On May 17th, we held our Annual Parish Church Meeting. It’s a two-part meeting.
The first part is opened to all residents of the parishes (Camber and East Guldeford) and church members while the second part is opened to church members only.
The first part of the meeting annually elects the churchwardens. It’s something that goes back a few centuries when the rector/vicar and the churchwardens of any C of E church had a prominent civic role. The meeting returned Richard and Annie Baker as churchwardens. They’ve worked hard and have done a wonderful job over the past couple of years. We’re very blessed to have them.
The meeting of the church members (the second part) is where we elect the members of the church parochial council (PCC) and deanery synod representatives. Presently, we have only one vacancy on the PCC, which is pretty good going.
That meeting also receives the annual report, including the accounts, prepared by the PCC. I’m very thankful to everyone who’s volunteered to serve on the PCC. The meeting was done and dusted in half an hour.
In May, we returned to our summer pattern of worship. There’s a 10.30 am service every Sunday at Camber Church except the first Sunday.
On the first Sunday, the service is at East Guldeford, either at 10.30 am or if it’s a special service, at 2.30 pm. On the first Sunday of May we had the annual Blessing of the Lambs service in the afternoon.
It was well attended, including the Worshipful Mayor of Rye, Cllr Andy Stuart, in his last official duty as Mayor and the Town Crier, Mr Paul Goring. The representative lamb blessed was a hefty ewe lamb called Tabitha who is being hand-reared and will live out its days as a pet to the Bakers. It was a fine event.
At the Blessing of the Lambs service, we also dedicated the recently completed brick path to East Guldeford church, making it now safe to approach the church. We’ve done a lot of work on our church buildings in the last few months, especially in Camber.
We’ve had to repair a leaking roof and bring the building up to fire regulation standards; we’d either fallen behind or not kept up. But now we’re kosher. The next big (i.e. expensive) project is the church tower.
We don’t think it’s had any major work done since the church’s inception 70 years ago. Maybe a fresh-faced tower will make the church more visible than it has been in the past. Sometimes I wonder if people even know there’s a church there
