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From Children's Hospice Association Scotland
"On behalf of everyone at the Children's Hospice Association Scotland (CHAS) please accept my sincere thanks for the recent donation of £158 from Holytown Parish Church. Please pass on our thanks to everyone who attended the recent Carol Concert and Christmas Eve Service and let them know their special gift will help provide the best possible care for Scottish children with life limiting conditions.
"In 2008 the focus for our children and families, as always, will be on creating happy memories and making the most of the time they have together. Pampering weekends, visits from birds of prey, taking a dip in the hydrotherapy pool, treasure hunts, outings to music concerts and football matches are just some of the exciting activities that provide incredible experiences for whole families.
"Your gift to CHAS provides all this fund, but also gives mums and dads time to relax while their child receives the expert practical and emotional care from our care team.
"All of the experiences we create, the memories we share and the care we provide could not happen without the support of people like you, who help make our unique service possible - thank you.
"With best wishes for 2008!"
A word of thanks
Miss Jessie Gibson wishes to thank everyone for the lovely flowers she received. She is delighted to be remembered by you all.
Role of the magazine within our Church
This year Presbytery has instructed us to prepare our annual financial report in a different format. Margaret as usual has taken these changes in her stride and the financial statement has been prepared on time and, in the required format. In addition to this change, we have been asked to prepare a report outlining achievements within our Church in the past year. This was a little more problematic to put together and it fell to myself. On thinking back, so much has happened over the past year and we probably all have been involved to a greater or lesser degree and whether it has been greater or lesser it has nevertheless been important and much appreciated. However, how can all this be out into words?
I chose to access the past years magazines from our web site and pick articles I felt had something relevant for inclusion in the report. While doing this, I noticed information on certain aspects of our Church life was not adequately covered in past magazine content. This necessitated a few phone calls to get the information required to plug these gaps. Once the additional information had been received and added I found I had sixteen pages of text to play with.
After some time, the sixteen pages were edited down to a reasonably manageable five and this is what was submitted along with the financial information. It made me think how helpful the magazine articles had been in the compilation of this report. Had they not been available, it would have made the production of this document a lot more difficult.
The report will have to be produced every year for the foreseeable future so whether it is myself or someone else who will be compiling it, the magazine is an ideal source of content. Apart from being circulated locally, the magazine is also available on our web site which can be accessed from anywhere in the world via computer. We should all value the magazine as a useful resource and utilise it fully to communicate the good work that is taking place in this charge.
In the last year lain has prepared notes from the various COSY meetings which has been very helpful for me but a lot of work for the minister. I would like to see a framework where someone in each of the COSY groups can provide regular (monthly if possible) details of progress made within each group. It would be good to have similar updates for the uniformed organisations, the Guild and property matters rather than have to phone a selection of people at year-end and us all trying to jog our memories as to what was going on at the beginning of the year, it would make it so much easier if this information was readily available. Demand seems to be increasing for statistical information in terms of numbers from the national Church and also from Presbytery so it would also be worthwhile having this information at hand. Whether it is published or not is something that can be discussed.
In the past, the magazine has consisted of a letter from the minister, a financial report and a variety of articles from a variety of contributors that are genuinely attempting to provide some Christ-based items for your reading pleasure targeted at a range of age-groups. If you feel there are areas of the magazine that could be improved upon, please provide me with feedback.
I would ask everyone to give the matter of these issues in relation to the magazine serious consideration and let us together make it a publication to be proud of and a publication that we all have ownership of.
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