CHURCH
HARVEST FESTIVAL
There will be a week-end of activities and celebrations over 23rd/24th October!
On Saturday 23rd, there will be a Harvest/Autumn Craft Workshop in the afternoon for all the children to join in to make things to decorate the church for Harvest, including corn dollies, leaf rubbings and making bread (see below). In the evening, there will be a party for the whole village to get together, with cheese, wine and nibbles – this will be held at 6.00pm, so that families can attend. Everyone is welcome and it would be lovely to see a really good gathering from the village. More details to follow (keep an eye out on the Facebook page)!
On Sunday 24th, our usual fourth Sunday service at 10.00am will be an opportunity to thank our local farmersand celebrate the harvest. Please come and join us. We will also be celebrating Jonathan’s safe return from the first half of his pilgrimage to Rome (see below).
Produce for Harvest and Decorating the Church
Please let Olivia and Dee know if you’d be able to help with decorating the church for Harvest: providing home-grown fruit and vegetables or flower arrangements. Last year, the church looked magnificent and it would be wonderful if we could do the same this year.
VESTRY/VILLAGE SNUG
We are very pleased to have transformed the vestry and kitchen into an area that can be used by the whole village (see Teresa’s entry – Village Hub – below). We would particularly like to thank Alison Sackley for hervery generous donation of furniture from Ed and Joy’s house. This is a venture that we are sure they would have wholeheartedly supported and it’s therefore particularly fitting that we have this to remind us of all they did for the church and village as a whole.
RAISE THE ROOF – SPONSORED WALK
Please support the Raise the Roof Appeal. We need to raise £15K to repair the north side of the roof and a further £30K to carry out repairs inside, including £8K to improve the heating (which everyone agrees is a top priority!). Jonathan is now over halfway through the first stage of his sponsored walk to Rome, currently walking through northern France and I am pleased to report that he’s had no blisters so far! He is writing a daily blog http://pilgrimsprogress.blog, which is full of anecdotes and photographs and is a mini history lesson each day intself, with fascinating information about the villages he’s passing through. It is free to subscribe to this to keep updated. Many have already kindly asked how to sponsor him and we now have a JustGiving pagehttps://www.justgiving.com/fundraising/jonathan-dutton5 We are still waiting for the final step from HMRC for the Gift Aid link, to take advantage of the extra 25%, but have been informed that we can claim this retrospectively. This is an amazing undertaking, which Jonathan is self-funding, so all the money donated will go to the Raise the Roof Appeal
VILLAGE NEWS
Village Hub
The Church and the VPS have been working together to create the “Village Hub”, an area within the church where people from the village can come and have meetings/workshops or just chill. It is located within the church and consists of The Snug, complete with comfy seating for smaller groups, and a kitchen area which has seating round a table and is ideal for larger groups. Tea and coffee making facilities are available. We hope over the coming months we will be able to make use of this space and the facilities and create a place which evolves to the village’s requirements.
Make, Meet and Mend
In line with the Harvest Celebrations, it would be nice to make an autumnal themed fabric garland to decorate the Village Snug. If you have any fabric or old clothing that you are happy to donate in reds, oranges, greens or browns these would be very welcome, if you’d like to come along and take part, we meet last Tuesday of each month, the next meeting is on Tuesday 28th September at 7.30pm or if you’d like to arrange a drop off or collection please email winterbournestokevps@gmail.com.
Childrens Craft Workshop
As part of the Harvest festivities a themed, free craft workshop will be held at the Village Hub located at St. Peter’s Church on Saturday 23rd October. If you’d like to come and take part, please email the winterbournestokevps@gmail.com. Refreshments will be available on the day. Look out for further info on the village notice boards and Facebook page.
Harvest Gallery
Many people have been growing their own vegetables (maybe from the packs of seed put together by the VPS in the Spring). Bring a photo of your success or failures or just you having fun and pin it on the notice board at the Village Hub!
Halloween – Trick or Treating
Every year the village children go Trick or Treating about the village. This year Halloween falls on a Sunday. It generally starts quite early, from just after dark for about an hour or so as most of the children are quite young. If you would like to take part and don’t mind the children knocking at your door please could you leave a decoration outside to show the children it’s ok to knock. Alternatively, if you are away or don’t want a door knock but equally would like to take part, you could leave treats at the end of the drive or on the doorstep. It is always a delight to both the children and accompanying adults to see the houses that have been decorated.
VILLAGE HISTORY
We are grateful to Andy Shuttleworth for providing this month’s entry:
The Dodgy Vicar!
In 1815 George Baring (1781-1854), having only been vicar of Winterbourne Stoke for about a year, seceded from the Church of England and, with his sister Harriet, was joined by a small number of other clergy from southwest England in what became known as the Western Schism. Their doctrines were described as being “unstable”, but they are said to have held a “high Calvinist view of Particular Redemption (no atonement for the reprobate) and tended to antinomianism” (which comes from the Greek anti, “against”; nomos, “law”), which has been described recently as a doctrine promoting sex, drugs and rock and roll – a neo-Corinthian, living in ‘chambering and wantonness’.
The two doctrines appear to be polar opposites, or perhaps George Baring really was, to all outward appearances, a strict and joyless man who was promoting hedonistic pleasures on the quiet. Given that as a young man, before being ordained deacon in 1813 and priest in 1814, he had worked as a writer for the East India Company and lost a fortune speculating on opium, that seems highly likely.
He resigned from Winterbourne Stoke and went to preach at the Octagon Chapel in Taunton where he lived at Walford House. His hedonism continued and his extravagant lifestyle eventually bankrupted him in 1828, whereupon his brothers packed him off to Italy for many years. He was eventually allowed to return to England and is said to have lived quietly until his death near Southampton.
George was linked to the same Baring family who owned much of Berwick St James and founded Baring’s Bank. They also made money from slavery. That said, they were also instrumental in stopping children being used to clean chimneys in England. Clearly, the whole family was a mass of contradictions.
Winterbourne Stoke entries
Olivia Dutton collates the news from Winterbourne Stoke to submit to the Parish Magazine. Please contact her on 01980 621247/07760 618078 or olivia.dutton@outlook.com. The deadline for going to print is noon of 16thof the month, so please make sure to send it to her by 14th of each month.