Possible Change of Venue

We announced this morning that the the Trendlewood Committee and Holy Trinity Parochial Church Council have discussed, and now recommend, a change of venue for Trendlewood Church/Congregation.

We are recommending changing venues from St Francis School to Golden Valley School. Here are our reasons:

1. Missional. Contact with families through St Francis either involves those who are already connected with our church or those who see their allegiance as being to the Roman Catholic Church. It follows that investing time in the life of the school bears little fruit for our own church. On the contrary Golden Valley School would welcome clergy and other involvement and would provide great opportunities to link church and school activities.

2. Timing. There is a sense in which the Trendlewood church community needs the challenge of a new start.

3. Geography. Golden Valley is in a different area of the Trendlewood part of Holy Trinity parish and therefore represents an opportunity to reach out to a new immediate-neighbour community.

4. Spiritual. This idea arose out of our congregational vision-seeking meetings last autumn and there is a great sense in which we feel it is 'of the Lord.'

Steve has met with the Golden Valley bursar and established that the school could meet our needs, within our existing budget and would welcome our presence.

They can offer all the facilities we currently enjoy at St Francis with few issues to address except solving our storage needs. They would be willing to make us keyholders, a luxury we do not enjoy at St Francis.

Everyone consulted so far is in complete agreement with the idea.

We now invite members of the congregation with any concerns, however trivial, to make them known to Steve by next Sunday 30/1/11.

If no new hesitations or problems are raised we will then sign the documentation. The Trendlewood Committee is ready to deal with all the logistical matters to do with services (a small group of Trevor Watts, Mike Bird and Mark Austin is ready to get to work) and Steve will handle the announcements, press releases and publicity along with the church press officer, Pam Salisbury.

No timing is yet definite but, if we go ahead, it would be rather nice if we could make our first Sunday at the new venue our 22nd birthday, Palm Sunday 2011, which is already ear-marked as a day for a shared lunch.

St