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Newsletter - April / May 2008
April is an important month for St George’s Chaplaincy. Most years (but not this year) Easter fall within it, and it also includes St Georges Day and the annual meetings of the chaplaincy and its congregations.
St George’s Day
April 23rd is, of course, St George’s Day — as well as being Shakespeare’s birthday. This year we celebrated the day (or, rather, the ‘tide’) with two events, one on the day itself, the other a few days earlier.
One of our members, Margaret Pickering, is involved in a local play-reading group, THESPA. She very kindly persuaded her fellow thespians to come and perform two one-act plays in the church, one written by herself, the other by another member of the group. These were performed on the evening of Friday 18th - preceded by glasses of cava - and afterwards a light supper was served in the Gatehouse to over 40 people, included a group of English Philology students and their tutor from Malaga University. They really appreciated the opportunity to listen to clearly spoken English from the ‘stage’, and over supper to speak English to other members of the audience. It proved a most enjoyable evening, as well as raising funds for the church. Our grateful thanks to Margaret!
On St George’s Day itself the St George’s Church choir led a Choral Evensong service. Using Evening Prayer from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, they sang settings of the Magnificat and the Nunc Dimittis by F H Shera, and the Responses. They also sang a very pretty anthem by the contemporary composer John Rutter: A Clare Benediction. The service concluded with a rousing rendition of the hymn ‘Jerusalem’, and afterwards drinks and tapas were served outside in the glorious spring evening.
Annual General Meetings
As mentioned above, St George’s Day is not the only important event for our chaplaincy that always occurs in April — it is also when we hold our Chaplaincy Annual General Meeting and, before that, the AGMs of the constituent congregations.
The Chaplaincy AGM was held last Sunday in St George’s Church after morning worship. It received reports from the Electoral Roll Officer, from the Chaplain, from the Chaplaincy Treasurer, from the Secretary and from the representatives to the Archdeaconry Synod on the meeting of the synod that took place earlier this year near Madrid.
Ged Harrison, as Electoral Roll Officer, reported that the chaplaincy Electoral Roll currently stands at 110, having dropped from 133 last year on account of the departure of some of our former Torre del Mar members. Of these, St George’s Church itself accounts for around 50% of the total. For the first time our ‘exploratory mission’ that now worships in two centres along the northern edge of Malaga province — Moraleda de Zafayona and Villanueva de Tapia — appeared separately in her report with 17 electoral roll members.
Mike Smith, the Chaplaincy Treasurer, presented and explained the 2007 audited accounts, and reported that we had done rather better financially in 2007 than we had perhaps anticipated. For eight months of the year we had paid our new chaplain’s full-time stipend — a first for this chaplaincy - but needed to draw from the chaplaincy’s reserves to balance the books rather less than we had budgeted. He warned, however, that 2008 would be a different story, and that we need to raise substantially more money this year than we did last.
Mike was able to tell the meeting that our charitable giving in 2007 was much greater than that in 2006, and considerably exceeded the 10% of plate collections to which we as a chaplaincy are committed. A total of €2437 and £1155 was given to 13 different charities: local Spanish ones as well as British national and international causes.
Rosella Parmiter and Denise Heyes were elected unopposed as Chaplaincy Churchwardens for the coming year, and the Chaplain duly admitted them to their office. 2008 is a year that new Archdeaconry Synod representatives are elected and Rosella Parmiter, Patricia Luce and Adrian Wilkinson were elected, again unopposed. They will serve for three years. At a short meeting of the Chaplaincy Council immediately after the AGM, while lunch was being served outside the church, Jean Roberts, Mike Smith and David Harrison were re-elected Honorary Secretary, Honorary Treasurer and Lay Vice-Chairman respectively. Ged Harrison agreed to accept the post of Child Protection Officer and was elected.
At the congregational annual meetings held earlier in the month, Paul Gath and Adrian Wilkinson were elected congregational wardens for Competa, Denise Heyes and Stuart Smith for Torre del Mar, and Jennifer Vernon-Smith and David Harrison for St George’s Church. The membership of the new Chaplaincy Council is shown elsewhere on this website.
“Church of St Barnabas”
In a Newsletter a few months ago we reported with regret that the Revd. James Tayler had resigned his position as Assistant Curate in the chaplaincy, and a number of our members who had previously worshipped with the Torre del Mar congregation had stopped attending. Some two months ago he, together with another priest and a reader, wrote informing us that they had set up a rival congregation in Torre del Mar, meeting on Sunday mornings just a few hundred yards from Lux Mundi, and that they were also holding services in a venue that we had previously used in Alhama de Granada — calling themselves “the Church of St Barnabas”.
We consulted our Suffragan Bishop, The Rt. Revd. David Hamid, on how we should respond to this, and his reply included the following:
“It might be useful to let the council (and perhaps the chaplaincy in general) know that the group calling itself the Church of St Barnabas is not a constituent part of the Church of England, nor of the jurisdiction of any bishop of the Anglican Communion. Thus it is not in communion with the See of Canterbury. None of the clergy listed, nor the reader, hold a licence or permission to officiate of the Bishop of Gibraltar in Europe, nor a licence to minister from any other bishop of the Anglican Communion. It is important that there is clarity of understanding on these facts. They are, to all intents and purposes, an independent group.”
Bishop David added:
“I will also send a letter to the Bishop of Málaga, so he is aware that this is not a group that has anything to do with the Church of England.” This he has done.
For the latest information about forthcoming services and other events within the chaplaincy, please visit the A Church Near You website. It’s at www.acny.org.uk. Click on ‘Churches in Continental Europe’ and then ‘Spain’, and you will find the links to ‘Malaga’, ‘Torre del Mar’, ‘Competa’ and ‘Moraleda de Zafayona and Villanueva de Tapia’. You will of course also find more information elsewhere on this website, including details of forthcoming services under 'Information'.
That’s all for now. If you live in or are visiting the Malaga area we look forward to seeing you at St George’s Church or at one of our other congregations. If you are not sure of directions, please go to www.acny.org.uk, or phone 95 229 0173, or email webmaster@stgeorgemalaga.org.
STOP PRESS --- STOP PRESS --- STOP PRESS !!!
Well, not quite all! On Sunday 25 May, after the service at St Geurge's Church, we will be holding our annual Spring Fayre from 1 to 3 pm. This one of our main fundraising events of the year. We are looking for donations of good quality bric-a-brac, second-hand clothes and books, preserves and baked goods, and bottles (well within their sell-by date, please) for the bottles stall. We will also need help in setting up on Saturday 24th, and on the day itself. Please contact Jennifer (95 220 0204) or Rosella (95 240 0006) if you can help in any way. Items for the stalls can be collected within the Malaga area - please call Judith on 95 220 7067.
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