Dear all

I am writing this E-mailing just after our Annual Meeting for 2009.  Annual meetings do not often feature highly in the excitement stakes, but what they are at best is a celebration of life lived in abundance – and this is something clearly and abundantly present at Emmanuel.  The really good news is that our Electoral Roll has risen to 142 as we seek to ensure that Emmanuel continues to be a beacon of light and God’s all-inclusive love in this community of West Hampstead.  At the bottom of this E-mailing you will find the text of my report at the Annual meeting as I reflected on this abundance of life at Emmanuel on Sunday.

WARDENS PAST
At the meeting both Jeremy and Lydia completed the end of their time as Churchwardens.  Jeremy has served as Churchwarden from the AGM of 2003 until now and he has been most noticeably present in his ministry of welcome at the Church door and his work with the ever-growing crèche at Emmanuel.  He has seen very much as his vocation and calling in recent years.  Lydia’s Churchwarden-ship is in many ways a continuation from Alun’s which ran from 2002 to the end of 2007, as she assumed the role at the beginning of 2008, just as Fr Peter was announcing his move.  Lydia, Alun and Jeremy have been exemplary in their service of Emmanuel in the midst of busy lives and careers and so we very much look forward to making a small presentation to them after the Family Eucharist this coming Sunday – 3rd May when I hope as many of you as possible will be present.  I am glad to say that Lydia will now be serving as one of our Deanery Synod representatives and in an advisory capacity as honorary deputy warden.

EMMA - ORDINAND AND READER
As you know Emma is well on in the first year of her course of training for ordination on the mixed mode course at Cuddesdon and her course requires her to undertake a three month placement in a parish other than her home parish.  For that reason she and Jeremy will be away from Emmanuel for three months – but they will be returning in August!  We much look forward to hearing about their experiences and reflections on their return.

WARDENS AND OFFICERS PRESENT
Welcome to our newly elected Churchwardens William Davis and Don Shields who will bring their own distinct gifts and talents to the role of Warden.  I much look forward to sharing with them collaboratively in the pastoral care and leadership of the people of Emmanuel.  Welcome, too, to Joanne Hutchings who has just joined the PCC and has kindly agreed to act as PCC Secretary.

YOUR PCC
Your PCC is thus made up of me and Mother Annette, Emma Smith, William Davis & Don Shields(Churchwardens), Jude Chin (Treasurer), Joanna Hutchings (Secretary), Casey Hammett, Diana Malzer, Susan Redward, Carrie Reiners (Electoral Roll Officer), Nishi Shirley, Lydia Parker, Sukey Parnell, Richard Stamp (Deanary Synod Representatives) and John Ward (ex officio through his membership of General Synod).  We are your representatives – please speak to any of us about any matter of church and parish life.

SUNDAY SCHOOL LEADERS…  YOUR CHURCH NEEDS YOU
Our growing and thriving Sunday School started again yesterday, but we are always on the look out for new leaders to join the rota.  Both Mo Annette and I have joined the rota and Nishi Shirley would love to hear from you if you can help.

EMMANUEL’S E-MAILING LIST
Hitherto Emma has maintained the ever-growing email list of all the friends and supporters of Emmanuel.   That is why the electronic ‘sender’ of E-mailings has borne her name.  Particularly as she begins her placement Emma would like to hand that list over to me.  If Emma does not hear from you by the end of next week, may we assume that you are content to remain on our list of friends and supporters of Emmanuel?  If you know of anyone else who should be on it, please do not hesitate to let us know.

THE FUTURE IS BRIGHT… BUT IS IT ORANGE..?
As we look to the future, it seems that Emmanuel is in a good and encouraging place.  Thanks be to God for that.  We must, however, never been complacent as we seek to grow both in strength and in number and in our knowledge and love of God.

Thank you for all that you bring to the life of Emmanuel. 

It is very much appreciated.

With my love and prayers, as always,

Fr Jonathan

____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

FR JONATHAN’S REPORT AT THE ANNUAL MEETING – 26 APRIL 2009

An Annual meeting, far from being a dull, litigious affair should rather be an occasion for celebration of life – of life lived in all its abundance.  For much of the period that this meeting covers, I wasn’t yet the Priest in Charge of Emmanuel, but as soon as I arrived here I realised that Emmanuel is a place of life, lived in all its abundance.  I was licensed here by the Bishop of Edmonton on the tenth of the tenth last year and, if you look at verse 10 of chapter 10 of St John’s Gospel you will find the words of Jesus, ‘I have come that you might have life, and life in all its abundance’.  What better motto could there be for our life together in this place.

First of all, then, I want to thank you most sincerely for the really warm welcome that you have given me since my arrival here from East London in the autumn.  Ilford and West Hampstead couldn’t be more different places – but West Hampstead is a great place to live and Emmanuel is a great church to serve as a priest.

Thank you so much to all of you who gave so generously for the garage / study conversion into my beautiful new office, from which I can sit at my desk under the window and see so much of West Hampstead life go by.  The new study has enabled the former Vicarage study and upstairs bedroom to revert to Church use – upstairs as a dedicated choir and music room and downstairs as an all purpose room for Sunday School and other meetings for young and old.  This has given us so much more greatly needed space in the Church and gives us so much more flexibility and potential for the future.

Fr Peter’s last service here at Emmanuel was on the festival of Candlemas in February last year from which time until my arrival Emmanuel was without its own full time priest.  During that period much of the weight of the day to day running fell on the very capable shoulders of Emma, who took care of everything from ensuring that each Sunday’s services were covered to ensuring the pastoral care and well-being of all the people of Emmanuel. 

Many parishes struggle quite considerably during an interregnum, but Emma has ensured that this was not the case here at Emmanuel and parish life continued to thrive and to be lived in all its abundance.   In a list duties which Emma carried out during the interregnum which was complied for her first year training report it is clear to me just how much she has done and continues to do for the parish.  Since my arrival here she has been an invaluable source of support, advice and encouragement and she has that wonderful capacity for having an encyclopaedic knowledge of names of the many, many adults, children and babies which make up the family of Emmanuel.

In September Emma began her training for ordination on the mixed mode course at Ripon College, Cuddesdon and it has been great to share with her some of her reflections on her studies.  I’m sure I speak for all of us here in thanking Emma most sincerely and from the bottom of our hearts for all she has done for Emmanuel.

The annual report contains the names of those priests who covered during the interregnum for which we were very grateful, but the wonderful news was that the Bishop agreed that one of those priests, Mo Annette, should join us at Emmanuel as our honorary assistant priest.  Mo Annette, it has been great to have you join us a colleague, a friend and a pastor – thank you for all that you are bringing to our life together.

The word for the main body of the Church where the people sit is the ‘nave’ derived for the Latin word meaning a boat or a ship.  Well any boat or ship needs leading people at it’s helm - and in the life of the Church such people are the Churchwardens.  Over the past year Jeremy and Lydia have served the parish unstintingly in the midst of busy lives and careers.  Lydia, as you know, took over the reins from Alan mid-year and so we have to thank both Parkers for all that they have done over the years.  Jeremy has served as Churchwarden for the full six years that the church law allows someone to be a warden.  Both Wardens are standing down this year and we will have the opportunity of making presentations to them next Sunday morning, but for now I would like to record the heart-felt thanks of all at Emmanuel to Lydia, Alun and Jeremy.

In thanking them I like to warmly welcome William and Don as our new Churchwardens, both of whom make me feel very old indeed.  Welcome, guys, and thank you in anticipation for all that you will do.  Is our next meeting in the Lion or the Alliance?!

Thank you to William for all that he has done as PCC Secretary and, without wanting to preclude the meeting of the first meeting of the PCC at the end of this, welcome to Joanne Hutchings who has kindly agreed to be PCC Secretary.

Thank you to Jude for all the he continues to do for the accounts and financial management of Emmanuel, ably assisted by Diana Malzer and Mary Shepherd.  We look forward to Jude’s presentation of the accounts in a few moments time.

At the heart of all we seek to do together is our life of worship and prayer, not only Sunday by Sunday but throughout the week as well.  It’s been really good to expand the provision of our worship at Emmanuel, so that the Eucharist is also celebrated in a quieter and more meditative way on three days (and soon to be four days) throughout the week.  Do support us in those if you possibly can as we seek to root all that we are and all that aspire to do in prayer and in the eternal present of God’s redemptive and creative love.

Right from its inception Emmanuel has been a supporter of the group ‘Inclusive Church’ as we consciously commit ourselves to welcoming everyone – irrespective of age, ethnicity, way of life or sexual orientation.  We take pride in our tradition of inclusiveness as we aspire to make all worship and all our activities truly inclusive.  In the sphere of worship this means making provision for our more informal family Eucharist on the first Sunday of the month, which is balanced on the evening of that day with a more traditional service of Choral Evensong from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer.  We are constantly exploring further ways in which we might make the range of our services and activities more inclusive and we are especially mindful of the need always to include the older members of our congregation, not only in the monthly Wednesday Fellowship Eucharist and lunch, but in everything else that we do.

In worship, music is one of the key constituent parts, remembering the wise words of that great giant of the early church, St Augustine that ‘the one who sings prays twice’.  In Advent of last year we bade farewell to Alyson Denza as she moves onto pastures new and to expand her exciting and developing musical and choral career.  At the time we placed on record our very sincere and deep gratitude to Alyson for her vision and energy in forming the choir here at Emmanuel and for the very sound footing she placed us on for the future.  In the mean time our very grateful thanks are due to Sukey Parnell, Matt Ingleby and Isabel Collins who have run the choir as a triumvirate (?or trinity) as we explore the future growth and development of music at Emmanuel.  But in all of this our most grateful thanks go to Mark Denza who has been organist here at Emmanuel for over fourteen years.

There are so many other people to thank and the great danger in naming them all is inadvertently to leave someone out.  We have committed teams of servers led by our sacristan and head server, those who run our Sunday School and work with our young people, those who clean the church and arrange flowers… the list is endless, but thank you all for all you do.  It is very much appreciated.

A key and much valued relationship for us here at Emmanuel is with our Church School.  The School comes into Church for the Eucharist on Thursday mornings during term time, but outside this it has been great to have got to know many of the staff, children, parents and governors at all sorts of other events.  At the end of term Michael Larkin finishes his time as interim Head Teacher and we thank him for all that he has done for the School in his time with us. 

At the beginning of the new school year Sheila McCalla-Gordon takes over as Executive Head of both Emmanuel School and Ss Mary & Pancras, School in the southern part of the Borough.  This bodes to be an exciting and visionary time for both Schools, but for us and for Sheila it will very much be a homecoming after her earlier time as a teacher and subsequently Head Teacher of Emmanuel in years past. During the coming year, subject to public consultation, planning and other applications we look forward to beginning the process of the expansion of the School, retaining the present buildings, but in the construction also of new buildings on Mill Lane.  Places at Emmanuel School are highly sought after and each year at present the sheer number of applications means that we could fill each place four or five times.  The new school would be a full-form entry school with thirty places, of which two thirds would be church places and one third community places. Do please keep the School and the Governors (of which John Ward is the hard working and committed Chair) very much in your prayers.

So Emmanuel is indeed a place of life, lived in all its abundance.  But what of the future?  It is very much my own aspiration, but an aspiration I hope shared with every one here, that we should do all that we can to place Emmanuel at the heart of this vibrant and excitingly diverse community.  In our new publicity and newly re-vamped website (for which we owe Sukey Parnell a huge debt of gratitude) we have adopted the strap line ‘the Church on the Green’.  West End Green is very much a focal point of West Hampstead, leading onto the hive of activity in West End Lane.  It is wonderful that we sing Carols on the Green each year, to which year on year, greater and greater numbers seem to come.  But in calling ourselves ‘the Church on the Green’ I hope that we will continue to connect more fully with the local community and that the Church may increasingly become a venue for all sorts of community activities, musical, artistic and social. In all of this, I hope, we will be further fulfilling our vocation to be a truly inclusive Church, a Church committed to being a place of warmth and welcome to people from every walk of life imaginable and so that we might truly be disciples of him who taught us

‘I have come that you might have life, life in all its abundance’.