Where we're going during the building works at St. Saviour's

As you may have read, we can now start building work on the St.Saviour's Community Hub. During the project we will continue meeting on Sundays at St. Saviour's Infant & Nursery school. See the St. Saviour's Church website for more details.

Groups meeting during the week at St. Saviour's will be moving to new venues, please check the pages of our website, or contact the group organiser for more details.

The Fairtrade Coffee Morning will take place at  Victoria Hall, Larkhall United Reformed Church, Avondale Buildings, Larkhall, Bath, BA1 6NO.

Exciting news about the Community Hub Project!

As you may know, we have been undergoing a tender process for a builder to give us a more specific price for the Community Hub Project. We were extremely pleased (and give thanks) because the tender prices came in significantly lower than we had feared they might.

The St Saviour's PCC met on 18 November when it was agreed that our project managers would meet with the preferred contractors to see if costs could be reduced,

Although the tendered price was somewhat of a miracle, we were still around £34,000 short, which we would need to start the project in January 2016. 

We had the £240,000 (approx) we had raised in previous years as well as through the pledges given during Spring and Summer 2015, but it wasn't quite enough to proceed.

So it was resolved to try and obtain additional funds before the PCC met again on 15 December (yesterday). The miraculous news is that we got the money. AND MORE! We were given an extra £70,000 in gifts and pledges! A big thank you to all who have contributed.

This has meant that not only can we do the basic Phase 1 of the project, but we can also do Phase 1a, which enables us to put in the lift to the first floor.

We will continue to fundraise to add the top (youth) room as well as other items such as storage in the tower and a new servery outside the current kitchen.

At last night's meeting it was unanimously agreed by the PCC to proceed with the project, which should start in January. Exciting times indeed! 

On our bikes - the Channel Tunnel Challenge!

Fundraising efforts continued in November when a bunch of us hit the Two Tunnels shared use path on the outskirts of Bath. This disused railway was opened up with the help of Sustrans and goes underneath Bath's southern slopes through (yes) two tunnels.

The idea of our challenge - which took place on 21 November - was to cycle the full length of the Channel Tunnel (50.5km) through the Two Tunnels in Bath – that’s 20 lengths of both tunnels.

Despite being lit, it was surprising how the dark affected us and how much we quickly tired of the slope uphill going towards Bath! Well over £1,000 was raised for the Community Hub Project.

The challenge was celebrated with a pub lunch in Midford afterwards!

Here are some pictures of us cycling hard!

Fundraising efforts

As we await the result of the tender process for the Community Hub, there are numerous fundraising activities happening at St. Saviour's.

A Hawaiian evening was arranged by the youth in early October and raised £180.40. Well done to all our youth, a great evening and a great effort.

This coming Saturday 7th November form 2– 3.30pm there's a BELLY DANCE TASTE CLASS FOR LADIES in church. It costs £5 on the door.

Get fit, listen to music and learn more about a beautiful art form with a rich history! Ages 16 and up. No dance experience required. Wear yoga trousers and comfortable shirt or general exercise attire.

And then on Saturday 21st November there's a Channel Tunnel Challenge for cyclists! It's a sponsored event in the Two Tunnels, Bath where we'll cycle through the tunnels to match the length of the Channel Tunnel.

We'll also be having a Greek evening in January. Lots happening! 

We're going to tender!

Last Monday night the church PCC took a step of faith and decided to go to tender with the Project. The detailed drawings will now be done, a Project Manager will be appointed, costings will be calculated and a list of firms who will be asked to bid drawn up. This will happen over July and August. On the 8th September the PCC will meet to see the details of the scheme and on the 9th September it is likely tender documents will be sent to prospective bidders; these will return in mid– October. Please be praying for this step of faith and for the rest of the the finances needed to complete the whole project.

Pledge update!

The church Treasurer has recalculated the pledges and with Gift Aid we now have £106,000 pledged from our own congregation.

That means the total raised so far is a whopping

£240,000! 

As you may know, our first phase will cost around £330,000. Please pray for those applying to trusts for further funding as well as the Project Team as it negotiates with our Architect, Engineer and others to attempt to reduce the price of the project.

Please pray also for the Project Team as we meet again those who currently use the Fellowship Centre to discuss their needs and priorities for the project.

Great news!

We have received a real boost for our project over recent weeks. Our pledge month of March came to an end and we'v received a huge boost from our own congregation with over:

£100,000 pledged!

Huge, huge thanks to the 54 separate donors who contibuted to this remarkable number.

We've also received a further boost as we had a grant from the Diocese of £15,000!

Added to the £57,000 cash in the Bank, plus £50,000 already promised from a local trust plus a likely surplus of £8,000 from various building projects, we have:

£230,000 in total so far!

A truly remarkable figure, and we're looking forward with glee to raising the extra £110,000 we need to get the first phase of our project underway!

Featured in The Local Look

Our project has been featured in local magazine The Local Look. Here's a scan of the article in case you can't get hold of a copy.

Our pledge month

We're now entering the latter stages of our congregational pledge month at St. Saviour's and we're asking people to complete and return your pledge forms. If you haven't seen or received the documentation - it's all available further down this post

From the Rector, Reverend Michael Norman

The Community Hub will help us to further the mission of our Church especially with our children, youth and the community we serve. It is a vehicle to help us fulfil our mission statement. “AS YOU KNOW JESUS, SO LET HIM BE KNOWN”

This gives us so much more potential to reach the community with the love of God. I ask you to read prayerfully all the sections in the literature provided, hear the presentation (you can download the PowerPoint slides here if you didn't see it), ask questions and then return your response form.

Most of all please pray and seek God’s leading as to whether you will join us and then make your response. This is an exciting time for the Church please join myself, the Project Team and the PCC on this adventure of faith.

Here is all the documentation we've sent out: 

How would St. Saviour's Community Hub help our youth?

How the youth of our church feel about the Community Hub and the benefits it would bring them.

Our new mission statement and brochure!

We have a new short mission statement for the project:

Meeting the needs of Larkhall and beyond with a new centre that’s the hub of community life.

Our new project brochure is also ready and you can see it embedded below. You can also download your own PDF copy from http://bit.ly/communityhubbrochure

Fantastic new photomontage images of the Community Hub

We have had some fantastic new photomontage images of the Community Hub. These will be displayed in church and used in our new brochure.

Huge thanks to Chris Dance for arranging this and Chris Le Petit of Cubed Visuals for creating them.

Here's the front of the first floor rooms looking from the side - you can see the glass of the second floor room on top. Obviously the pews have also been brought forward from where they are now.



Here is the entire three-storey frontage. You can see the new soundproof doors of the fellowship centre as well.



And here's an internal image of the refurbished fellowship centre.



Finally here's what it will look like inside one of the first floor rooms. As you can see, you'll be able to look out directly into the nave.