Month: October 2016

Crown Court Christmas Cards and our 2017 Calendar will be available for sale from Sunday 13 November, so please don’t buy all your cards before that date!  And what better present for friends near and far than our calendar featuring the photographic skills of a number of our members – at least some of your gift problems solved!

The 500th anniversary of the beginning of the Reformation takes place in 2017, and members and friends of St Columba’s are planning a trip to Germany from Sunday 17 September until Saturday 23 September 2017 to visit Eisenach, Erfurt, Eisleben and Wittenberg, where Martin Luther lived and worked.

The indicative cost is likely to be around £650 per person, to include coach travel, Tunnel crossings and six nights dinner, bed and breakfast in 3 or 4 star hotels.

Members of Crown Court are warmly invited to join in this trip, and if you are interested and would like more information as plans progress, please contact Andrea or Neil Price on associateminister@stcolumbas.org.uk

Final confirmation is still awaited, but we are hopeful that the Tapestry, including our own panel showing some of the history of the church, will be exhibited in Westminster Hall from 20 March to 29 April 2017.

This will be the final exhibition of the Tapestry on its way home to Scotland from its world tour.

In conjunction with the Scottish organisers, we will be responsible for organising a rota of people to be present in the Hall each day.  Providing cover for 6 weeks will be challenge, but we hope that many of you will be able to spare some time to help out.  Further information will be available in due course, but in the meantime, do put the dates in your diary!

This year’s Christmas Market will be held in the hall on Saturday 19 November from 11.30 am to 3.30 pm.  Our famous jams, preserves, home baking and tablet will be on sale as usual, together with gifts, crafts, and plants.  There will be games and competitions with prizes and the ever-popular lucky numbers stall, and we have it on good authority that a visitor from Lapland has been booked!  Ploughman’s lunches, tea, coffee and cakes will be available at any time all day, so you won’t go hungry!

Please put the date in your diary and come along to support this event in the church calendar.  We will be looking for people to help man the stalls, serve refreshments, contribute baking for the cake stall and the teas, hand out fliers in Covent Garden Piazza and other necessary tasks.  And if you have any other ideas for the Market, please speak to the Church Secretary.

The next conference for anyone interested in exploring how God might be calling them to serve will be held on 5 November at The Royal George Hotel, Perth.  Please see the Church of Scotland website for further details.

This event will take place at St Columba’s Church, Pont Street, at 6.30 pm on Wednesday 2 November, and is part of an initiative by the Church of Scotland to find out what local churches are looking for from the church nationally.  This is for everyone interested in the church, not just ministers and office bearers.  Please sign up at http://churchofscotland.eventbrite.com  and don’t miss this opportunity to make your voice heard.

118 599 is a low cost directory enquiries number which costs only 61p flat charge per call (BT line: other operators may charge more), of which 10p goes to CrossReach.  If you use directory enquiries, why not use this number and so help CrossReach, the social care arm of the Church of Scotland