West Hallam Methodist Church

 Flower Festival

 The fifth Flower festival at the Methodist Church, held over the May Day Weekend, was off to a good start when it was opened by our minister Reverend Trevor Grewcock. There followed a concert performed by members of the church. The concert exhibited a wealth of home talent with solo and group singing, instrumentalists and poems and readings by young and old.  Our church group “The Festival Singers” gave another, now to be expected, impecc able performance.

 A collection was made for the Derbyshire County Air Ambulance. Mrs Barbara Quinn spoke briefly about their work, which relies entirely on voluntary contributions and was delighted to receive a cheque for £335-00 from Doris Wood, Charlie Pierson (age 4) presented a flower bouquet to Barbara.

 The Flower Festival opened on the Saturday morning with the first visitors arriving before the official opening time and this steady flow continued until closing time on  Monday.

‘The “Sounds of Music” was the theme for the festival. Each display was set around a musical instrument, many of which are mentioned in the Bible, the centrepiece being David and his harp (not to mention the ‘sheep’). Ladies of the church chose an instrument to interpret, giving a lovely variety to the whole festival. On Saturday music was played both on the organ and violins and on Monday John Jordon brought along his group of musicians to play pipes. The whole atmosphere was a delight with high quality music and flowers and a sense of beauty and tranquility and peace was to be found in our worship area.

Lots of lovely food was served in the hall, by Christine and her team, and craft items and bakery produce were on sale. Our church craft team, “Busy Bees”, were selling high quality items produced over the preceding weeks. The delightful display of needlecraft and paintings supported by practical demonstrations of how it was done was also very popular.

A united churches of Mapperley and West Hallam “Songs of Praise” service, led by Rev Trevor Grewcock, nearly lifted the roof on the Sunday evening, the hymns being chosen by the ladies who had arranged the flowers.

The bank holiday Monday was a popular day for visitors all enjoying their visit to our beautiful church.

 Altogether a real church team effort not forgetting the men who worked so hard in the background from the lighting technicians, heavy lifting, joinery, publicity and pot washing. Our special thanks go to Beryl Hemstock, our team leader and inspiration, our inspired flower displays arrangers Beryl, Joyce, Anne, Joanna, Christine, Mavis, Sheila, Jennie and Beryl and to John Dunkley for his technical advice and arrangements.

Thank you for all the support we received, the magnificent amount raised for church funds was £1,645-00, but the joy, the atmosphere and the fellowship far outweighed the monitory result.