St Andrew's, Dearnley

St Andrew's, Dearnley and Smithy Bridge

The congregation at St Andrew's, the parish church of Dearnley and Smithy Bridge, are busy baking cakes this week for the first of a series of monthly coffee mornings, this one to raise funds for the church's Wider Welcome project.

Dubbed the 'Big Cake Bake', it will be held in church this Saturday, June 23. from 10.00am.

A church spokesman said: "Everyone in church last Sunday was told to get baking. This is all about cakes. Any shape, any size. We'll bake 'em, eat 'em and sell 'em . . . and the icing will be the money we raise for Wider Welcome."

Volunteers are required to set up tables etc and those parishioners who will be bringing in their home-made cakes, buns, fruit pies etc for sale are asked to arrive early so that the room can be arranged appropriately.

The Wider Welcome project team is working hard behind the scenes and after a meeting last Monday it was announced that work should start on the major refurbishment of the community facilities at the back of church before the end of the year.

Admission to the coffee morning is £2 which includes coffee (or tea) and biscuits.

Other similar events will be held on the Saturday mornings of July 21, August 18, September 15 and December 15, this one to feature mince pies.

Other events planned by the social committee are as follows:

Saturday, July 28, 3pm at Wardle, the Vicar's Garden Party.

Sunday, September 16, 3pm, Deanery Songs of Praise, with sandwiches and cakes.

Saturday, September 29, 'Songs from the Shows' with the Wigan-based band, Gifted.

Saturday, October 20, 3pm, Harvest afternoon tea.

Saturday, November 17, 11am to 1pm, Autumn Fair.

Saturday, December 1, Family Fun Night to celebrate St Andrew's Day.

A Race Night is also in the planning, but time and details of that will be announced later.

The band 'Gifted' visited St Andrew's for the first time last September to entertain us with a Lancashire Night and it proved so popular and so successful that they have accepted our invitation to make a return visit to entertain us with a different musical theme on September 29.

On Sunday we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist with Eucharist at 8am and Sung Eucharist at 10.00am our main service of the week.

This week it is followed by Holy Baptisms, the first at noon and another at 1.00pm.

The parish rota is: lay assistants, S Carmichael, C Cook; readers, R Polley, G Kilpatrick; Intercessions, M Young; sidespersons, C Giles, R Hawkins; refreshments, Brenda, June and Cynthia.

Anyone wishing to join our Emmaus faith renewal course is asked to speak to Margaret or add a name to the list on the notice board in the parish room. It will start on Tuesday, July 3 at 7.30pm and run for 15 weeks.