A recent meeting of the Parochial Church Council (PCC) of Helpston was attended by Archdeacon David Painter, following discussions he had had earlier in the summer with the Churchwardens, Pat Jackson and Chris Topper, as well as with the parish priest, Hilary Geisow.
The purpose of the meeting was to consider a proposal that Helpston should be moved from its present grouping with Etton, Glinton, Maxey, Northborough and Peakirk, and join a group of neighbouring parishes to the west – namely Barnack, Bainton, Ufford and Wittering.
Archdeacon David stated frankly that the principal reason for this proposal was the fact that Barnack, Bainton and Ufford currently form a group of three small parishes. For the last few years they have been in the care of Canon Margaret Venables, a priest who retired some time ago from full-time ministry, and who has been ministering in Barnack on a part-time basis – though everyone would agree that she has given a huge amount of time and energy to the task (much more, in fact, than she was ever contracted to do).
Now the time has come for her to retire altogether, and there is a general feeling that it would be better to appoint a full-time priest for the Barnack group. This could only be justified, however, if the group itself was made larger: hence the proposal to add two more parishes – namely Helpston and Wittering. This would make a viable group based on Barnack, while at the same time creating a slightly smaller group based on Glinton, all of whose parishes would be east of the main railway line, thus avoiding the need for the parish priest and others to be frequently using the level crossing at Helpston, with all the delays that that can sometimes involve.
At the meeting in August, Archdeacon David sought the views of the Helpston PCC. The Churchwardens, Pat and Chris, had previously consulted members of the congregation, and there was an amicable consensus at the meeting that the new idea should be accepted.
Asked for her views on the proposed changes, Hilary told the Tribune: “The Archdeacon’s proposal, together with both planned and other changes to key posts within St Botolph’s, will mean a fresh start to the church’s work and worship. There are good lay leaders in the parish who can help direct this process in the power of the Holy Spirit. These will be exciting times for all local Christians, young and old. I hope that everybody will contribute ideas, and play their part in supporting new directions along with the best of what St Botolph’s already does. Though the association with the rest of the group has been short, the parish of Helpston has shown us shown what potential it has. Its contribution to the group will be missed.”
Questions were asked at the meeting regarding the position of Licensed Lay people in the present benefices who serve the villages, namely Mark Hotchkin, Stewart Davies (Readers), and Sue Young (Lay Pastoral Minister). Mark, Stewart and Sue are currently licensed to ‘Etton with Helpston and Maxey’. Both Mark and Sue have close links with Etton, and Mark leads a service at Glinton on a regular basis. The Archdeacon replied that it was perfectly possible for a person to be licensed to more than one benefice; therefore there would be the flexibility to maintain and possibly extend links.
Sue Young said: “It would be fair to say that the new proposals at first took us by surprise, coming so soon after the last re-organisation. However, we can see that the scheme which the Archdeacon put before us is sensible, reducing Hilary’s workload and grouping Helpston with parishes west of the railway line. We consider ourselves a friendly congregation and we are flexible, having worked with six different parish priests over the past twenty-odd years as well as numerous visiting clergy. We look forward to working with the new group.”
The proposed change also has implications for your award-winning Village Tribune. Is Helpston to be withdrawn from our circulation area? Are Barnack, Bainton, Ufford and Wittering to be added? It is known that at present there is no similar magazine available for the ‘new’ parishes. Are we to be eleven?
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Thoughts on the Village Tribune:
No to being Eleven
The Tribune would have to grow considerably to be able to include 4 more parishes. You would have to find more and include more advertising space, to enable the Tribune to continue to pay for itself, this itself would enlarge the Tribune without any written contributions from the villages. You could find you have to consider restrictions on how many items each village put forward the Tribune as we have to think of the distributors who have problems with the weight of the magazine now.
Also personally I am interested in the villages around where I live, Wittering is so far away and will not be in my Benefice I cannot see that I would want to read about people I do not have any connection with.
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