We will be celebrating Harvest (physical and spiritual) in all three churches on Sunday 6th October – with each service having its own special flavour:
10am in St Mary’s Kidlington – Holy Communion
10am in St John’s – All Together
5pm in St Mary’s Hampton Poyle – traditional village Harvest celebrations
All donations of food are very welcome, and will be passed on to our local Foodbank.
You can see more about them here.
The next talk in the series organised this Autumn by the Friends of St Mary’s Kidlington will be on Saturday 19th October, 6pm in St Mary’s. Prue Leith will be in conversation with Joanna Foster, recounting many colourful stories of her life, which has ranged from running her own cooking company, appearing in Bake Off, writing novels and much more besides.
The first of the series of Autumn Talks organised by the Friends of St Mary’s Kidlington is on Saturday 21st September. This talk will be given by Philip Pullman, world-famous author of the His Dark Materials sequence of books that has inspired film and TV productions. Philip Pullman has delighted and excited adult and young readers with his imagined worlds centred on Oxford. His talk will be a fascinating exploration of the ways the classic Brothers Grimm fairy tales have inspired his storytelling from his childhood onwards.
Doors open at 5.30pm with talk beginning at 6pm. Refreshments will be available. Please note that booking is essential – see https://fosmk.org.uk/philip-pullman-talk/
Further talks will be by Prue Leith (19th October) and Debbie Dance (16th November). Further details are available at https://fosmk.org.uk/future-events/.
5.30pm at St Mary’s Kidlington
This Sunday evening the choir and choristers will be leading Choral Evensong, which will feature some fantastic music including the Ayleward responses, Stanford in C Magnificat and Nunc Dimittis, and the majestic Collegium Regale (King’s College) setting of the Te Deum Laudamus by Howells. There will be two uplifting congregational hymns and the organ voluntary will be the third movement of Trio Sonata No. 5 in Cmajor by J.S.Bach. This is our final choral evensong before the choir takes its summer break, and after the service the congregation is invited to join the choir for a celebratory end-of-term glass of wine!
All welcome
On the first Wednesday of every month a crowd gathers in St John’s for a “Big Sing”. People come because they like being sociable and enjoy singing (or listening to) popular music. Everyone is welcome, with or without any singing ability, and there’s lots of coffee/tea and cake to keep the throat lubricated. This was first set up by our Curate Susy but is now well-established, thanks to her careful planning, and will continue after she leaves us – the wonderful team of helpers is all set.
If you enjoy a good sing, then do come along to join us, 10am to 11.30 am, first Wednesday every month.
The “Friends of St Mary’s Kidlington” was set up in 2016 to provide a forum for everyone who wanted to support the development of St Mary’s for the benefit of the community. This was available to all, not just members of the congregation, as a way of raising funds to contribute to the fabric and facilities in the church, separate from regular funding for parish activities.
We held a variety of events, trips, talks, etc but then everything came to a halt with COVID. But we are delighted to say that FOSMK is now reborn and has some exciting plans for the future. The first step (though perhaps not the most exciting) was to hold a long-overdue Annual General Meeting in St Mary’s on Thursday 30th May. Refreshments and AGM were followed by a talk by Ven David Meara “A Serious House: Why Church buildings matter today”.
A good number attended, not just the long-standing, loyal members who have continued to support FOSMK during its “down” time. We heard more about the Friends, what their plans are, and how everyone can be involved.
We have since held an evening reception at Exeter College, hosted by Sir Rick Trainor, Rector, and Lady Trainor, with drinks, talk and tour of refurbished library. And here’s breaking news of a series of talks to be held this Autumn, with some very well-known and fascinating speakers.
You can also find out more by going the the new FOSMK website at fosmk.org.uk
Thank you to those who attended and all those who organised the concert last week. It was a great success and raised nearly £2000.
Yes it did rain – especially on Friday night – but that didn’t dappen anyone’s spirits. We moved to Plan B, with most of the activities happening inside the church, and that gave a really good vibe. A special thanks to the hardy souls who did stay outside (Programme Sellers, Bar, BBQ, Tombola, Books). We do hope everyone who came enjoyed it as much as we did. See more photos on our Recent Events page – but here’s a taster – Rector Felicity painting our new Curate Paul (little did he know what his duties would involve when he arrived here at the beginning of the month).
In common with all other charitable bodies the parish has to have an annual (general) meeting in which we present our finances and a report on the year and also elect our church officers. This year our APCM is at 8pm on Wednesday 8th May at St Mary’s Kidlington. We will be electing a new warden for St Mary’s Kidlington and several PCC members, receiving the electoral roll, and holding a very brief first meeting of the new PCC in which we appoint the Lay Chair, Treasurer and Secretary and set dates for the year ahead. Wine and soft drink will be available.
If you are on the electoral roll please consider if you would like to stand for election to any of these roles and let one of the wardens or clergy know so that we can help you fill in a nomination form – we need all three churches well represented.
You can find out more about the meeting and access all the papers here.
What a fabulous fun day. To read more about it and see just a selection of photos go here.
