Helen Dodd provides reports from St Giles’ Christmas jewellery sale and carol concert:
Jewellery Sale
In December we raised an incredible £162.50 from your donations of unwanted but quality fashion jewellery!
Thank you to those who donated and those who purchased. We still have some jewellery remaining, which we may sell around the time of Mothering Sunday.
Half of this sum went into church funds and half was used to purchase and stock up our Gatehouse box with scarves, hats underwear and socks – all very much appreciated by the clients who visit Gatehouse.
Incase you’re wondering why the blues box seems empty on a Sunday morning, just to say the full contents are taken over to Gatehouse on Monday or Tuesday, waiting for our refills the following Sunday! Food as well as clothing is requested with the list of such in the box. Even the odd tin of fruit or bars of chocolate are useful for Gatehouse staff to keep in their store and a little something from everyone makes a huge difference!
Joint Benefice Christmas Carol Concert Report
Our Christmas Celebrations of 2024 were greatly enhanced by the joyous candlelit Carol Service at St Giles’ on December 22nd. The congregation was not quite back to pre Covid levels, but well increased from 2023 to 180 people including the choir, and standing room only at the back.
We were treated to a wonderful, eclectic mix of carols, well known traditional ones for the congregation to join in, but lesser known and those more contemporary, such This Little Babe by B.Britten, all exquisitely sung by the choir, with some fine solo singing included.
The premier of a new setting for Adam Lay Ybounden composed by Benjamin Gronlie (studying composition at the Guildhall School of Music and Drama and previously head chorister at St Giles’) was a particularly lovely work. So too was a new setting for Away in a Manger composed by David Maw, a choir parent.
Our young ‘in house’ organists for the evening were Benjamin Gronlie, Mia Middleton, William Nicholson and Zihan Wang. All four were, or are, with the Young Organ Scholar’s Trust and under the tutelage of Nicholas Prozzillo. How brilliantly they accompanied the choir through some challenging music at this concert. Sometimes we forget how privileged we are to have such talented young people in our congregation.
The finale of the evening saw the kitchen team busy serving 150 glasses of hot mulled wine and even more mince pies to congregation and choir!
Our great thanks go to our choir director, Nicholas Prozzillo who gathered, rehearsed and conducted the combined St Giles’ choirs; to all the choir members, and to all the parents of junior choir who have patiently supplied transport and often waited whilst their children sang at rehearsals. – Helen Dodd