18 Sep Heritage Day & Tower Abseil

 

Heritage Open Days is the country’s largest heritage festival. Celebrating local history, architecture and culture, it offers everyone the chance to see hidden places and experience something new.

– Registers of baptism, confirmation and marriage, dating from early to mid 20th century up to date, available to inspect

– Guided or self-guided tours of the church

– Information on First World War including casualties from Walton and New Zealand

– Refreshments

and much much more… including; 

 

Abseiling down the tower, DO YOU DARE?

 

REGISTER NOW! – Early bird rate £35 if you register before Monday 16th August (thereafter £40)

We are asking each person to raise a minimum of £100 for the church in addition to the registration fee which covers the costs of the day.

 

 

 

Why are we fundraising?

Help us to improve our provision for retired people, offer more for teenagers, grow our support networks for young families. We want St Mary’s & St John’s to be the centre of our community,  shining God’s light on our town, seeking to reach all who might gain from our ministry.

 

As our churches continue to navigate through these challenging times and as we move to restart activities, life will continue to be different. Yet, in spite of the circumstances, ministry is thriving:

 

– We have maintained a strong online presence throughout lockdown, with weekly services and for many weeks, daily reflections.

– All Age service weekly on Zoom.

– Regular weekly evening services on Zoom.

– Weekly Toddler’s Praise on Zoom.

– Many people have received phone calls to show care and offer friendship and help.

– We have done several collections for the Foodbank, which you have generously supported, and we have provided free premises for it to operate from.

– We have shopped, collected items and cared for friends and people in the community who have asked us.

– We have paid for essential items for hard-pressed members of our community.

 

As a Church, we are self-supporting, depending on the donations of those who attend to pay for all God’s work through this Church.  We do NOT receive any external funding from the Church of England or anywhere else. We want to continue the valuable ministry of the Churches in our community, offering baptisms, funerals and weddings, ministry to retired people, youth, children and people of all ages. As a Church we support many initiatives in the local community including the Foodbank.

 

Indeed, we not only want the ministry to continue but we have great vision for it to grow; expanding, to serve our town and our community by providing for the people of Walton-on-Thames but we can’t do that without funds. Currently, we are running a deficit budget, and so we first need to cover our existing costs.

 

We hope that you will be able to take part in this exciting event and experience first-hand the pride we take in supporting our church and our community and if you can’t take part perhaps you will consider volunteering or offering sponsorship. Your commitment & generosity will make a difference to both our churches and our community by allowing us to not only continue in our current work but to build and grow in other areas.