Every Thursday from 12.30 till 1.15pm

Thursday 10th June marks the opening of this year’s Summer Lunchtime Concert series with a performance from the young musicians of Brine Lees School. This year there will be 16 varied concerts to look forward to featuring some old favourites as well as new talent to Nantwich. Admission is free but we hope people will donate generously in appreciation of the music and efforts involved. We have been delighted that some of the concerts have been financially sponsored by local businesses. All the proceeds are going towards the St Mary’s Appeal.

Details of individual concerts can be found on the events link.

Are you a Gilbert & Sullivan fan? Are you an experienced amateur operatic singer? Have you never sung in a choir before but would like to try? Are you a fan of the Nantwich Singers? Have you ever thought that you would like to sing along with them?

The Nantwich Singers, whose reputation is based on concerts of ‘serious’ choral music from Bach to Britten, and from Monteverdi to Rossini with occasional excursions into close harmony and folk songs, is pushing the boat out in the form of an evening of Gilbert & Sullivan and invites YOU to sing with them.

The Singers rehearse at St. Mary’s Church in Nantwich and on Saturday June 5th they are aiming to raise £1000 towards the church’s million-pound Appeal. They are inviting all singers – and that includes YOU – whether you’re an experienced singer or your singing is usually confined to the bath, whether you’re a big G&S fan or have never heard any of their operas, to meet at St. Mary’s Church for a rehearsal in the afternoon (2.45 pm) and take part in a performance in the evening (7.30pm).

There will be a complete sing through of ‘Trial by Jury’ and of excerpts from ‘HMS Pinafore’ with the Nantwich Singers providing the soloists as well as forming the kernel of the choir. The conductor will be the choir’s director Tony Metcalfe, and the accompanist the vastly experienced Chester-based pianist John Gough – both of them long-standing G&S addicts.

Music will be provided.

Participation on the day will cost £10 but that will be reduced to £8 if you book a place in advance by phoning 01270 621873 before May 11th. Non-singers are invited to come and hear the concert at 7.30 for a £5 contribution towards the appeal.

This was the prayer that ended a special service of celebration we had here at St Mary’s on Sunday 28th Feb with the children from Pear Tree School to mark Fairtrade Fortnight .

Following on from the report on the Fairtrade Foundation in
This Month of Feb 2010 , the PCC are pleased to announce that St Mary’s Parish Church now has Fairtrade status.

The PCC were first encouraged to look at this issue a few years ago when Chester Diocese became the first of many Fairtrade Diocese in the Country . More recently we were encouraged to do so again by the Nantwich Fairtrade Group ( established in March 2008 and sponsored by the Nantwich Christian Council) The Nantwich Town Council had passed a resolution to support the aim of making Nantwich a Fairtrade Town ( look out for signs in the local shops). The PCC after careful consideration, voted unanimously to also work towards gaining Fairtrade Status.

What exactly does having it mean ?

The parish has made a threefold commitment :
1) to serve fairtrade tea and coffee ( products with the logo) whenever refreshments are served in the name of St Mary’s ( I.e . after the services, in the Church shop, at soup lunches, Home groups, coffee mornings etc.)
2) to support the sale of Tradecraft goods ( Graham and Mary Dodd run a tradecraft stall in the parish hall after the 10.45 service on every second Sunday in the month)
3) To promote the Fairtrade Foundation particularly during Fairtrade Fortnight

We do hope that you too will support us in this commitment with both your prayers …. and actions.

Happy New Year!

I trust this e-mail finds you all recovered from the excitement of Christmas and New Year and looking forward to what 2010 has to offer. This e-mail has the usual ‘upcoming events’ at the bottom, but is primarily to draw your attention to our plan to encourage as many people as possible to read the whole Bible in a year. We have published a reading schedule in the parish magazine that will enable you to read through the Bible a little bit each day. The schedule includes an old testament passage, a new testament passage, a psalm and a proverb each day. The readings for January are in the January magazine, and you can find the full year of readings via the website at http://www.stmarysnantwich.org.uk/one_year_bible To make it even easier for you to get started, I have included the readings for the first 16 days of January in this email!

There are a couple of other ways that you could choose to do this. The first would be to buy a ‘one year Bible’. There are a number around, and you will have no trouble finding one in a Christian book shop or on-line. You can even get children’s Bibles that contain 365 Bible stories! The other way that I would recommend to anyone with an mp3 player is to find an audio Bible or podcast. I use the podcast from www.dailyaudiobible.com, which you can also find on iTunes. It takes 20-30 mins per day to listen to, and you get some commentary as well as the reading itself – I can thoroughly recommend it. If you have children then there is also www.dailyaudiobiblekids.com which goes through the New testament in a year.

If you haven’t already started, then don’t panic – it is never too late! If you would like to join us then I would advise starting with today’s reading and take things forward from there, you can then choose to catch up what you’ve missed at a later date, of just carry on reading in January 2011 until you’ve reached where you started!

We are hoping to set up a couple of other things to help support you do this. The first will be a dedicated page of the website, where a few of us hope to ‘blog’ our thoughts while going through the Bible. This should be set up over the next couple of weeks. The other is monthly meetings for those who would like to attend to discuss what we have read and talk about how we are getting on. These meetings will probably take place at the same time as the homegroups ‘all-together’ meetings, and the first one is next week – Tuesday 12th Jan at 8pm in the Parish Hall. Come along to find out more!

I would very much encourage you to consider taking up the challenge – I can guarantee that if you spend time each day in the Bible, then God will speak to you through it.

Once again, Happy New Year, and I wish you well for 2010!

Jonathan

Readings for January 1st-16th listed here now:

0 1 Genesis 1:1-2:25
Matthew 1:1-2:12
Psalm 1:1-6
Proverbs 1:1-6

02 Genesis 3:1-4:26
Matthew 2:13-3:6
Psalm 2:1-12
Proverbs 1:7-9

03 Genesis 5:1-7:24
Matthew 3:7-4:11
Psalm 3:1-8
Proverbs 1:10-19

04 Genesis 8:1-10:32
Matthew 4:12-25
Psalm 4:1-8
Proverbs 1:20-23

05 Genesis 11:1-13:4
Matthew 5:1-26
Psalm 5:1-12
Proverbs 1:24-28

06 Genesis 13:5-15:21
Matthew 5:27-48
Psalm 6:1-10
Proverbs 1:29-33

07 Genesis 16:1-18:15
Matthew 6:1-24
Psalm 7:1-17
Proverbs 2:1-5

08 Genesis 18:16-19:38
Matthew 6:25-7:14
Psalm 8:1-9
Proverbs 2:6-15

09 Genesis 20:1-22:24
Matthew 7:15-29
Psalm 9:1-12
Proverbs 2:16-22

10 Genesis 23:1-24:51
Matthew 8:1-17
Psalm 9:13-20
Proverbs 3:1-6

11 Genesis 24:52- 26:16
Matthew 8:18-34
Psalm 10:1-15
Proverbs 3:7-8

12 Genesis 26:17-27:46
Matthew 9:1-17
Psalm 10:16-18
Proverbs 3:9-10

13 Genesis 28:1-29:35
Matthew 9:18-38
Psalm 11:1-7
Proverbs 3:11-12

14 Genesis 30:1-31:16
Matthew 10:1-23
Psalm 12:1-8
Proverbs 3:13-15

15 Genesis 31:17-32:12
Matthew 10:24-11:6
Psalm 13:1-6
Proverbs 3:16-18

16 Genesis 32:13-34:31
Matthew 11:7-30
Psalm 14:1-7
Proverbs 3:19-20