Liz’s Letter 13/11/2022

Dear All
Hope you have had a good week.
This Sunday morning we will gather to worship as usual at 10am. Our service will include an Act of Remembrance and two minutes silence at 11am. We will also be hearing a special testimony for Remembrance Sunday and dedicating the Operation Christmas Child Shoeboxes. On that note, please do bring your shoeboxes on Sunday and leave them in the foyer – they will be brought forward during the service.

Brenda Gaisford and Jean Moat
Please do continue to remember Brenda and Jean’s families in your prayers as they mourn the loss of these two special ladies and prepare for their funerals.
The service of thanksgiving for Brenda will take place on this Monday, 14th November, at 10 am at church. There will be a family committal afterwards at the Crematorium. Please continue to pray for Brenda’s family at this time.
The service of thanksgiving for Jean will take place on Tuesday 6th December at 12.30 pm at church.
Jean and Brenda were faithful Christian ladies and amongst the sadness we give thanks for the knowledge that they are now with their Lord, suffering and struggling no more.

Warm Welcome Hub
A group of us met on Monday to consider the potential way forward of opening up the church premises as a Warm Welcome Hub.
We arrived at the following plan:

• We open up the Warm Welcome Hub on Mondays from 9am to 3pm
• Teas and coffees and cup a soup will be offered along with cake
• A board games table, jigsaw puzzle, toddler area etc to be set up and folk encouraged to bring any books or crafts they might like to do
• We envisage needing a minimum of 3 people per session (9-12 and then 12-3pm) each day, one to oversee the galley and others to oversee the main church area and be on hand to talk etc.
• We have set up an e-mail address
  warmhub@plumeavenuechurch.org.uk for the administration of the warm hub rotas etc.
• We will start on 5th December and meet on 12th and 19th. We will then have a 2 week break for Christmas and the New Year and restart on 9th January.

We would therefore like to encourage anyone who is available to sign up to help. We also need cake makers.
If you are able to help please e-mail warmhub@plumeavenuechurch.org.uk with your available dates as soon as possible.
Sue Watt will be drawing this rota together for which we are very grateful.
If you have any questions or suggestions please do let us know.
This is a really exciting opportunity to come alongside the residents of the Prettygate Community and has wonderful mission opportunities.
Please do prayerfully consider giving some time to this if you can. The more volunteers we get the less pressure there will be on a small group of people.

Ladies Retreat Day
Jill Ball has kindly offered to sort out our transport arrangements for the retreat day to Assington on 10th December. She writes: “The retreat day at Assington will soon be here. It would be great if we could all travel together, where possible. If you are able to offer a lift, please fill in the sheet with your name, how many you can take and where you live (Prettygate, Stanway, Town etc) so we can try and match people who live near each other. If you’d like a lift, please write your name and where you live (Prettygate, Stanway, Town etc) so we can find you someone close by to take you.
If you’ve already made arrangements with someone, check with them first before putting your name here so we don’t double book anyone!”

CAP Christmas Hampers
CAP are collecting finance gifts to be able to provide Christmas Hampers for all of their 77 clients. If you are able to donate to these, please use their Christmas giving page
www.stewardship.org.uk/pages/colchestercapdebtcentre
£10 would help us buy a gift for a child
£35 would buy a hamper for an individual
£60 would buy a hamper for a large family.
Advent and Christmas.
These are the dates of the Advent and Christmas services and events. We need people to help with the refreshments for the Nativity trail on 11th December. We will also need some help with packing goodie bags for this. Please let me know if you are able to help with either or both of these.

This week
This is a homegroup week and will be the final Paraclesis homegroup sessions. The Tuesday evening homegroup will meet on Zoom at 7.30pm as usual. We will also have the prayer meetings on Wednesday and Saturday, both at 9.30am. All the Zoom details for these will be sent out early in the week.

With love and blessings,