St Mary's: Proposed North Aisle Project - A vision for transforming the North Aisle at St Mary's into a vital community resource was introduced at a public meeting, to which all villagers were invited, at St Mary's Feltwell on the evening of Monday 27th June 2011.
The meeting began with an historical overview by the Rector. St Mary's has stood at the heart of Feltwell for hundreds of years. It is both a glorious historic building and a living entity - the church for all the people of the parish. In the Middle Ages St Mary's was the hub of the community, as important for secular local functions as for religious ones. The nave of the church doubled as the village hall, the site of harvest and other festivals and village "ales" - fundraisers for the upkeep of the church fittings and fabric.
Over the centuries, each generation has left its mark on St Mary's. Some "marks" are more visible than others...the spectacular medieval angel roof, richly carved Tudor pews, vandalism to pews and holy objects at the hands of Tudor and Cromwellian thugs who delighted in smashing up beauty in the name of religion, the glorious Victorian "Gothic" stained glass which is justly famous, and the contentious 19th century extension of the North Aisle. Each generation has acted as custodian - preserving, beautifying - or not - but valuing the building, even if its significance as a community meeting place diminished over time.
In our own time, the community potential of St Mary's is once more to the fore. We need to recover the sense of the Church as community space. St Mary's is first and foremost sacred space, but it is also community space because the Christian Faith is grounded in the formation of community. To open out this space for both worship and secular activity is to acknowledge that all of life is sacred and that through local community we find ways of cooperating together, of working together, caring for each other and forgiving each other - all core values of what it means to be Christian.
This huge North Aisle offers tremendous scope for development as a community resource. Yet it cannot happen without broad community input and support and the goodwill of this community is vital if the project is to proceed and become a valuable rescourse for this village. My vision as Rector is that this space can be developed - in sympathy with the building - to make it available to the village in ways that will work in the present - in our time - but will be sufficiently flexible for future generations to adapt to their changing needs.
Sue Garland as spokesperson for the PCC subcommittee which has been responsible over the past few months for initial consulation involving most village interest groups, presented a summary of their findings. The children's and youth groups consulted were unanimous in wanting a "quiet space". Community groups consulted were:
Archaeological and Historical Society/Art Club/Beavers & Cubs/British Legion/Brownies/
Friends of St Mary's/Guides/Golf Club/Parish Council/Trefoil Guild/Women's Institute,
and visitors to the Church
Stuart Samuels presented an architect's initial digital concept, grand and imaginative in its conception and scope, along with Freeland, Rees, Roberts, the Diocean Architects, more traditional concept, to spark ideas...
Scilla Latham, the Church Buildings Support Officer from the Diocese of Ely explained her role as supporting rural communities to look after and make the best possible use of their parish churches by supporting projects to extend the use of the church for local community organisations and events.
Chris Parker spoke briefly about the way forward - processes and paperwork.
Where to from here?
Following this meeting, St Mary's Parish Parochial Council (PCC) which is the body, together with the Rector and Churchwardens, responsible under church law for the maintenance and fabric of St Mary's will set up a Project Board to oversee the concept and move it forward. This first stage will be correlating feedback from the public meeting, with group and individual feedback offered so far to enable the Project Board to formalise an Architecural brief and to identify potenital sources of funding.
The brief will be tendered to at least 3 architects in our region. Once we have a scheme which meets desired needs we will embark on securing the required approvals & funding.
This village community will be kept informed of the ongoing progress of the brief & your input, feedback & support will be sought & encouraged at each stage.
this is an exciting new prospect for this village & one which I hope we will all get behind & support so that St Mary's lives on into the 21st century once more as a vital, lively hub of village life.
Joan Horan, Rector
Art Exhitbition & Sale 31st July to 4th August 2010
This was held as part of the Norfolk Open Churches Week and we were extremely please with the response and would like to thank all the artists who made this possible. There were approximately 150 pieces of art on display of which 22 were sold and we are told by 'those in the know' that this is an extremely good result in the current financial climate. Approximately £500 was made for the North Aisle Project as a result of the artwork sales and from the various other items for sale. A big thank you goes to all those who made some lovely cakes for our cake stall. It was nice to see so many people, young and not so young, coming along to have a go at bell ringing, we hope you all enjoyed yourselves. Many thanks to Chris Cock and Peter Cooper for arranging to display some of the record books and scrap books from Feltwell Museum, these proved to be extremely popular and a lot of reminiscing was done amongst the visitors (and the Committee!)
Congratulations to Mary Diamond who won the £20 prize in the Finders Keepers game.
A huge thank you goes to Sheila O'Brien for all her advice, encouragement, enthusiasm (which seems endless) and hard work in helping to get this exhibition off the ground.
We are hoping that we can repeat the event in 2012 - so if you are an artist you have plenty of warning!
Visit to Stanford Training Area 10th August 2010
Didn't we have a lovely time the day we went to Stanford! Ok maybe that should be Bangor but even so we had a lovely time! We sold every ticket, the evening saw some glorious weather and we had the most fantastic tour guide. Many thanks to everyone who came along. The tour mad approximately £210 for the North Aisle Project and although there is no official charge for the tour the organisers do request we make a donation to their chosen charity. This year they have chosen Help for Heroes and a donation of £150 was made a good result all round!
Chairman's Report Annual General Meeting May 2010
As Chairman I would like to welcome you all to the third Annual General Meeting of the Friends of St. Mary’s.
This meeting sees the conclusion of three years of activities to raise funds for the St. Mary’s roof repairs and also the beginning of fundraising for the North Aisle Project.
The last twelve months have seen the repairs to the roof completed which three years ago seemed a rather daunting task. Fortunately the committee’s organisational ability and fundraising success has outstripped any expectations held by the original committee back in 2007. To read more....
AGM Treasurers Report May 2010
The 2009 / 2010 accounts were audited by Peter Jessop and found that balances reflect the true financial position of the Friends of st Mary's church feltwell fund raising account To read more.......
Chairman's Report Annual General Meeting Thursday 14th May 2009
As Chairman of the friends committee for the last twelve months it gives me much pleasure to report that we have had another incredibly successful year, which Chris our Treasurer will give details of shortly.
The Friends committee formed two years ago to undertake the fundraising needed in the community to help secure an English Heritage grant and at that time it seemed unlikely to many people that we would be able to raise any substantial amount of money. However, the committee were determined the money would be raised as quickly as possible by getting the village interested enough to support our events and to give generously to the cause. To Read more....
AGM Treasurers Report Thursday 14th May 2009
The 2007/2008 accounts were audited by Peter Jessop and found that balances reflect the true financial position of St. Mary’s Church, Feltwell. To Read more....