Bits and Bobs
Instead of a letter this month, I hope no-one minds if I offer a couple of adverts?
All-new Parish History Website
We now have a parish history website which you can find at https://www.fletchingparishhistory.org.uk/
How did this come about? Many of you will remember the wonderful parish history displays organized mainly by
Barrie Dickens and Geoff Isted?
These have been a regular event in the life of the parish for some years, appearing at major festivals and celebrations. Three years ago, our Parish Council acquired part of this collection to help preserve it for the future. The Parish Council is now working with Geoff Isted to incorporate that part of the collection too.
A few of us felt that this amazing archive which represents, in a way, our collective memory, should be freely available to everyone. The end result is this new website which anyone with access to the internet can visit at any time!
Created by Liberty Schofield, it has been part-funded in memory of Roy Lingham (from the proceeds of his books of memories) and by Fletching Church and will be maintained going forward by our Parish Council. It would be great if the collection could continue to be added to and we welcome electronic copies (ideally) of photos and articles to add to the archive. We’d also like to add ‘audio files’ to link to the photos to share people’s spoken memories of those photos. If you’d like to record a memory to link to something in the archive, please let me know.
The Organ Refurbishment begins.
The major refurbishment of the church organ which, costing £80,000, was fully funded in record time, is about to begin. The contractor, Andrew Cooper, will be on site from June 30th. The work will take several months and, hopefully, be finished by Christmas. Early next year, the Bishop will rededicate the instrument and there will be a concert given by an internationally known organist, Daniel Moult, in March. Interestingly, the Friends of Fletching Parish Church charity was originally formed in the 1990s to raise money for work to the organ. The work we are undertaking now is, however, the first root and branch refurbishment since the instrument was installed almost 150 years ago.
The Church Council will work hard to keep the church open in the way we are all used to but, occasionally, we may have to lock it. Our sincere apologies for this in advance, but we hope you’ll understand and … normal service will be restored by Christmas!