Click on the heading below to go direct to the HOME PAGE content HOME PAGE Friends of St Mary's Winkfield Registered Charity 1162342 To refresh this page, please press the F5 button. For Pictures of the Day for previous days, press the last blue button just below. As we think of our Vicar, Revd Huw Mordecai on sick-leave, do read his perceptive, wise and often moving Musings from a Mordecai. Back-numbers can be downloaded.

Picture of the day (click on image for full size view): Autumn may be striking us early here in Winkfield, but this beautiful image of an autumnal cabbage came all the way from a friend in Colorado, USA. Thank you Julie West (who also provided the beautiful egret picture that started the POTDs).(past POTDs)

The September/October Parish Mag is now on line

Read the current Parish Mag HERE .
The Parish Mag is now published on the Web complete with ads.
You can also look at the ads on their own by visiting the Advertisers' page.

Stay Alert news is still up but will not have daily updates, other than maintaining charts of the cases in local areas.
The Picture of the Day will also only occasionally be changed.

Services at St Mary's Winkfield 25 October 2020

The first service on Sunday 25 October was the 8am Holy Communion service, a very good start to the day. This was led by Rev. Patrick Mukholi.

Crafty Church followed at 9:30am with the theme 'The Parable of the Weeds'. When starting the activity the weaving was not as easy as it first appeared!! Children of the congregation read the lessons, played the piano and managed the computer.

The All Souls service was at 11am. Grateful thanks must go to Harvey Lin who took over, at very short notice, as organist. He accompanied the choir for the psalm, canticles and Anthem beautifully, and he thrilled all in the congregation with his playing before the service of the third movement from Bach’s Trio Sonata No. 1. His voluntary at the end of the service was the Finale from Vierne’s Symphony No 1 - a wonderful performance.

Thanks must also go to those who sang so beautifully in the small choir, The anthem 'Be still, for the presence of the Lord' was an excellent choice for this service. The names of those to be remembered were read by Jonathan Hemsley.

After the service the congregation was enthralled with a virtuosic performance by violinist Sarah Aizawa of 'La Folia' by Corelli. Sarah, aged 11, is a fine young violinist who has competed with success in international competitions. Sarah was accompanied by Anthony Hodson.

Services at St Mary's Winkfield 18 October 2020

The theme for Family Praise on Sunday 18 was St Luke the Evangelist. 18 October was also the feast day for St Luke. The Rev. Patrick Mukholi led the service and young members of the congregation played the piano, read passages from the bible and were also responsible for the management of the PC. A big thankyou to all of them.

Patrick remained at St Mary’s to lead the Holy Communion service. This service was also zoomed.

Report on Harvest Services over the weekend of 10/11 October 2020

Harvest services at St Mary’s began on Saturday with a service of Evensong. John Kimbell led the service and conducted a small choir. George Nicholls was the organist and the service ended with a performance by the Bell Ringers. Full musical details are HERE. A most enjoyable evening.

How good to be able to attend the 08am Communion service again on Sunday: the first since early March! An excellent start to the day.

This was followed by Harvest Family Matins. Congregations are still not able to sing hymns so Jonathan Holl played the organ while the harvest gifts were taken to the altar. Two young members of the congregation read the Bible and poetry readings and an excellent young guitarist played during two of the hymn slots. The talented young actors took part in the Harvest play (follow the link), and the service ended with the bell plates played by two of the children and members of their family.

The Harvest Festival flowere were so beautiful that Phil made a special video recording of them (follow the link).

APCM

The postponed APCM meeting took place over Zoom at 8pm on Thursday 8 October. A report on the meeting, and on retirements and appointments will be published in due course.

10am Family Communion service, Sunday 4 October 2020

The Family Communion service on Sunday 4 October was well attended and led by Rev Patrick Mukholi. It was good to see the return of George Nicholls, one of our organists, who played for us before the service, during the communion and accompanied the choir. Several members of the congregation remained in church to hear his playing after the service. Click the link for the Music-list for the service.

Stop press RETURN TO CHURCH - see below Forthcoming events Please refer to the News and Events page. Information Good Neighbours help with transport Become a Friend by email! Link to page about the organ!!

St Mary's church from tower height - Photo by Paul Wickens

St Mary's Church is at the centre of our community. Please help by becoming a Friend of St Mary's Winkfield Or simply make a donation!! For a direct donation, Gift Aid brings 25% more - so please consider sending us your Gift Aid application. Welcome to the Friends of St Mary's Winkfield, a charity set up to raise money for the conservation, embellishment and maintenance of fabric and facilities of the medieval church of St Mary's in Winkfield, East Berkshire, south of Windsor. Its full address is St Mary's church, Church Road, Winkfield, Berks, SL4 4SF. The Church of St Mary has been a focal point in Winkfield for over 700 years. Our aim is to preserve this magnificent building in the best possible condition for generations to come. St Mary's is a place of peace and all are welcome. This wonderful building is a piece of English history and our aim is to ensure it remains so. The cost of maintenance of St Mary's church and of its amenities is wholly carried by voluntary donations. Please help us, either by becoming a Friend (follow the menu item above) or by a donation. You can CAFDonate to the Friends' general fund by clicking the link at the bottom of the page. This will take you to the CAFDonate website, which will process your kind gift. Thank you!! You can donate to special projects, which will have a well-identified button. From time to time, the Friends organise community fund-raising events. Do support these - they will be well-documented on this website. To make this easier we are able to take secure card-payment.

PARISH REPORTS AND EVENTS

RETURN TO CHURCH

'Messy Church' - now 'Crafty Church'

In this popular service, the children are encouraged to participate in craft activities that help them remember a particular bible truth or story. Usually there are between 6 – 8 activities. Obviously at this time we cannot continue that arrangement so we are trying a new format 'Activity in the Pew'. All youngsters will collect a bag as they enter the church containing all they need for the activity. The service will begin and when it is time for the activity the instructions will be shown on the screen. The themes are:-

• August – Jonah and the Whale
• September – Noah’s Ark
• October – Parable of the Weeds
• November – The Lord’s Prayer
• December - Christmas

Family Matins 9/8/29

The Bells rang out - after 20 Sundays of silence, what a glorious sound to hear as one walked up the path to attend the service at St Mary’s church. This was the second Sunday of reopening (and bell-lovers will appreciate the fact that the handbell ringers rang before the service on August 2.

The Revd Patrick Mukholi said a few words to the congregation before sitting at the back of the church so that he could slip away quietly to lead another service.

No hymn singing yet but, instead, several young musicians gave musical performances at the piano during the hymn slots and one family played the bellplates at the end of the service.As usual the bible readings were taken by youngsters and the playlet was shown on the screen simply because 5 of the young actors were on holiday. [Link to playlet]

Our collection taker for Family Matins stood next to the green bowl offering guidance to all!

Regular parish events (after Lockdown is finished) can be found by following this link. More detail about future events can be found in the current Parish Mag (which can be accessed online on this link).

FUTURE EVENTS

Founder's Choir

Unfortunately it is with great regret that this has been cancelled. Luke Saint who has been one of the organists at St Mary’s for several years was conductor of the Founders Choir of Royal Holloway College and had agreed to a concert at St Mary’s. I was very fortunate and had attended a performance of the choir at Holloway and thought the sound quite magical and Luke an exceedingly polished performer. We hope there may be an opportunity for the choir to perform at St Mary’s later in the year.

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