The East Anglia Diocesan Youth Service exists to help young people in Norfolk, Suffolk, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough to connect with Jesus Christ and His Catholic Church. It carries out this mission by running pilgrimages and events, by providing support to parishes and schools and also through its Ignite Team, which visits schools and churches to run retreats, activities and workshops.
The Diocesan Youth Service publishes an annual newsletter summarising the passing year's activities, and the most recent newsletter, November 2024, has just been published - you can find copies in the church porch or you can read it online here.
We are very grateful to the North West Ipswich Big Local Trust which has recently made two grant awards to the parish to be used for improvements to our church hall. These are an award of £1,000 for participating in a Dragons Den event at the end of September and a further £3,000 towards refurbishing the kitchen. We are very grateful to the Trust for these awards which will greatly assist with our continuing activity to modernise our hall.
The gate to the right hand side of the church giving access to the memorial garden is padlocked and normally closed, thus preventing people from visiting without making prior arrangements with a key holder to give them access. To address this, the gate padlock has been changed for a combination lock. If you wish to visit the garden, please send an [javascript protected email address] and the combination will be sent to you. Your name and email address will also be added to a list and you will be automatically advised if, at any future time, the combination is changed.
Thank you all for the continuing generosity you show by your regular donations to the FIND tub in the church porch. We have been given a list of most needed items from FIND which is as follows:
FIND has also asked for fresh fruit and veg, but these should not be donated unless you can deliver these direct to their premises as they will perish if placed in our FIND tub at church.
Any of these items will be very gladly received but they are only suggestions - any and all donations that you can make will be very welcome and help others less fortunate than ourselves. Also, if anybody has any spare bags they could donate, these are always useful in distributing food.
We have also received a special thank you from Maureen Reynel, founder and director of FIND, for all our donations in the past and for our continuing support.
The 5 yearly cycles of giving and pledges as part of the Diocesan Alive in Faith fund raising initiative are now complete in all the parishes that signed up to take part, and the committee that oversaw its operation is now being rundown. The final newsletter from the Alive in Faith team has been issued and you can read it here.
With the warmer summer weather on its way (!), our thoughts turn to the wonderful garden that the parish is blessed to have available. Chrissie and Paul Riches work tirelessly to maintain this for us and do a fantastic job for which we should all be very grateful.
We want to encourage greater use of this tranquil space, and to that end if anybody has, or knows of, any garden benches that are, or are about to become, available, and could be donated to the parish, we would love to receive them to provide additional seating in the garden.
Please speak to Paul or Chrissie, or email [email protected] if you can help.
Would all those parishioners who normally make their weekly offering using Gift Aid envelopes please note that their new 2024/25 envelopes are now available for collection from the Narthex. If you can't find your envelopes in the box please write your name on the sheet provided for this purpose and they will be made available to you next week. If anyone who has already signed up to giving by Gift Aid has changed their address during the last year, or did not pay sufficient income or capital gains tax to cover the tax reclaimable on their offerings, then please notify either Fr. Luke, Fr. Paul or Chris Croker (Gift Aid Co-ordinator).
It has been suggested that we might start a craft group within the parish. Such a group would probably meet on a monthly basis in the afternoon or possibly an evening during the week. If you would be interested in such a venture, or would like to hear more information about this idea and the sorts of crafts that might be covered, then please contact Jean McSorley on 01473 462740 or by email to [email protected]
The latest Alive in Faith newsletter is available, providing updates on the project, the funds raised and their disposition. You can read the newsletter here.
On Ascension Day, the disciples, after watching Jesus ascend into heaven, are asked by two angels why they are standing looking into the sky when there is work to be done! We too are called to the same work the disciples were; to spread the Good News of Jesus, to be involved in our local communities doing good and to be involved in our own parish, helping out where ever possible.
As we begin to live lives more normally and as the Church calls us all back to practicing our faith each Sunday in person, it is a perfect time to take stock, to reflect and to think about how we can all get involved in all of these areas, but perhaps especially within the Parish. Could you help clean, could you help set up for Mass or tidy away afterwards, could you help welcome people, would you like to be an altar server, a reader, an Extraordinary Minister of the Eucharist? If you answer yes to any of these, please do speak to Fr Paul, or use the Contact Form to get in touch. Our parish relies on the help of its own parishioners to grow and flourish.
