Status update for the Dig Deep Fund at the end of November: Total raised by the generous support of parishioners and friends so far : £42,000. Thank you, everyone!

This means we are now installing the scaffolding to stabilise the building and hope we will be using the building again for our Christmas services. Meanwhile we continue to raise the £100, 000 needed to do the essential structural repairs. The Dig Deep Fundraising campaign continues with a Carol Singing session in the Up in Arms pub on Sunday 21st December at 6pm.

In the New Year we can look forward to our Barn Dance at St Michael's CE Primary School on Saturday 21st February, a Talk on the artwork in our church on 13th March and a musical concert in Magdalen College Chapel on 18th April.

The stall at the school Christmas Fair . The figure raised was over £200. We will have a stall running after services on Sundays after our worship in the Pastoral Centre Hall during Advent: Preserves, tree decorations, gifts, books, the Vicar's handknitted socks and hot off the press our Recipe Book. If you need to remind or inform yourselves about why all this is necessary please read on...

 

Can you help?

St Michael’s & All Angels New Marston is a well-known local landmark, as a place of worship and community asset.  It’s been a welcoming space for many throughout its 70 years.  Over time we’ve extended its resources, so that now a wide variety of local groups can use the Pastoral Centre, with its well-appointed hall & kitchen, and the upstairs offices.  Hundreds of people come into the buildings for a host of different reasons: regular worship, baptisms/christenings, weddings, funerals, the Garden of Rest, and the special joyful celebrations at Christmas and Easter and St Michael’s School Services.  And, of course, all the social get-togethers: ballet schools, music groups, Keep-Fit, barn dances, plays, concerts and many, many, more.

We have recently refurbished the front steps, installed handrails and repainted the entrance room (funded solely by the generous giving of the Sunday congregation). We are working towards more provision and welcome for our community for the next 70 years.  But, alas, we also need to do some urgent and essential repairs on the foundations of the church building – they are beginning to collapse!  The church building is under serious threat.  It’s being monitored regularly by a structural engineer but we are no longer able to use the building safely until we can install some supportive scaffolding.  The problem is one common to many buildings in these days of highly changeable weather: recent very hot, dry periods have caused the original buttressing system to fail.  We urgently need to be underpinned; our insurance doesn’t cover it, and although we have some financial reserves they are nowhere near enough to meet the bill.  The underpinning will cost at least £100,000 to fix.  The emergency scaffolding will cost a further £57,000. Please would you help us to save St Michael’s Church?

You can donate directly from the website homepage - thank you for supporting us and our wider community.