News from the Square

News from Beyond

Below, you will find news items concerning the Square Methodist Church, and the groups that are associated with it.

Items are arranged in date-received order, newest first, so once you reach something you have already seen, you can stop reading! 

Below, you will find news items received from external organisations, that may be of interest.

Items are arranged in date-received order, newest first, so once you reach something you have already seen, you can stop reading!

Superintendent's Christmas Message

Received 19 December

The Reverend Patrick Kandeh, Circuit Superintendent Minister, has sent this Christmas message to all in the Circuit.

Shambles Show

Received 4 October

Thank You from The Church to the Burrett Family for producing & delivering this year's Big Band Show on Saturday 28th Sept & securing an extra £500, by way of matched funding, on top of the large amount of money raised on the night for Action for Children (formerly NCH) - our own children's charity.

Shambles Band was on excellent form & as ever, got everyone swinging!

Many grateful thanks to all who helped in any way & attended (including our Mayor, cllrs. & friends) in spite of some very heavy storms during the previous days. 

Thanks again, keep a watch out for the next show as Shambles will be appearing again during the year & never disappoint !

Let's End Poverty

Received 2 January

Let's End Poverty has delivered 500 postcards to 10 Downing Street. Learn more about it here.

Staying safe this winter

Received 29 November

We have received three pieces of advice about different aspects of staying safe:
Accessing NHS healthcare
Scam Alerts
Staying safe in severe weather

Zimbabwe Victims' Support Fund

Received 18 November

ZVSF is appealing for continued support for its efforts to relieve food poverty in drought-stricken Zimbabwe. Please see their latest newsletter, or visit their website for more information.

South Beds Craftivists

Received 21 October

You may be aware of the existence of the South Bedfordshire Craftivists Group as we were responsible for instigating the creation of a ‘town’ of model houses for the Circuit Service on the Downs last year (2023) – picture below – to which a number of churches contributed. Our aim was to use craft skills to raise awareness of housing issues – and postcards were sent to MPs.

We have also engaged in a number of other projects which can be seen on our new Facebook Page.

Our latest project is an installation of woven hoops celebrating the planet – photos below – and again there have been workshops contributing to this in several churches.

We are a group of people, currently from the Methodist Circuit though willing to expand, engaged in using our craft skills to help work towards social justice. Craftivism is a gentle form of activism designed to create positive change.

We meet either in person or on zoom on the first Tuesday of the month. 

On 5th November we will meet at the Farmer’s Boy pub in Kensworth to eat puddings and to plan a service on eco/creation theme to go with the hoops installation around the circuit.

3rd December we will meet (probably on Zoom) to plan our strategy of where we might offer to take the hoops installation to Local Arrangement Services etc around the Circuit (and elsewhere?) or to offer it to churches together with the service we have crafted that they can use themselves. Also on that date we will consider our next piece of craftivism around cost of living etc (Designing an art piece we can create from the items most needed by Foodbank or Noah)

We might use some time in our meetings for reflection on 'why' we do this stuff - either using resources from All We Can or picking a Bible passage to chew over (and we did a bit of quick thinking in our October meeting of the different interpretations around "give to Caesar what is Caesar's and to God what is God's" as an example!)

If anyone would like to join us at any point please contact Jenny on jenny.spouge@methodist.org.uk – especially if you want to join us in November as we might need to book a bigger table!

Thank you

(click images to enlarge)

Learning Network Brochure

Received 21 October

The 2024-25 Learning Network brochure is now ready! Please see this link.

District Bulletin

Received 16 October

Beds, Essex and Herts Methodist District has initiated a District Bulletin, something we hope will evolve moving forward to be a useful tool for sharing information across the District.

Read the first edition here.