What's on
Fundraising and Social Events
Calahonda coffee morning
Every Tuesday at 10.30am at Los Olivos Restaurant. On the last Tuesday of the month, we meet at 10:00am for breakfast.
Harvest Festival
Sunday 4 October
9.30am at Calahonda
11.30am at Alhaurin
Wednesday 7 October
10.30am at Los Boliches
It will be good to support our local branches of Caritas who are helping a growing number of families and individuals in our communities at the moment. So tinned food, long-life milk, pasta, rice, dried pulses, tomato frita, and litre bottles of cooking oil, would be most welcome.
Chaplaincy Council Away Day
On Thursday 22 October members of the Chaplaincy Council and other key church workers are gathering together in one of the meeting rooms at Miraflores Golf Course to pray, think – hopefully ‘outside of the box’ as they say - and plan ahead for our life together as a Chaplaincy.
This is building on a similar day we held last year. Our meetings are usually about the nuts and bolts of running the Chaplaincy, so days like this provide us the time and space to be able to be more focused and hopefully more creative in our planning ahead, which is important and especially more so as we try and adapt to the changes imposed on us by the Covid pandemic.
This year we are going to be led by Leo Roberts – a former colleague of John Brown, who is a Church Training Officer and Development Officer. Please remember in your prayers all involved in preparing for this day and all who will give of their time to attend.
Annual Parochial Church Meeting 2020
As I am sure you are all aware, Church AGMs would normally have to take place by the end of April – but special dispensation was granted to all Churches this year, and we now have until the end of October to hold this meeting.
We now plan to hold our APCM on Wednesday 28 October after the 10.30am Eucharist at Los Boliches.
It will be the strangest of AGM meetings for all of us, as AGMs are about reviewing the previous year, so to hold this meeting in the Autumn of 2020 will seem very strange. But it is a legal requirement and so I am sure we will do our best!
To reduce administrative costs, the Reports will be available on-line and will also be sent by email to all who request them – details will be available nearer the time.
Social and Fundraising Events
The Chaplaincy Council has now met several times by Zoom, which has worked remarkably well and saved on travel and frustration of finding somewhere to park!
We started looking ahead to our Autumn programme, but the ‘new normal’ way of living does seem to prevent us from having any form of reasonably sized social gathering at the moment - so very reluctantly, all social and fund raising events have been postponed. But please keep an eye on our website, facebook page and future Newsletter emails, because as soon as things are relaxed I am sure events will happen!
Meanwhile, there is growing concern about our lack of fund-raising and reduced collections with smaller congregational numbers. We encourage all who support us to review their giving and ask our ‘Swallows’ and regular visitors to consider setting up even a small monthly direct debit, to our UK or Spanish accounts, so the chances of still being here when they return is possible. (please see details further down this newsletter)
A suggestion….. 30th November
Many churches have ‘Gift Days’ around their Patronal Festivals as a way of thanksgiving and support. Our Patronal Festival is St Andrew’s Day ~ 30 November. Let’s have a Gift Day this year, and perhaps give what we would normally have given to support our usual fund raising events during the year.
There may be other ways to raise money in these uncertain times. Someone may like to organise an online quiz for instance. Or can you think of anything else?
Let's all hope & pray for a prosperous future for St Andrew's Chaplaince and get thinking of how to raise much needed funds.
Services
Wednesday:
10.30am Said Eucharist at St Andrew’s, Los Boliches
Sunday:
9.30am Said Eucharist at Calahonda Church
11.30am Said Eucharist at Alhaurin Chapel
Sadly, we cannot meet all the rules & regs to make it possible to safely use the chapel at Benalmadena at the moment.
Please remember that our return is strictly governed but the Spanish Government’s laws, FEREDE (the Ministry of Justice agency governing non-Catholic churches) and our own Diocesan guidelines.