Documents for this meeting are below
Churches Together in Felixstowe
Agenda AGM & Forum Meetings
Wednesday 14th November 2018, 7.30pm at Convent of Jesus & Mary, Orwell Road
This is an open meeting and you are welcome to attend. Any voting will be by Forum members only.
1 Welcome and Opening Devotions
2 Attendance & Apologies
3 Accuracy, approval & signing of minutes of last Forum meeting held 2nd May 2018
4. Moderator’s Report
5. Homelessness – Damien Laverty
6. Dementia Friendly Churches
7. Prayers for the Town.
Items for any other business should be sent prior to meeting
to Hon Secretary, Sue Hockenhull: 01394 279368 or: sue.hockenhull@yahoo.co.uk
Moderator’s Report November 2018
1. Felixstowe Carnival has taken place where, for the first time, we had a Fun and Faith Tent on the seafront. There was much support from the churches and many willing volunteers, with much fellowship on the Saturday. Unfortunately, due to severe weather, the Carnival was shut down on the Sunday. Fun & Faith has been enabled by CTF to establish a committee to lead outreach initiatives.
2. On the Ministerial front, we bade farewell to Rev Mark Kichenside and Philippa in June as they retired to Devon. Christ Church is now interregnum. URC Felixstowe welcomed Rev David Rees as their Minister in October, with pastoral charge of 4 churches and will reside in Ipswich. In October Rev Caroline Allen retired as Priest in Charge of St Mary’s, Walton and St Martin’s, Trimley and the Parish is now interregnum. Rev Stephen Yelland has now replaced Rev Diane Smith as onshore chaplain to the Port.
3. Over the Christmas period there will be a CTF crib display in an empty shop window which will also display a poster detailing our Christmas services. To help with the compiling please bring details of your Christmas services to the Forum meeting if possible (we suggest 3 services e.g. carol service, Christmas Eve, Christmas Day).
A CTF tree will be submitted to the Salvation Army Tree Festival. It will include the churches, organisations we support and CTF events we do together – images have been taken from websites in the public domain.
4. To comply with GDPR (new data protection regulations) your secretary has sought permission to continue using your email address for the purposes of circulating CTF information and advertising events. If you no longer wish to be on the circulation list please contact sue.hockenhull@yahoo.co.uk The current circulation list has 120 names and is proving a popular way to advertise widely what we are doing in our churches.
5. In January 2019 there will be Week of Prayer for Christian Unity running Friday 18th – Friday 25th January. We plan a Pilgrimage Saturday morning 19th January.
The United Service will be Sunday 20th January 6.30pm at St Andrew’s with speakers Sheila & Paul Taylor (Hope Trust), a united choir, compere Josh Hunt (Boost). The service will focus on our work in the town. Retiring Collection will be in aid of Fun & Faith.
Let us know if you would like to hold a special prayer event during this Week.
6. We plan to organise an Ecumenical Lent Course based on the film “Darkest Hour” made up of 5 sessions, each with a different theme, dealing with leadership, followers & politics.
7. The monthly Town Prayers group continue to meet faithfully at Trinity Methodist Church and we thank them for their dedication to prayer for our churches, organisation, our events and our town.
8. We shall be holding our usual Good Friday service at the Triangle and Sunrise Service, Easter Day on the seafront.
9. Attached is an article by Julia Hancock on the Ipswich Night Shelter giving insights into homelessness from her local experience. Please circulate this information as you see fit. We are looking for someone willing to gather information on what is available in Felixstowe for the homeless e.g. from churches, organisations. This could then be circulated to CTF contacts to better inform us & help us respond more appropriately to the need.
10. Helen Greengrass, Felixstowe Futures, is leading an initiative for Felixstowe to become a Dementia Friendly Town. She would welcome churches becoming dementia friendly & is able to lead a short training course. We hope to arrange a half-day course for CTF.
11. Future Forum meetings are planned for:-
Thursday 9th May 2019 at 7.30pm.
Wednesday 13th November 2019 at 7.30pm.
We shall be asking for churches willing to host.
12. These initiatives would not be possible without a dedicated team called the CTF Steering Group who represent a variety of churches and denominations who meet regularly to coordinate and organise on behalf of CTF.
Rev Andrew Dotchin, Moderator
Minutes of the previous meeting
