With the sad demise of the Anchor Boys, we have seen the end of an era in the history of our church. Despite great efforts at recruitment by Pauline and Valerie, the group has never really got off the ground, and with capitation fees to Battalion, London District and HQ swallowing up all the boys’ subscriptions and more, it was no longer financially viable.

The story started in 1919, when local solicitor Bertram White started a company of the Boys’ Life Brigade. In 1926 this merged with the Boys’ Brigade, and was very successful until the post-war years when the Company faded out to be replaced by a Scout Troop in 1958, with Dick Denman in charge. This in its turn collapsed mainly as a result of Dick’s untimely death in 1968.  In 1971 George Smith re-started the BB, which eventually grew into a large company with three sections and over a hundred people on its books. Its bugle and drum band was very successful, and went on to win the top London District Band Award, the Devonshire Cup, eight times in ten years, and provided the Fanfare Team at the Royal Review at Windsor Castle in 1994. Soon after this time, the Company started haemorrhaging older boys and much of its staff; the subsequent merging of Junior and Company Sections was tried, but did not halt the decline and these sections closed in 2002. Even the opening of Unity Hall could not revive the patient. Pauline and Valerie have tried for the last three years to keep the Anchor Section going, but have now bowed to the inevitable.

While remembering all the boys who have been through the ranks, we thank all those who have helped with the Brigade over the years, and the Church for its support.

But, ‘The King is Dead, Long Live the King!’ We wish Valerie success with the successor to the Anchor Boys, be it known as ‘Monday Zone’ or any other name. And I would repeat Valerie’s plea for staff to help in running this new venture. Don’t let her call go un-answered!

So the church has decided for the time being to remain as Epsom URC – and this at a time when we hear that Dorking URC is also considering the adoption of a new name! Was the criterion of 70% in favour of a name too stringent? Were people put off by the costs of new name boards? Or was not enough consideration put into how people see us, rather than how we see ourselves? I don’t know: but I expect that the idea will lie fallow for a time, and will re-emerge. Until then we will still be getting letters addressed to ‘Epson United Reform Church’!

And finally, we welcome back Gwen Edwards, who attended our church in the 60’s and 70’s. She has recently returned to Epsom, and has lost no time in seeing who still remembered her.

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Dear Friends,

Do you know the story of the feeding of the 5000? There are a few different versions of it in the gospels, and sometimes they all get rolled into one. Matthew tells us that the disciples wanted to send the crowds away to buy food, but Jesus says no, they must provide the food. What was a problem for the crowd, now becomes a problem for the disciples. When they say that they have nothing but only five loaves and two fish, Jesus tells them to bring them to him. It is enough. They are to bring what they have.

And there is surely something very wonderful about this response of Jesus. They could bring what they had and Jesus would make it enough. Many of us think that what we can do is not good enough. Or we feel that the little we might be able to give will not be enough to do anything worthwhile. Perhaps we think that small gestures of kindness and generosity won't make any difference. Maybe we have an idea that if we are young, no one will listen to us, or if we are old, we might feel as though we are no longer appreciated, because we don’t move quickly enough. Jesus says to all of us, what we have will be enough if we offer it.

Who do we know who needs to be encouraged? Who might benefit from a word of appreciation for what they do, however little it might seem? As a congregation, we have lots of resources: finance, people, buildings. How do we offer them to God now? How else might they be offered? Do we take ourselves for granted?

Peace

Pat

Sheila, our Secretary, and George are currently on holiday with fmily.  Sheila left notes for me, so here we go:

The results of the recent poll to decide whether we should adopt a new name for our church were announced at the Church Meeting in July.

It had previously been agreed that a majority of 70% would be necessary in order to adopt a new name. When the votes were counted, there were 24 in favour and 20 against a change of name; this was a 55% majority, insufficient to pass the resolution. So we stay as Epsom United Reformed Church for the time being.

The voting for the different names came out as:

Emanuel:     9
Pilgrim:       7
St. Luke’s: 5
All Saints’: 3

A visit is planned for both Epsom and Ewell churches to the Bluebell Railway on Wednesday 10^th August. The cost for adults is £9.50, OAPs £8.00, and 3s-16s £4.70. There are group discounts available: the discount applicable will depend upon the size of the group.

Details are on the notice board in the foyer. Please sign up if you are intending to join the crowd.

May we give you advance notice of a Children’s Activity Day on Wednesday, 26^th October from 09:30 to 17:00 in Unity Hall, for children aged 4 to 12 years. This is to be a joint activity with Ewell. The theme for the day will be ‘Noah’s Ark’.

More details will follow later.

A project for Harvest has recently been discussed at Church Life and Church Meeting, and has received a lot of support. This is a body known as Pump Aid, who became known to us through their display stand at the recent Christian Resources Exhibition at Sandown Park.

Pump Aid’s ethos is summed up as follows: "Pump Aid works to relieve poverty in Africa using appropriate and sustainable technology to provide clean water for drinking and irrigation."

They achieve these aims by installing Elephant Pumps in rural schools and communities. The Elephant Pump was developed in Zimbabwe and is based on a 2000-year-old Chinese design. The pumps are simple in design and can be maintained by the beneficiaries themselves. They are made from cheap local materials and are enclosed in a brick housing so that contamination is avoided. The Elephant Pump costs £200 to install for direct labour costs and materials. This is very low and is in sharp contrast to many existing pumps, which are inappropriate, expensive and often break down.

Pump Aid had installed 1500 pumps as at January this year, and are currently installing about 30 each month.  To find out more, please visit www.pumpaid.org.

The plan is that we should make donations to provide for pump(s) for Pump Aid. How many we can provide is up to you. Start saving your loose change, and let’s see what we can do by September 25^th.

Our friends at Ewell are planning to collect items at Harvest that will be packed into shoe boxes, sent in early November to various European countries like Albania, Bulgaria, Kosova, Macedonia, etc., in time for Christmas.

All items must be new or newly-knitted. Also, if you have any spare shoe-boxes, they, too, will be most welcome.

Among the items required are toothbrushes, toothpaste, soap, face-cloths, shampoo and conditioner. A complete list will be available shortly.

Harvest Sunday is 25^th September and, following the service, Harvest Lunch will be at Epsom URC.

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An Organ Recital has been planned at our church for lunchtime on Wednesday, 7^th September. The organist from Pat’s previous church at Farnham, John Mansfield, will be performing, and the recital will start at 13:10. It is hoped that local workers will be able to attend during their lunch break, and eat their lunch while listening to the music.

This will need a lot of publicity and posters around the town, and local firms will need to be targeted with leaflets. Please get your ideas together on how you can help to get this project talked about. There will be more information in the September NewsLetter.

Recent talks with the group that uses the Longhurst Room every Friday morning have resulted in the idea of an Art Exhibition to be held in the church. We remember that Rev. Allan Butler organized some while he was active in the group, and they were very popular and successful.

The dates planned for this exhibition are 24/25/26^th November. Make a note of the date, and make a point of coming along. Knowing the number of our members who have sat for the Friday Painters, I wouldn’t be surprised if you recognize some of the subjects!

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Sunday, 3^rd July, was a busy but happy day in the life of the Church. For those of us who were willing to get ourselves going early in the morning, we were able to enjoy a Fairtrade Breakfast in Unity Hall, master-minded by Phemie young – and what a wonderful spread there was: a selection of cereals, fruit and toast, and, for those who wanted it, a lovely English breakfast of bacon, scrambled eggs and tomato, all beautifully prepared – and even second helpings for some! With a choice of tea or coffee, what a great way to start Sunday with our church friends this was.

At the morning service, taken by Pat, the Church welcomed five new members. Linda Jeeves and Oliver Keates were both baptized, and then, with Tom Redrum, Alfred Lampty and Lily Moody, they made their Confession of Faith and were received into the Church with the Right Hand of Fellowship from Pat. Each new member received a Bible presented by Sheila Smith.

Tom and Oliver went out with the young people, and later all those in Junior Church returned for the Communion Service to end Morning Worship.

What a wonderful day for them and for us all in Epsom URC. It was lovely to have family and friends of the new members and the Church to support them.

Welcome, Lily, Alfred, Linda, Oliver and Tom; may you grow in strength in your commitment to the Church.

A ‘Fairtrade Breakfast’ was held in Unity Hall on Sunday, 3^rd July. Twenty-five people attended, some having a Continental-style breakfast, others having the ‘Full English’, all for £3.00. The amount raised after expenses was £54.50, and this amount will be sent to Fairtrade. Sincere thanks are due to Valerie, Linda, Sheila and George for all their help.

Our friends at Ewell URC were able to supply us with a variety of goods that were available for people to purchase.

All the big supermarkets have some Fairtrade products, but in order to get a good variety you have to shop in more than one store. This is not practical and is time-consuming; perhaps we need to ask for more and hope that they will stock a wider range of items. When you consider the large number of lines they do carry, the Fairtrade goods are rather insignificant.

In Marks and Spencer’s coffee bar in Kingston this week they had a notice stating that all the coffee and cream used in their coffee bar were Fairtrade products. Maybe the message is getting across!

Billy Graham's daughter, Anne, was being interviewed on TV after 11th September 2001, and was asked, "How could God let something like this happen?"

She gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, "I believe that God is deeply saddened by this just as we are, but for years we've been telling God to get out of our lives. How can we expect God to give us His blessing, guidance and protection if we demand that he leaves us alone?"

"How did this get started? ... I think it started when someone said we didn't want prayers in our schools. And we said, OK...

"Then, someone said we'd better not read the Bible in school, the Bible that says "thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, and love your neighbour as yourself," And we said, OK...

"Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn't spank our children when they misbehave, because their little personalities would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem. And we said, an expert should know what he's talking about so we won't spank them anymore...

"Then someone said the teachers had better not discipline our children when they misbehave. And the school administrators said no faculty member in this school better touch a student when they misbehave, because we don't want any bad publicity, and we surely don't want to be sued. And we accepted their reasoning... and said OK.

"Now we are asking ourselves why so many of our children have no conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and why it doesn't bother them to mug strangers, and steal whatever they want. I think it has a great deal to do with...

"WE REAP WHAT WE SOW"

"Funny how easy it is to trash God, and then wonder why the world is going to hell. Funny how we believe what the newspapers say and question the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Funny how everyone wants to go to heaven provided they don't have to believe, think, say or do anything that Jesus and His Church teaches."

[from: Catholic Women's League News - Autumn 2004]

A church-goer wrote a letter to the editor of a local newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday. "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So I think I am wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all."

This started a real controversy in the 'Letters to the Editor' column, much to the delight of the Editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But for the life of me I can't recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this: they all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me those meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!"
[Author unknown]

Why do you go to church? What good has it done you? Letters to the Editor, please!

Evening Church Fellowship
Evelyn Beer

Our last event of the session was a visit to Garson’s Farm for our usual Cream Tea. This was very enjoyable; there were plenty of goods to see and to purchase, and good quality farm produce was available.

We have now started our Summer break, and look forward to meeting you all again on Monday 3^rd October,

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Women's Church Council
Daphne Dawe.

The July Coffee Morning for The Princess Alice Hospice was a good social occasion, with several of our regular supporters and one or two only able to come occasionally. We are also grateful to friends from other churches who month by month support our efforts. We were able to send £120 to the Hospice. Thanks to all who helped in any way.

Our next Coffee Morning on Tuesday, 9^th August, will be in aid of The Surrey Air Ambulance Service. This is a most vital necessity these days to facilitate the speedy conveyance of patients in need of specialist treatment to the appropriate hospital, whether suffering a serious illness or life-threatening injuries. Make a date and we hope to see you.

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The activities at Anchor Boys’ for the last few weeks have included:

• Making origami boats, completing a dot-to-dot picture of a sailing ship and colouring a picture of a ship.

• Using an old calendar of dolphin pictures to make each make a jigsaw and a laminated place mat.

• Decorating six small plastic bottles to make a set of skittles and then playing with them.

Pauline and I are very sorry but we feel that it is no longer viable to run Anchor Boys. We would like to thank everyone for supporting us and hope that you will continue to support us in our new venture, which will hopefully include the boys that came to Anchor Boys.

It is with much regret that after three years Pauline and I have decided that there is not a need for an Anchor Boys group in our Church.

The four boys who have regularly come to the meetings have all enjoyed it and we feel that something must take the place of it. Therefore I am proposing to run a mixed activity and games group at the same time on Monday evenings for all five to ten year olds doing very much what the Anchor Boys have done. For this to be a success I will need to have the help of several volunteers, if necessary on a rota basis. Pauline is willing to continue to help, but she will be out of the country for several months after September.

If you think you would be interested in helping, please contact me on 020 8397 8307 as soon as possible. I can assure you that working with children of this age can be very rewarding.

Please advertise this group as widely as you can. If you know any boys and girls in this age group, please tell them and see if you can get them along.

As this group would probably act as a feeder group for ‘Friday Zone’, Pauline suggested we call ourselves ‘Monday Zone’! What do you think?

We would like the first meeting of the new group to take place on Monday, 12^th September from 6 p.m. until 7 p.m. There will be a subscription of £15 per term.

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Our last evening of the summer term was a bit disappointing as only twelve Brownies attended.  Fortunately we had only planned a games evening and the girls there were able to enjoy themselves even if they did have to change Six to even out the numbers for the relays.

Several of our Brownies are going with Jill Popham’s Pack on Pack Holiday at Holmbury St. Mary at the end of August, and we hope they have a great time.  As usual Anne and I hope to spend a day with them.

Please put a special note in your diaries for the coffee morning that the Brownies are organising in Unity Hall on Saturday, 15^th October from 11 a.m. until 12.30 p.m.  They will be raising funds for the charity ‘Pump Aid’.

My grateful thanks to all those Brownie Leaders, helpers and Mums who have helped me over the last session and I wish you all a very happy holiday.

The Brownies will be restarting on Wednesday, 14^th September.

On 30^th June I was delighted to host a tea-party with Joan Denman as our guest-of-honour.

We were glad that Charles Senior was able to join us, after some initial difficulties in locating Stones Road! We were also pleased that Pat was with us.

I once made a remark about hidden books of the Bible. It was a lulu, kept people looking so hard for facts and for others it was a revelation. Some were in a jam, especially since the names were not capitalized, but the truth finally struck home to numbers of readers. To others it was a real job. We want it to be a most fascinating few moments for you. 

Yes, there will be some really easy ones to spot. Others may require judges to help them. I will quickly admit it usually takes a minister to find one of them and there will be loud lamentations when it is found. A little lady says she brews a cup of tea, so she can concentrate better. See how well you can compete. Relax now, for there are really sixteen names of books of the Bible in this story.

Anon.

Copy for the next issue should be with the Editor by 14th August for publication on 21st August 2005.  

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