Thank you to the 40+ of you who participated in the Parish Vision Day on Saturday.

It was wonderful to hear the animated conversation and listen to the ideas that flowed as a broad range of parishioners contributed their thoughts to how we might develop over the coming years.

Our facilitator, Simon, the Rector of Ifield, skilfully provoked and captured the contributions and then challenged us to choose between them as he focused us down to three key goals under each of the headings: our spiritual and numerical growth in Christ; reimagining how we undertake our ministry; and how we will contribute to the common good.

Volunteers were provisionally identified to champion each goal and begin thinking through how they can be implemented.  Steve and I will spend two and half days this week on retreat to pray through the outcomes of the away day and seek to distil these into a plan that can be discussed in a General Meeting of the Parish and the PCC later this month.

So more on that later – meanwhile there is something concrete we can do under the “contributing to the common good” heading; you will see in the Notices section of this week’s pewsheet that Christian Aid Week starts next Sunday.  As the longest-running community fundraising event in the UK, CA week unites more than 20,000 churches to achieve incredible things.

Thanks to people like you last year Christian Aid raised more than £11m for our global neighbours in need.  Do contact Ann or Brenda if you can feel you can help this year.

Thank you.