One thing new and two repeats this month. The new thing is to welcome Caroline Halmshaw as our Curate and I’m very excited that she’s joining our clergy team. She brings a huge amount of experience from her church background and her professional career. For those who might be unfamiliar with the job title, a curate is effectively a vicar who is training on the job for the first three years after ordination.

So Caroline is with us to learn as much as to serve, but the two things go hand-in-hand. I look forward to learning and serving alongside her.

The repeats are two events from our Teddington 800 festival last year that we all thought were so good that they ought to be made into annual fixtures (well, perhaps I had a little say in the matter as well!).

The first is the River Blessing Service which this year will be on Sunday July 8th, starting in St Mary with St Alban’s church at 10am and processing down to the riverside in Manor Park Gardens. This involves lots of river clubs and organisations, a flotilla of boats, the casting of a flower cross onto the waters and then dragon-boat racing and an open-day at the Lifeboat Station. It proved to be quite a spectacle last year, but also reminded us of the deep and ongoing relationship that Teddington has with the Thames, much of which has a spiritual dimension.

The second repeat is the cricket fixture between the Bishop of Kensington’s XI (made up of clergy from across the London diocese) and Teddington CC. This is on Wednesday July 18th at 6pm at Teddington’s wonderful ground in Bushy Park. Last year the clergy won it, but we expect stiffer opposition this time. Please come along to support and enjoy the bar and a BBQ at the club. Admission is free but I’d love to encourage donations to the new Teddington CC Pavillion which will be an asset to the wider community as well as the club.

One thing new and two repeats is probably a good monthly formula for a church. Perhaps it works for life in general.

Best wishes
Rev Joe Moffat