News

Whats going on at St Collen's and the Mission Area of Valle Crucis...

 

The last time you received an update from us on what’s new at St. Collen’s, we were about to begin the major project of restoring and repairing the church tower. Well--it is a great joy now to see the tower work at St Collen’s finished. The clock face is stunning we’re sure you’d agree. The complete undertaking turned out to be much more extensive and took longer than at first anticipated. Since the cost was more than expected as well, we had to delve heavily into our reserves. Consequently, we are planning some fundraisers, such as the car boot sale we recently held. We hope you will support us in our efforts to replenish our funds, so we can continue to serve the community by making the church available for services and other activities.

APPOINTMENT OF
NEW VICAR

 

The Reverend Lee Taylor
We are delighted to announce the appointment of The Reverend Lee Taylor as the new Vicar of Llangollen, Trevor and Llantysilio.

The Bishop will hold his third General Visitation at Llangar Church, Cynwyd, on Sunday 8th October at 3.30pm.

The Diocesan Conference is being held in St Joseph's High School, Wrexham, on Saturday 7th October from 10am. Paul Galloway will be attending for the church.

You may have noticed that Kel has been busy during the summer tidying up the churchyard at St Collen's.  

I thought it might be a good idea to encourage people to make a donation this harvest season to planting some shrubs to go in the border that he has created between the railings and the churchyard? Something bright and colourful like azaleas, camellias, hydrangeas and so on would be planted in the Autumn to enhance the beauty of the of the church grounds.

Hi! Welcome to our newsletter from Paul the Hall.

It's the middle of February already, the snowdrops are out in abundance and Andrew took the Snowdrop Service at Llantysilio church on Sunday. It was well attended despite the unpleasant weather.

Daffodils are pushing through in St Collens churchyard and Tom is sweeping up all the twigs and branches that the recent gales brought down. He has started excavating the ground to prepare a new footpath to the bell tower so that the ringers do not carry mud and grass up into the ringing room. They are intending to spruce it up and do not want it spoiled.

We are obtaining prices for replacing the slate surrounds to both the clocks on the bell tower. They are delaminating and will become dangerous if nothing is done. We need a cherry picker that can reach about fifty feet if anyone has got one.....

The coping stones on the very top of the bell tower are porous and need pointing and there is a certain amount of vegetation to be removed from up there. The walls in the bell-chamber are marked with the water that has got through and the timber beams are very damp, which is not good. I hope that we will have it all sorted out properly during this summer.

We had the lightning conductors tested last week. Believe it or not we have ten of them! The bad news is that they all failed. so, another headache for the facilities manager and for the treasurer. We await the full report with bated breath.

The hall has been repainted recently along with several other rooms and so the place is looking greate. Caroline keeps us spotless and is busy arranging the new on line booking system on our website. Give it a browse and see what you think.

We said farewell this week to Sue Wells who has held regular Pilates classes here for a long time. We wish her well in her new studio. A new dance group, Dance Zone, are a new regular fixture for Tuesday evenings from 5:00pm onwards. Sian Roberts is the instructor and they have their own Facebook page. She can be contacted on 07711889452 or This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

There was a meeting of the church council last week where the chairman Jonathan Abbatt, proposed that we go for 100% green energy when we renew our electricity supply in April. We have just moved our other utilities to Utility Warehouse and anticipate a saving of around fifteen hundred pounds per annum.

The vexed problem of people abusing our hospitality when parking their cars was raised and a plan of action was agreed which will come into effect on the 1st March 2017. Details will be publicised very soon.

At our recent Sunday luncheon in support of Shelter Cymru Andrew presented a cheque for a thousand pounds that we had raised to the local co-ordinator. Great lunch. With thanks to all our supporters. 

More info soon. PG