Our fabulous parish summer fete is back, this year on June 10th at St George’s, Badshot Lea, from 12-4pm.
There will be all sorts of stalls with things to buy, games to play, delicious food and drink, a craft market and a grand raffle. It’s a proper community fete with people from across the villages which make up our parishes taking part.
So please, put the date in your diary, and also, if you’d like to run a stall, help set up, clear up, generally get stuck in, let us know. Email Maxine Everitt to find out more.
Our Annual Meeting of Parishioners, for anyone living in the parish, takes place on Sunday, May 21st, at 3pm at St Mark’s. This is the meeting at which churchwardens are elected. This will be followed immediately by the Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) which is for those on the parish electoral roll.
The documents for both meetings are below and can be downloaded.
It’s Christian Aid Week next week and we are holding a concert to raise money for this vital charity on Friday, May 26th at 7.30pm at St George’s.
There will be music from soloists and groups, including Saxooma saxophone quartet, choirs, a singalong, dancing, a raffle, drinks and nibbles. Tickets are £5 (children free) on the door.
This year, Christian Aid Week is focusing on Malawi where food, fuel, fertiliser and school fees have doubled in price in the last 12 months, and hard-working farmers are seeing their harvests fail as the climate crisis brings increasingly erratic weather. The impact of the recent Cyclone Freddy in Malawi has been devastating. Floods have washed away crops, over 500,000 people have been displaced and hundreds have lost their lives.
Please support Christian Aid at this concert and via their online appeal here.
St George’s Day is on Sunday, April 23, and you are invited to celebrate England’s patron saint at services at St John’s, Hale, at 9.30am, and St George’s, Badshot Lea, at 10am. TS Swiftsure, Farnham Sea Cadets, will take part in the service at St George’s.
St George has been venerated as a saint in England since the 9th century CE though he was actually born in the 3rd century CE in Cappadocia (modern day Turkey), and was probably an officer in the Roman army. He was a Christian and it seems he was killed in the early 4th century, maybe on April 23, because he wouldn’t worship pagan gods.
St George is meant to have killed an evil dragon but the story about this actually originates several centuries after his death. Nevertheless the story stuck and the image of St George defeating the dragon appears on the George Cross, an award created in 1940 by King George VI to reward acts of great courage in times of danger.
This doesn’t stop the friendly St George’s dragon coming to church however.
There will be a gin evening at St George’s on Friday, April 14, 7.30-9.30pm.
You will be able to sample some of local distiller Nibbs Gin‘s spirits, and hear about how the gin is made. Tickets are £5 which includes a drink, but if you don’t drink alcohol come anyway and have some soft drinks for a donation. Tickets on the door or contact Maxine Everitt.
Join us as we travel through Holy Week, which runs from Palm Sunday, April 2, to Easter Eve, April 8, with a series of services and meditations across all three churches.
Palm Sunday recalls the story of Jesus as he entered Jerusalem, welcomed as a king but riding on a humble donkey, and there will be services at all three churches – St John’s at 9.30am, St George’s at 10am and St Mark’s at 11am – with palm crosses given out.
Services and meditations in Holy Week
From Monday to Wednesday, April 3-5, there will be a series of short meditations for Holy Week each evening at St John’s at 7.30pm. These will be around 30 minutes long and will give time to reflect and pray.
On Wednesday, April 5 at noon, there will be a communion service at St Mark’s, and on Maundy Thursday, April 6 there will be communion services at St George’s and St John’s at 7.30pm, when the altar will be stripped and a vigil will be held. At St John’s there will also be foot-washing, recalling the act of Jesus washing his disciples’ feet at the Last Supper before his death.
Maundy Thursday is so called because the name derives from the Latin world ‘mandatum’ which means ‘commandment’, and it recalls Jesus’ words at the Last Supper: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another as I have loved you.” So this is New Commandment Thursday.
Stripping the altar is an ancient custom whereby everything is removed from the altar and it reflects the way everything was stripped from Jesus on Good Friday – his clothes, his dignity, his life – and leaves the altar bare for the Good Friday liturgy the next day.
On Good Friday , April 7, there will be Good Friday Liturgy at St John’s at 9.30am. At the same time at St Mark’s there will be a craft session for children aged five to 11, from 9.30-11am, This will be followed by a service at 11am to which parents and carers are also invited, after which there will be hot cross buns for everyone.
You can also join in a Walk of Witness in central Farnham on Good Friday, by gathering in the Hart car park at 11.45am for a silent walk through central Farnham starting at noon, and ending up at St Andrew’s Church for a short service.
At 2pm there will be a ‘Good Friday Hour at the Cross‘ at St George’s, a time for prayer and reflection as we approach the time traditionally held to be the hour that Jesus died – 3pm.
On Saturday, April 8, several people from the parish are being confirmed at an Easter Eve service at Guildford Cathedral at 7.45pm. This is a special service with communion as well as baptism and confirmation, and is a lovely way to celebrate the coming of Easter. Please do join us.
It’s Mothering Sunday – aka Mother’s Day – this weekend (Sunday 19th) and we will be celebrating at all three churches: St John’s, Hale (near the Six Bells roundabout) at 9.30am; St George’s, Badshot Lea (opposite the school) at 10am and St Mark’s, Alma Lane (next to Tesco) at 11am.
Come and join us as we give thanks for all those who care and protect us. Posies for all.
Serving the Villages North of Farnham: Badshot Lea, Hale, Heath End & Weybourne
The Parish of Badshot Lea and Hale 