Heart of the Community – Page 10 – St Michael's Church, Stoke Gifford

Thirteen miles and counting…

Posted on 21 September 2013 by Laura Thomas

Our curate, Martin Gordon, completed the Bristol Half Marathon last weekend. Thanks to the generous support of his friends and family, he raised almost £5,000 for the Heart of the Community project.

Donations of nearly £2000 were made using Martin’s online giving page (it’s not too late to donate). Automatic Gift Aid contributions increased that total by another 20% and a very generous supporter agreed to match all the other donations made.

Martin completed the 13 mile course in 1 hour 38 minutes on his birthday, and was back in church to lead the evening service a few hours later.

He sends his thanks to all those who sponsored him for the Heart of the Community project.

Sixty thousand pound donation to Heart of the Community

Posted on 26 July 2013 by Laura Thomas

This week we received an extremely generous grant from a charitable trust in Bristol.

The Heart of the Community finance and fundraising team have been carefully applying to many different funding organisations.

The Temple Ecclesiastical Charity said they “were impressed by the application, by the boldness of the project, and by all the hard work which is clearly being put into it” and offered to donate £60,000 to help us realise our vision of living to make a difference.

The trust’s purpose is to support the charitable work of the Church of England in the Bristol area. Their funding policies give priority to the projects where they feel their grants will “make the most difference”.

We are extremely grateful for their generous support, particularly as it will help to fund the capital costs of the new church and community centre building work.

This is the third major donation to the Heart of the Community project from different trusts and charities. Please join us in giving thanks for this encouraging support, and praying for the success of future applications to other funding organisations.

Safety hoardings installed as builders prepare to raise the roof

Posted on 24 July 2013 by Laura Thomas

The Heart of the Community project is becoming more visible.

The wooden hoardings are now up right around the old barns site. On the side of the building along North Road pedestrians are now being diverted to the opposite side of the road. This is happening because, in the next 2-8 weeks, the builders will be bringing in machinery and working in that space to take the roof off the north barn*.

Signage will be added to the wooden fencing shortly, giving information about the plans for the site.

(*Please note: they will be putting the roof back again once the new building structure is complete.)

Local media splash as building begins

Posted on 13 July 2013 by Laura Thomas

We marked the start of building work on the new church and community centre this week by inviting local media to a celebratory photo opportunity in the sunshine.

On Tuesday morning a gang of junior builders from St Michael’s Pre-school and Nursery put on their hard hats and high-vis jackets to watch the action at the site, and pose for the cameras.

The professionals from Bray and Slaughter – our appointed building contractors – were extremely hospitable, and choreographed a splendid photo-call complete with diggers and rubble. The story was covered by BBC Bristol, the Bristol Post and others. We were on the front page of the Bristol Observer and more detailed coverage is planned for the forthcoming edition of Little Stoke Matters too.

Once the photographers had finished snapping and the little ones were safely back at Pre-school and Nursery, work continued apace on the site, in preparation for the first stages of construction in the months ahead. What a scoop.