We took part in Hedge End Carnival today and were pleased to be awarded first place and given a trophy. We also had a presence at the Gala show for the first time. There will be more details of all that happened in a later blog. We hope that you enjoy looking at the pictures above and would like to thank anyone who helped in any way to make today possible.
Final Preparations are now taking place for our entry in Hedge End Carnival this Saturday (1st July). The Theme for the Carnival is Roald Dahl and we will be depicting Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. With Dressed Walkers and a Dressed up Vintage Bus.
In Addition to our activities in the procession we will be having a stall on the showground where the Carnival finishes doing “Jammy Type” Craft.
We would be delighted if you come and see us.
For more details of our carnival activities please see our previous blogs on this site at
More details about the carnival can be found at
On Saturday 8th July Jammy Church will be exploring the story of Elijah at mount Carmal this story can be found in 1 Kings Chapter 18 verses 16-45.
We will also be continuing the “Fire Aspect” of the story as we will be holding the Annual Jammy Church barbeque on this day as the food that ends the session.
Jammy Church is an activity session for children, their families and the young at heart. Each session is based on a particular Theme.
There will be various activities and crafts to take part in and some food to eat. You do not need to attend all the session; you could just pop in to see what we are up to.
The picture above was taken at a previous Jammy Church.
More information can be found on the Jammy Church Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/JammyChurch
Please note that although Jammy is normally on every month there will not be a Jammy Church during August as nearly everyone including the regular attendees will be on Holiday.
As Part of our celebrations of 160 years of Methodism in Hedge End Rev. Geoffrey Scarlett has written the Poem below.
If you would like to join us in our celebrations over the weekend of 24th and 25th June please see the blog post Anniversary Celebration 24th and 25th June for more details.
More poems by Geoffrey and details of Hymns and songs that Geoffrey has written with Stuart Harding can be found elsewhere on this site.
ANNIVERSARY
Rejoice and reflect how our church, in Christ’s name,
In worship and witness, God’s great love proclaimed.
The ranters in open fields preached the good news.
New churches were built, as in numbers they grew.
They sang their old hymns, heard the sermons and prayers.
The Lord’s Supper came as an ‘extra’ most shared.
In war-time the church ran a Forces’ canteen,
With care then extending to evacuees.
Their youngsters they taught in traditional ways.
Praise God for those great Anniversary days!
And newsletters, now as then, published God’s grace,
Whilst class meetings strengthened their personal faith.
Rejoice and give thanks for those times long ago.
The tasks Jesus gave us continue, we know.
We miss Music-Makers, young, keen and inspired,
But still value highly our music and choir.
We’re blessed with our Pop-In group. JAM club is great.
And Jammy Church loves to eat, sing and create!
We’re blessed with our footballers, both our Brigades,
And prayer groups and house groups that build up our faith.
So cherish the past and the present embrace.
Let’s welcome the future and more of God’s grace!
God’s building his kingdom. As partners we share
In spreading his word and in showing his care!
Rejoice and look forward, with vision and drive.
We feel the Lord’s challenge, his Spirit alive,
To give us persistence and courage and joy,
To find fresh expressions of faith to employ!
We’re joined to past saints, by our Lord glorified.
We’re joined now to Christian believers world-wide.
We’re joined to disciples, who still have to be:
With Christ our foundation stone eternally!
Geoffrey Scarlett 2017
On Wednesday 28th June at 6.30 p.m. The Boys and Girls Brigades will be holding their Display and Awards Evening. There will be a display which normally consists of various sketches, Music and Singing. This is followed by the presentation of Badges and Awards. The awarding is normally done by the respective district commisioners of the Brigades. Anyone who is interested in seeing what the Brigades do is invited to attend.
We are delighted that Mrs Jill Baker Vice-President of Methodist Conference will be leading worship and preaching at our church on Sunday 16th July, 2017.
Last year, the Methodist Conference elected the Revd Loraine N Mellor to be President and Jill Baker to be Vice-President. Both will start their year of office when the Representative Session of the Methodist Conference meets in Birmingham on 24 June 2017. They will succeed the current President and Vice-President, the Revd Dr Roger Walton and Rachel Lampard.
Jill is a local preacher and tutor in the Scotland District, exploring and leading pilgrimages. She enjoys writing and, in the past, spent eight years as a mission partner in the South Caribbean. Jill was President of Methodist Women in Britain between 2011 and 2013. Her brief statement on the Methodist Website states,
“I am thankful to the Methodist family for the prayer and for the support it offers in hard times. I am committed to working locally and connexionally for an inclusive, just, compassionate and creative Church.”
As a personal friend of Alison and Les, Jill says she is very much looking forward to coming to Hedge End Methodist Church. Later that day she will attend the annual festival in Dorset commemorating the Tolpuddle Martyrs.
Our Thanks to Alison for writing these words for us.
We have now twinned our Church toilets with Toilets overseas. There are 2.4 billion people in the world without access to Toilets. This results in spread of disease. The idea is that you pay a small fee per month which results in a toilet being built in a Poverty stricken area, you then get sent a picture of the toilet to put in your toilet.
More details can be found at
http://www.toilettwinning.org/
We have twinned our toilets with the following toilets
Bukoro Village, Muramba Parish, Uganda, Africa
Kakomba, South Kivu, Democratic Republic of Congo, Africa
Tistung, Makawanpur, Nepal, Asia
We have been sent certificates including the one above to put up in our toilets. It is hoped that we will be putting these certificates up shortly.
On Saturday 1st July Hedge End Carnival will be taking place. Our church family will be taking part in it. The Carnival has been running since 1921 and raises money for good causes local to Hedge End.
Last year the theme for our entry was Noah’s Ark, and the year before the theme was “All things bright and beautiful for which we got a cup for our walking group. This year the overall theme for the Carnival is Roald Dahl so we will be depicting Charlie and the Chocolate factory. You are very welcome to join in either walking or sitting on the bus – We have the same bus as last year which holds 30 so there is plenty of space.
If you wish to join us it would be great. You do not need to have a sophisticated costume. If you have something that was made or bought for another occasion that is appropriate that would be fine. To be an Oompa loompa please wear white trousers and a brown tee shirt. If you wish to be one of the main characters in the story please talk to us beforehand as it would be odd if we had two Charlies for example.
This is not just for the children in the church; or only those people who attend sunday morning worship it is for everyone. People who attend any activity associated with the Church are welcome to take part.
If you wish to take part in the procession please let us know by the 11th of June as the Carnival committee needs us to let them know how many people we have taking part. More details of who to contact can be found in the latest issue of the Church Magazine at the front of the Church.
As well as taking part in the procession we hope to hire part of the Show Ground where the carnival procession ends and hold some sort of Childrens “Jammy type” event there as it presents an excellent opportunity for Outreach. We will keep you posted on this nearer the time as the possibilities are worked out.
The Carnival is an excellent opportunity to all have a good time, whilst telling the people of Hedge End and further afield that we are here, and that God is important to us, and for them. This is part of our continuing outreach into the Community.
In 1857 a group of people got together in Hedge End to start a branch of the Bible Christians, which was closely connected with early Methodism.This was the origin of what is now Hedge End Methodist Church. Celebrations of the 160th Anniversary of this event will be taking place over the weekend of 24th and 25th June. It has so far been arranged that on Saturday afternoon between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m .we will be serving free light refreshments to everyone who turns up. We have already started advertising this in order to encourage people formerly associated with the Church to return to visit, and also the local Community to come and see us. We also have plans for Music for some of this time, and will let you know what will be happening when our plans are finalised.
On Sunday 25th June our celebrations will continue in the Sunday Service which will be conducted by Barry Matthews (who was our Minister from 1966 to 1968) .
We hope that you are all able to keep these dates free, so that you are able to be with the Church Family on this happy occasion.
