Friends of All Saints

Friends of All Saints’ Church, Ascot Heath.

You will have read the previous magazine article and seen the website and Pews News recently about the setting up of the Friends of All Saints’ Church scheme; well, it is up and running!
On January 29th we held a meeting, at which the attendance was disappointing, however we were able to officially appoint a Chairman for our first year- Revd. Can. Piers Nash-Williams (Fr Piers to us!) who is member number one. Elizabeth Jacques and Pat Gunton will take on secretarial and newsletter roles for a year and a church warden will be on the committee. Financial matters will be dealt with by the PCC treasurer and we look forward to appointing another committee member from outside the immediate church family.
The subscription has been set at £10 per person, £20 for a family per year and £200 for life membership.
Appropriate membership forms will be sent to those on our mailing list, included in the leaflets at the back of church and on the website.
We intend to send out two newsletters each year-prior to Easter and Christmas which will contain news and future events and services and we hope this communication will be mainly by e-mail.
After refreshments we moved over to the church for our Inaugural Concert.
The church was well over three-quarters full and we were delighted to welcome Linda Hannah-Andersson ( violin) and Chris Goodwin ( piano and organ).
The audience were spellbound by the varied music- including dances by Bartok, Bach’s violin prelude in E major, Grieg’s Wedding Day at Troldhaugen on the piano and St Anne’s fugue by Bach on the organ. The concert ended with a haunting rendition of Elgar’s Salut d’amour by Linda which brought tears to many eyes. Our musicians, who were given a long ovation, responded by playing “Ave Maria” as an encore.
Light refreshments were served and folk were given the opportunity to look at the new grand piano recently donated to the church, talk to the musicians and find out more about the “Friends” scheme.
A collection was taken for the organ refurbishment fund which raised over £900 which will be increased by Gift Aid.
This collection became more poignant when Chris explained how he had had to omit an item from the concert due to the deterioration of the organ.

Friends of All Saints' Church Ascot

All Saints' Church building is loved and admired by many folk outside our regular congregations. Maybe you have friends, neighbours or family who have a special connection with the church. They might live locally or many miles away from Ascot. The great news is that they can now keep in touch with what's going on at All Saints (in addition to viewing the website) and contribute towards its upkeep by joining ‘The Friends of All Saints' Church Ascot’.

Please take a leaflet with details from the back of the church or chapel or contact the church office. It would be wonderful if every member or family could find at least one ‘Friend’.

See also our online Friends of All Saints' Church Ascot leaflet.