cool news and events. Read about Rev’d Lexi, our new rector, meet her dog Bugsy and see what the Church Cat has to say about them. There’s a report on our fete, news of family workshops at the churches courtesy of Farnham Maltings, and yet another dog – Lilli, the Maltese, who is bringing her human, Jenny, to St John’s for a Regency evening of Pugs and Prejudice.
That’s just a brief glance at some of what you can read if you click below. And check out our advertisers too!
Pamela Marsham will be licensed as a Lay Associate Minister at Guildford Cathedral on Saturday, July 5th at 10.30am.
As a Lay Associate Minister, Pamela will continue work alongside Lexi and the rest of the ministry team. Her course has focused on preaching, teaching and discipleship and she has also done the diocese’s Worship Leaders Course.
“That for me is the most important as my focus is on leading worship. and Lexi is keen for me to continue to do that,” says Pamela. “I have been lucky really, in that I have been able to gain experience in this while training.”
During the course, Pamela particularly valued meeting others who were on the same path as she was. She adds: “We were all on a journey and it was exciting as we didn’t really know what it would actually lead us to do. I think there are some in the group who will continue the journey and probably go on to train to either be LLMs or even become ordained. Those roles are definitely not what I will do as obviously age is against me but I can lead worship and that is a great privilege. I hope, too, that I am showing that age is not a barrier to serving God.
“I am also reading more theology and am constantly learning more about what the Scriptures teach us.”
Tickets to the licensing have been allocated but if you would still like to attend you can do so and can have unreserved seating which will be towards the back of the cathedral.
Join us at St John’s Church on Friday 4th July at 7pm as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of Jane Austen’s birth, with Pugs and Prejudice, an entertaining talk about Austen’s life as well as the dogs and costumes of the Regency period. Admission is free.
The talk will be given by Jenny Colquhoun, a local Jane Austen expert and enthusiast. She will be assisted by her Maltese dog, Lilli (pictured above). The pair will be dressed in matching Regency outfits and there will be a selection of bonnets, top hats, waistcoats and cravats for you to try on, too.
To accompany the event, Margaret Emberson and Lesley and Bob Shatwell will play Regency music, and there will be refreshments, including homemade cakes. You will also have a chance to win some Maltesers from Lilli.
You may have visited Jane Austen’s home in Chawton, but did you know that her family also had a Farnham connection? Jane’s brother, Henry, became a curate in Farnham in 1819. This raises the question, did Jane ever visit her brother in Farnham? Henry has often been described as her favourite brother, so it seems hard to believe that she never travelled here. There is nothing in her letters to suggest that she did but, since some of her letters were burned by her sister, it is fun to imagine that perhaps Jane was familiar with our town too.
Join us on Friday, July 4th, at 7pm, at St John’s, Hale, for an entertaining evening of doggy tales and tails, bonnets and bows. Although admission is free, there will be the opportunity to make a donation towards restoring St John’s tower. Please let us know if you are coming as we need to know how many to cater for and Lilli wants to know how many packs of Maltesers to pop in her Regency reticule. Call 07842761919 or email admin@badshotleaandhale.org.
Pictured: Left: A Reticule bag. (Image from Look and Learn, Rijksmuseum). Right: Jenny and Lilli at a recent Jane Austen event.
Carers Week has just come to an end but the job of unpaid carers goes on… and on… and on.
While many unpaid carers say that they are caring for a family member or friend out of love, it comes at a huge cost. They face a greater risk of poverty, social isolation, poor mental and physical health. They may have to give up careers, or educational opportunities and/or curtail their personal lives. While the image of the carer is a middle-aged woman – far more women than men are unpaid carers – there are still many men who fill the role and some carers are still children and others are old and frail themselves. Some people don’t even think of themselves as carers but still spend hours a week caring for someone.
Carers UK is working to support unpaid carers and there is plenty of useful information on their website, including what support is available. Click on the links for their Looking after someone guides and factsheets. The website also provides sources of practical support. Carers Trust has network of local services providing support to carers and a grants programme for one-off payments for support.
Local councils can tell you what rights you have and what is available to support you and the person you care for.
There’s a new rector in town. After 16 months with no-one in post, the parish has welcomed Rev’d Alexa (Lexi) Russell as its new rector.
Rev’d Lexi was installed as Rector at a service at St George’s Church on Monday, June 2, attended by parish members, visiting clergy, councillors and other community representatives.
Rt Rev’d Paul Davies (Bishop of Dorking) installed Lexi as Rector, while other parts of the ceremony were conducted by Rev’d Robert Jenkins, Assistant Archdeacon of Surrey, and Rev’d Tara Hellings, Assistant Area Dean.
Lexi was Assistant Curate in the Wythenshawe Team in Manchester Diocese. She is in a civil partnership with Johanna, a doctor, and they have a nine-month-old son Leo.
Lexi said: “What a welcome we have had. I am incredibly grateful to all those who took the time to welcome us into the parish. The lead up to this moment has been immense not just for the parish but also for me, and I’m incredibly excited to see what God has planned for us all.”
Monday’s service had its origins far back in the history of the Church of England and involved giving Lexi the ‘cure of souls’ – the spiritual responsibility for the parish – and the ‘temporalities’ of the parish, that is, the physical buildings and their contents. Lexi was also led round the church in a symbolic series of acts which included having her hand placed on the door and receiving the keys, then tolling a bell; being seated in a chair (the ‘stall of the priest’); pouring water into the font; receiving a large Bible; and placing bread and wine on the altar.
The service was followed by a party with a celebration cake.
Lexi will preside at her first service in the parish at St Mark’s, Upper Hale, on Sunday, June 8, at 11am. All are welcome.
Pictured above from left: Churchwarden Pamela Marsham, Rev’d Robert Jenkins, Rev’d Alexa Russell, Rt Rev’d Paul Davies, churchwarden Kris Lawrence
Pictured below: Lexi and Johanna; Lexi cuts the celebration cake,
Welcome to your June magazine and a host of events, articles, news reports, thoughts and comments. Plus the Church Cat’s annual report and the approach of a Church Dog. Click on the link below to download it.
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 