Sadly our Rector, the Rev. Karen Rayner, is on sick leave, we pray for her recovery. Also our Assistant Priest, the Rev. Sandy Mitchell, retired this month so, like the other two churches in our Fleggburgh Parish we rely on the laity to keep things running.

 

We have thirteen names on the Church Electoral Roll.

 

Our Parochial Church Council has a full complement of four parishioners plus ex-0fficio members.

 

St. Peter’s is open every day throughout the year; in Winter only a few visitors trickle through but in Summer we do have quite a lot of people coming to look round. We have produced a trifold guide for Clippesby Church, also a small heritage trail  guide that includes All Saint’s, Billockby and St. Margaret’s, Burgh. (I have brought copies of both of these).

 

Services are held at 11am on the second and fourth Sundays in the month, with Evening Prayer every Wednesday at 4.30pm from April to September.

 

A friendly Coffee and Chat Morning takes place on the first Tuesday in the month at 11am and we are about to try another one incorporating a Knitting and Hobbies group on the third Tuesday.

 

We had two funerals and one burial of ashes in the churchyard last year and we celebrated two baptisms; we look forward to another christening this July.

 

Clippesby’s Parish Share to the Diocese last year was over £5,000.00, it was paid in full thanks to the efforts of our energetic Fund-raising Team who run Monthly Events throughout the year. Two of these events are weekend exhibitions, one a Valentine’s weekend in February and the other in October which we call “The Harvest of a Quiet Eye”; they usually feature some aspect of Clippesby’s past. These monthly events bring in enough money to cover the upkeep of the Church as well as the Parish Share.

 

We were grateful to receive a grant from the Parish Council and two smaller Community grants which helped us to have our old church Harmonium restored.

 

Clippesby PCC organised restoration of the Clippesby Village Sign and a Celebration Tea in the church to mark the Queens 90th Birthday, Paul Guise- Smith did most of the work on the sign.

 

 

The recent Quinquennial inspection didn’t show too many things needing doing immediately, but, major work within the next few years, to conserve our lovely stained glass, will have to be undertaken. Also we shall have to fix the damage done to the gate pillar and the churchyard wall when large capping stones were stolen last year. Some plaster from the Tower ceiling fell down and this has been made safe but needs to be fixed.

 

We think perhaps churchyard surveys of the memorials and the wild life together with its restoration could be a community project? We are planning to pave the church path soon to make it accessible for wheelchairs and prams and we are grateful to Paul for levelling the Church Loke.

 

Work is always ongoing to the church website, we are very lucky to have Pauline Willmott who does work on it almost daily. It’s <clippesbychurchandcountryside.co.uk>

 

The discreet little Compost Loo is working very well, it was definitely needed.

 

 

Jean Lindsay (Churchwarden)

11/5/2017