Toll Gavel United Church Members and Adherents in the group ‘Woolly Wesleys’ because of their love of knitting recently drew attention to the climate crisis by donning the yellow capes and beaks of canaries. As is well known, canaries were taken down the mines to warn miners of life-threatening levels of pollution.
When most people think about a climate change protest, they might think of going on a march, youth strike or even sitting on a busy road.
The Woolly Wesleys have sent a warning message to local MP Graham Stuart that the government needs to protect the planet from global warming.
Group members used their crafting skills to create handmade yellow canaries for Graham Stuart MP.
Yellow canaries for COP26
They hope the gift will urge him to use his position to push for faster action to tackle climate change locally and nationally.
They also want to encourage the government to act as bold hosts of this year’s UN climate change summit, known as COP26, taking place in Glasgow in November.
This crucial meeting of world leaders will be an opportunity for the UK to lead the way in creating a cleaner and greener future for all.
On Sunday 10th October Toll Gavel held its annual Harvest Service for the first time since 2019. This special occasion featured contributions from the church band, the local scouts and guides and of course the minister Fran.
A live video was relayed to Facebook and can be found below.
This is the first of our monthly bulletins where we hope to keep you up to date with what is going on at TG. We hope that you are all keeping well.
Welcome Fran and Ann
Ref Ann and Rev Fran
We held the Welcome Service for Rev Fran and Rev Ann on Wednesday evening September 1. Rev Fran is our new minister and Rev Ann is our new superintendent minister as we prepare to merge with the Hull West and Central circuit. Our District Chair, Rev Leslie Newton conducted the service using the liturgy specially prepared for welcoming new ministers into their post. Representatives and attendees included the mayor and consort and people from across our circuit and other churches in the town. We presented them both with a cake with a welcome message on it.
Heritage Weekend.
Wesley is saved from the fire
Map of the world
This event took place on the weekend of the 10-12th. We borrowed a knitted display depicting 15 scenes from the life of John Wesley. We served refreshments throughout, as well as having a preserves stall and a Fairtrade stall. Talking to people we found that we had visitors from across the country. Although it was not organised as a money raising event, we raised £545. Well done to all those who organised the event and the volunteers who helped over the weekend.
Mural
Tree of hope
A ‘Tree of Hope’ mural has been painted on a board in the church drive. It is very colourful and cheery and will help considerably to brighten up a bare wall and give something positive to look at and ponder on. Well done to the Mustard Seed team for pursuing this idea to fruition.
Boats
Origami boats
The SR House group have made some origami boats with prayers on which will be sent to Christian Aid who will then send them to the COP26 conference in Glasgow.
Prayer List
Apologies for the delay in the production of this list. It is long overdue. Having made a start a few months ago I decided that it would be better to wait for Revd Fran to arrive so that we got an updated version that she was able to contribute to. It is now complete! I will send out a copy on email if that is appropriate for you but whether or not you receive it that way, if you would like a paper copy, please will you let me know and we will get them sent out to you. I know that some of you have already done that but if you would let me know again please, that would be helpful. The email copy is in the correct order for printing in booklet form if you print both sides of page flipping the page on the short edge. If your name is not on it and you would like to be included, please let me know. The reason will be because you didn’t give us permission to use your details in the prayer list. If I have made a mistake and you didn’t want to be included, I can remove it for you, just let me know
Coming events
The annual congregational meeting will take place on Tuesday October 12 at 7 pm. This is usually quite short and will be followed by an ordinary congregational meeting. Papers for these are in preparation. If you are NOT on e mail and would like copies, please ask Barbara Hogg or John Turner. The annual reports are also in preparation.
Harvest Festival
Our Harvest Festival service will take place on Sunday October 10 at 10.30 a.m. Donations to the Methodist Charity All We Can are welcome, as are gifts of tinned or dried food for the East Yorkshire Foodbank. Other arrangements will be communicated shortly.
WANTED
a) We are still needing some extra church stewards to help on Sundays. We only have 4 and since we restarted Sunday worship, they have been needed every Sunday. Now we are back weekly it would help greatly to have some extra help. We have removed the need for counting and recording any collection from the duties undertaken. This will now be done as a separate job by 2 church members to replace the two previous banking stewards who have retired. Many thanks to Peter Lynn and Brian Elms for many years’ service. Contact John for more details of what will be required
b) For many years Dianne and Paul Myers supported the Leprosy Mission. One task they took on was to collect and sort used stamps. They were very committed to this cause. It would be a tribute to Dianne if someone else would volunteer to take this job on. There is a pile of stamps accumulating ready for you. Please contact Rev Fran or Elaine if you might be interested. This is a job which could be done and would help to fill a few dark winter evenings.
Meeting Dates
Monday 4 October, 7.30pm – Trustees
Saturday 9 October – URC Yorkshire Synod
Sunday 10 October, 10.30am – Harvest Festival
Monday 11 October, 7.30pm – Churches Together in Beverley
Tuesday 12 October, 7pm – Annual and Ordinary Congregational Meetings
Thursday 21 October, 7pm – Interim Leadership Team
Sunday 31 October, 3pm – Baptism of Louie Wilkinson, grandson of Sue Gilbert. Members of the congregation are welcome to attend.
Theology of Safeguarding Podcast 62 – recommended listening from Yorkshire N&E Synod
On the weekend of 11th and 12th September 2021 Toll Gavel Church presented a series of locally made exhibits as pert of Heritage Weekend 2021. Here they are.
John Wesley’s story part 1John Wesley’s story part 2John Wesley’s story part 3John Wesley’s story part 5John Wesley and his horsesJohn Wesley and basic medicineJohn Wesley: The world is my parishBarrow upon Haven ruffians
The Open Letter to the British Methodist Church, written in what feels like a Kairos moment, was shared in June 2020 and went on to receive over 700 signatures. Since then, all of the signatories have been invited to join in conversations via Zoom on several occasions to continue to dream and to develop the thinking of the Open Letter, exploring what needs to happen for its vision to be realised. It is now the start of Lent 2021, and the methodology using Open Space conversations continues. In this way, clear goals and objectives are emerging.
All We Can: This week we received the certificate from All We Can for the support given by TG members to the charity for the year ended August 31. It informs us that we gave £2055. This includes amounts given by individual members privately. Across the connexion £140,000 was raised to support the partner project in Cherkos in Ethiopia. I am pleased to inform you that we raised over £500 for the new partner project over the Harvest weekend. Some people also sent their donation direct.
Acts 435 I had a call from Alan Whitehead who came to speak to the group about the work of the charity. At the start of lockdown, we asked for help for a lady who occasionally visited the Centre Café. The charity has been able to provide her with a new vacuum cleaner and more recently with a new washing machine as both of hers had broken down. When her needs were advertised, the money was forthcoming within 24 hours. She is very appreciative of the help given.
I regularly receive national updates from Acts 435 HQ with request for help If you would like this forwarded please let me know.
Fairtrade
I was able to participate in Traidcraft’s on-line AGM at the end of September. They were able to report a profit of £22,000 for the year ended March 31 compared to a loss of £400,000 in the previous year. Turnover dropped by 33%. Costs also dropped substantially because of the reduction in staff. The company has seen a big shift in trading with on- line trading seeing a sharp rise. The current staff were congratulated for their energy, passion and commitment.
On Monday October 19 I was able to participate in the Yorkshire Fairtrade Region Conference held on-line. The keynote speaker was Erinch Sahan Chief Executive of the World Fairtrade Organisation. He told us we are a vision of the way trade should work, a business model with a focus on people and planet rather than profit. This was followed by a panel discussing questions which had been sent in. The panel included Subita Benerji CEO of THIRST, which focuses on working in the tea industry and exposing the exploitation of workers which still goes on. Dominique Muller also took part, and she is the Policy Director of Labour Behind the Label campaigning for better and fair working condition in the clothing industry. Also taking part was Tom Wills from Traidcraft Exchange. It was an inspiring evening! There was a plea at the end of the evening that when lockdown finally comes to an end that we do not return to ‘trade as usual’.
Christmas is Coming! We cannot sell or promote the purchase of Fairtrade products in the usual ways this Christmas as some churches are still closed and there will be no public events where we can have a stall. So, I have 40 copies of the Traidcraft catalogue in circulation and another 60 copies are due to arrive this week. The plan is to distribute them to as many TG, Norwood and Walkington members as possible. On most Saturdays we will be using the stalls in the church drive for special events and will include a Fairtrade stall. I have already received some substantial orders.
Personal: Barbara James was admitted to hospital early on Sunday morning
Hope you are all well and looking forward to winter!!
