Our first piece of news concerns the staffing of Basics Bank. On September 29th, as regular readers of our blog will remember (well, you weren't paying attention then, were you) we advertised for a new treasurer as the current holder, Peter Haslett, on the right of this photo, wanted to retire and put his feet up (a likely story). Well, we can now confirm that the successful applicant is none other than Anthony Kirke, from St Francis of Assisi Church in Milford, who is well known to us because he and Judith often visit Our Lady of Mercy Church, and in fact were unlucky enough to get blogged there on Mar 3rd. You can see from Peter's broad smile how happy he is to be relieved of his burden, but we're not quite sure why Anthony's smiling as well! Seriously, we welcome him to the team, we're delighted to have him with us, but we can only promise him plenty of hard work.
We've been visited by lots of generous people this week; the Lions of New Milton and all those who contributed to their trolley drops have helped the Basics Bank's team to keep the shelves well stocked up for quite a few weeks, while a big donation from Rotary and a number of other gifts and donations enabled Clare and her team to make up 112 Christmas parcels for local people who would not otherwise be able to afford the extras which make Christmas meals special. Our photo shows the volunteers, including a very efficient group of young ladies from the Lymington Rangers, who formed an assembly line at the URC Parish Rooms to pack the parcels.
We were very grateful to Elmers Court for allowing the annual Basics Bank fundraising event to take place there last Sunday afternoon. Some of those to whom special thanks are due posed for the photographer: Councillor Elizabeth Cox, Elmers Court General Manager Jean-Marc Poume, Santa Claus (we didn't find out who you really were, sorry Santa) local MP Desmond Swain and staunch supporter April Laraman.
photo by Lemontree Photography
As the fans arrived, there was a table crying out to be filled with items of food and toiletries and a nice big bucket for donations of money. Unfortunately not as many arrived as had been hoped for. Was this because other things were happening that afternoon? There were two carol services, one at the Priory and one arranged by Lymington Churches Together which was held at the URC, St Anne's Parish held their Christmas lunch, and Our Lady of Mercy had Exposition, Rosary and Benediction. Some parishioners tried to attend two of the five, but it depended on how long the event they chose to go to first overran its time as to whether they arrived at the second breathless or, in at least one case, more than half an hour after it had started.
Our thanks to Lemontree, for rescuing us. They are at http://lemontree-photography.co.uk/
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