Harvest Festival
New Harvest Celebration Event this Sunday for everyone
Sunday September 19th, 11.15 – with your picnic!
The picnic will start at 12 noon, and very possibly earlier.
As a change of approach, instead of our usual Harvest Festival service at the church, we have designed a celebration event which we hope will attract everyone, of all ages, any religion or none, and allow us all as a village simply to be grateful together for the food we eat and for the work of those who produce it. Then we can enjoy eating some! We particularly hope it will allow more newly arrived residents to meet more people, and vice versa. Our celebrant will be Rev Morag Langley, who will be focussing on the togetherness of our community here, especially at this time.
Weather permitting, we shall be in the churchyard. Otherwise, we will go into the church to stay dry, so please bring a mask if rain is at all possible, as the numbers in our church will make that safer for us all. Part one will contain the two traditional harvest hymns (words provided, David leading on a keyboard of either his own or the harmonium, depending on weather).
If anyone knows of a harvest or farming or countryside-related poem or little story they would like to read, please bring that along. You or your family or a child might be inspired to write your own? We’d love to hear it.
We shall have some short thoughts together on gratitude for food, which most of us are so often able to take for granted. Any storable food brought for display will be given to the local food bank. There will be two money collections – one for the church (it needs the income!) and the other for the Food Bank, which I am sure many people already support, but we traditionally think of others at this time in this way. Any home-grown spectacular (in any way) vegetable or fruit could be on display – not all home-grown produce comes out quite as advertised on the seed packet, and they can be entertaining as well as extreme in other ways – and that can include extremely normal!
There will be some outdoor games for children – do bring others if you like, along with your picnic and a rug and outdoor chair if you wish. Some plastic chairs will be provided, but we do not know about numbers so if you want one and can easily bring one, that would be useful.
We are working hard to eventually get the church to function as a village centre for the purposes of the residents as a whole. We very much hope that this celebration together will help us to see one way in which we can come together and use it – in the future it would be so much better if it were not so weather-dependent. Meanwhile, we do hope that as many people as can to will come this Sunday, September 19th for 11.15, followed by a picnic which will start by 12.
Sue Whitfield
