Newsletter May 2017

Let there be peace on earth

and let it begin with me.

Let there be peace on earth,

the peace that was meant to be.

With God as Creator, together all are we.

Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony.

Let peace begin with me,

let this be the moment now.

With every step I take,

let this be my solemn vow.

With God as Creator, together all are we.

Let us walk with each other in perfect harmony.

Let there be peace on earth

and let it begin with me.

Let there be peace on earth,

the peace that was meant to be.

To take each moment

and live each moment in peace eternally.

Let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me.

Christ came to bring peace on earth and light to world. Wouldn’t it be a wonderful sound if that well known song could ring out through all nations. It is ultimately individuals who bring peace or who destroy it.

Here we are almost 2000 years since Christ died as a result of his seeking to bring about such a state of peace, love, compassion and acceptance of all people to the world.

The people expected a King, but what did that mean to them?

Was it someone who defeats other nations to show their power and for their own gratification regardless of the cost to humanity? or is it someone who seeks an enhanced way of life for other people?

Jesus showed love, compassion and acceptance for the marginalised, the oppressed, all who suffered from unjust structures which were often established by those with authority and power. Even within the religious organisations those in authority sort to enforce rules that excluded people who were different from them and who were often disadvantaged.

Mary went to the tomb when it was still dark. The analogy of light and darkness in a physical sense can also relate to light and darkness in a spiritual sense. Mary was at the tomb but she failed to recognise the risen Christ. All of us can have such experiences in our personal lives.

Everything can seem to be tumbling in on us just as it had for Mary.

When Mary heard her name, light broke through as dawn came and so it can be for us also. Mary was distraught, she was in deep grief but she heard Jesus’ voice and recognised God was with her. This brought her comfort and relief.

The Season of Easter follows Lent and takes us through the days of our church calendar to the day on which we remember Christ’s ascension and on to the day of Pentecost and a pouring out of the Holy Spirit of God on all people. Pentecost is a great day of celebration which we look upon as the birthday of the Christian church. On the following Sunday, Trinity Sunday, we give thanks for the Trinitarian nature of God — Creator, Redeemer, Life Giver or Father, Son and Holy Spirit, together as one in God. What words we use are not important as long as we give thanks for the way in which our Trinitarian God is manifest in our lives and we seek to give God the glory. It seems particularly relevant to look to God’s messages of peace and love at this time. We are about to commemorate ANZAC Day and remember the pain and anguish suffered by so many. There are families in the midst of remembering their ancestors who gave their lives seeking peace and freedom for others just as Christ sought to bring peace to all.

While very few people in our world will have personal memories of these ancestors, their stories and memories continue. These stories along with recent events elevate a state of anxiety around the world at this time.

I ask you all to continue to pray for those who make decisions that will affect the lives of people throughout the world. We know that anxiety and pain will result from any person or country seeking power and authority over others and the effect that this will have on the lives of so many people.

Headlines on all our media have revealed the devastation caused by the extreme weather conditions that has brought stress to many areas of our country. It is important that we take our part in seeking to address climate change issues so future generations can enjoy the beauty of natural resources in our world especially with the many neighbours in the Pacific region who are so much at risk. We hope you will join us on Sunday April 23 as we take at least a little action on Earth Day.

Please bring along 1kg of wood or $2 to contribute wood for our fire if you wish. Having burnt the wood and buried the resulting carbon we will plant peach trees on the site to further reduce the carbon in the atmosphere. At the same time we hope this will produce fruit in the future which we will be able to share with others.

Do remember that the Easter journey displays will be open until the end of April, giving visitors to the area the opportunity to view the displays and in particular for grandparents who have children with them in the holidays to bring them for a visit and explain the true significance of Easter.

I cannot conclude without expressing my deep appreciation to the many who have contributed to the worship, witness and life of the parish over the last month with the busyness of Easter events. From feedback I have received this has been extremely well received this year.

Thank you all for your tireless contributions.

Easter Blessings

First: Acts 2: 42-47

Gospel: John 10: 1-10

4th Sunday of Easter

First: Acts 7: 55-60

Gospel: John 14: 1-14

5th Sunday of Easter

First: Acts 17: 22-31

Gospel: John 14: 15-21

6th Sunday of Easter

First: Acts 1: 6-14

Gospel: John 17: 1-11

7th Sunday of Easter

March 26: Conor David van der Poll

April 23: Freddie Neil William Gray

April 8: Kate Louise Rolinson and Christopher Craig Finch Howlett

Palms Rest Home: 10.30am Tuesday May 2

Palms Hospital: 11am Tuesday May 9

Lakeside Rest Home: 10.30am Wednesday May 10

Pukekohe Hospital: 10.30am Wednesday 17th May

Possum Bourne Village: 11am Tuesday May 23

Anyone who wishes is welcome to join us at these services.

The Mothers’ Union will celebrate the 80th Birthday of our Parish Group (this was cancelled last month because of the weather).

A service in church at 11am will be followed by lunch in the Parish Lounge. Joan Nield, the Auckland president, will be a guest and we invite you to join us.

Please bring food for a shared lunch.

Jan will share about

This is only scratching the surface of the wide range of activities that take place through people from the parish working in the community.

We face several issues as a parish at present:

You will soon see some essential pruning being done around St Andrew’s. Some of the oak trees at the southeast of the vicarage lawn have unhealthy branches jutting out over Queen St. These branches must be removed for health and safety reasons. Traffic management on Queen St will be needed to carry out this work.

The chestnut trees by Nora Brown Hall will also be pruned, which will help with the current problem of debris from all the leaves and conkers.

At the same time a trench will be dug around the front of the church to check the roots from the beech tree and see if these are actually contributing to the cracking of the church. It may be necessary to install a root barrier to prevent further damage and enable us to work on other urgently required maintenance and strengthening of the church.

We have had an ongoing problem with the roof of the church over the organ end of the chancel. This is becoming worse and in the recent heavy rain a major leak has been revealed in the top vestry. The water coming in has affected the brass on the candle sticks, candle snuffer and the book stand that is used on the altar. Please do not leave anything on the safe that is likely to be damaged. The issue does require urgent attention.

Our approach needs to be planned and thought out well. The most cost-effective plan seems to be sorting the foundations in such a way that the strengthening required is manageable and then address issues with the roof. We need good, well-informed advice but we are making a start with the tree. Ideally we would like the tree removed but we are unable to get resource consent for this to happen without first investigating the effects of the roots on the church building. This is because it is a listed tree.

We have had a few incidents of unhelpful parking recently. People have been parking on the grass which in the winter is not helpful when so much time and energy goes into keeping the grounds in order. This has been when there are car park spaces readily available close by. A more serious issue has occurred with cars parking under the chestnut trees on the narrow part of the entrance. Cars have been unable to enter or leave the premises. This is a health and safety issue because emergency vehicles need free movement in and out.

Vestry are considering the next steps in the moving of the Buckland Church. We are in the process of exploring this option, with the school and hall committee all having expressed an interest in going further with the investigation. A major issue with developing the facilities on the current site is the parking issue. The traffic flow past the church rapidly increases and the church site is on a limited access road, which means no driveways can be added to access the site. It is hoped this project would be cash neutral or generate a limited income which would be held by the diocese with funding coming from the sale of the church site and the adjoining section.

The Auckland Council historical committee is researching the building’s historical significance.

We continue to have problems with the church water supply and receiving large water bills, the most recent being $1700. It is likely that Vestry will need to bite the bullet on this issue and replace some of the water lines. You may see work begin on this soon if we cannot isolate the problem and have some level of reassurance that the repair of a small single leak will solve the problem.

In the autumn and winter season particularly, the general tidiness of the grounds needs extra attention. The beautiful chestnut trees are not quite so beautiful when the leaves and the conkers fall. This creates a potentially dangerous situation causing slipping and tripping. These also clog up the drains and work needs to be done on clearing both the drain by the roadside and in the middle of the courtyard. Some help with cleaning of these would be greatly appreciated.

We will keep you informed as all these matters are explored and the ways ahead become clearer.

After the AGM people were invited to contribute to ideas for future development of the parish and ministry. These were then discussed by a small group from the ministry team and have yet to be considered by Vestry. Suggestions are listed below. Some already exist and some others are already under development.

This summary includes various tasks or areas of church (some highlighted) which you may like to consider becoming involved in.

Please consider this carefully.

The suggestion was made to have guest speakers to share at services, perhaps from groups who provide social services or individuals who have experienced hardship.

1. It was agreed that because of time constraints and the need to remember that the focus of our Sunday services is to come together to worship God it would be better to have such sessions after morning tea and leading up to a shared lunch. To enhance our understanding of what we already do I have volunteered to speak at the first of these sessions about, what happens from the parish, what PCA contributes and my work in the community. Vicky will also share about her role with Franklin Family Support.

2. *A person or group of people taking responsibility for identifying people who would be willing to present after the 9.30 service on an occasional Sunday morning tea or shared lunch session would be welcomed.

1. Movie night — Sunday July 30 at 5.30pm. It will be the only Pukekohe screening of This Beautiful Fantastic. See advertisement further on in this newsletter.

2. Murder Mystery evenings. — Red Shed

3. Fair — We need a fair organiser. We have a structure that works fairly well but we need an overall coordinator*. The stall holders generally seem happy and come prepared on the day and there is generally no need to have meetings.

4. Garage Sales — These need to be diarised early in the year although often they occur in response to a “full” garage.

5. *Most parishes have a fundraising committee — this would be helpful.

1. Small groups — Hold a meeting of people willing to participate/lead small discussion groups.

2. Contemplative prayer block (six weeks). Taize service is being prepared.

Suggestions included:

1. Electronic — communication — Facebook, Neighbourly, Franklin Grapevine.

2. Website — this is currently being replaced by a volunteer. Cecily regularly keeps our site up to date.

3. We will be looking at all our communications later in the year.

Cecily regularly posts events on Grapevine and in the “what’s on” column of the County News.

4. Notices are usually put into motels about Christmas and Easter events.

1. Welcoming teams to be re-established with a roster of people doing one Sunday a month.

— Encourage wearing of name tags including to morning tea. There is now a basket to leave these in.

— Checking if the people have name tags and if they receive the Messenger.

— Recording names of those who need name tags or to be added to the parish roll.

— Inquiring if people would like one of the packs about the life of the parish.

— Inviting people to morning tea.

2. Baptism sponsors follow-up after the event and invites to appropriate groups — Space, Oasis, Sunday School. Cecily sends out cards on the anniversary of baptisms for children up to the age of 5.

3. Hosting of winter Sunday soup lunches — Maybe one person could provide the soup and another family host — invite new families.

Events and activities underway include:

1. World Earth Day — April 23 (doing a little for the environment).

2. Communal Garden.

3. Garden teaching groups in winter — currently 13 attending.

4. Seasonal gardening (veges)/harvest.

5. Tool library — A grant has been received to begin work on this.

6. Recycling — what we can do

— Including a decomposable food bin in the kitchen for the worms.

— Recycling paper — goes to Pukekohe North Pre-school if it is flat and single-sided, otherwise recycling bin.

— Garage sale leftovers positive way of dealing with this — reasonable items left at the end are donated to other places, including St Vincent de Paul.

1. Op Shop — Doing well providing well-priced clothes, free to those in need.

2. Listening ear. We need further training with this.

3. Provide for food parcels mainly from the weekly food collection from parishioners with the Op Shop providing meat, frozen vegetables and bread.

4. Freezer meals — for the unwell people and stressed families.

5. Home visiting companionship, transport, meals. There is a lot being done through the Sewing group, Op Shop team, Selwyn team, Mothers’ Union and other groups and many individuals.

6. Rest homes and villages services.

7. Selwyn and Seasons — We advertise social service agencies.

This Beautiful Fantastic, a contemporary fairy tale. This is the only screening of this movie in Pukekohe and stars Jessica Brown Findlay (Lady Sybil Crawley from Downton Abbey) and Tom Wilkinson (Quartet, The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel) in the main roles.

We will have to sell at least 180 tickets, so we need your help — let your friends and family know early!

Our film fundraiser last year was a great success, so here’s hoping we can repeat that.

Review ~ the Observer says:

A charming, beautifully photographed modern fairy tale about love and gardening, This Beautiful Fantastic is worth seeing in spite of its dumb deterrent of a title. It’s an odd story about some very odd people guaranteed to grow on you. Written and directed with whimsical taste and obvious talent by Simon Aboud, the son-in-law of Paul McCartney, it’s different, gorgeous to look at, and you go away feeling good about life and lilacs.

Dates for visiting musical performances that are in the diary so far!!!

Handel’s Quire — April concert cancelled

Franklin Community Choir

Hausmusic NZ

Rita Paczian — mezzo & harpsichord

John Green — baroque oboe & oboe d’amore

Polly Sussex — baroque cello & gamba

Proposed date for Handel’s Quire

Wednesday May 3, 11am — Mothers’ Union 80th Birthday Celebrations

Sunday 21st May 11.00am — The Parish and What we do by Way of Pastoral Care within the Parish and the Community.