Old Christ Church, Waterloo, Sefton, Lancashire, L22 1RF

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This page will have a copy of our latest organization newsletter. We will update the page from time to time as newsletters become available.

Newsletter 

 

The committee continues to work hard to make full use of this wonderful redundant church for the benefit of the local community and last year’s programme of cultural and heritage events was our most ambitious thus far.  We are continuing to look for additional volunteers to help us with practical assistance such as setting up the church for Flea Markets or helping to sell raffle tickets etc as without our willing helpers we would find it difficult to put on so many events during the year.

 

The Churches Conservation Trust have recently confirmed that our church is their 9th most visited church in the country and they consider it to be one of their most important buildings.

 

Last year's Special Events

 

We started in May with our Local History Exhibition featuring a living history display by the Anglo-Saxons followed in June with a concert by the Great Sutton Male Voice Choir. In July we held our second Art Exhibition with some 450 works of art on display.  A new venture for us, the ‘Festival of the Coast’, was a resounding success in August and in September we took part in ‘National Heritage Open Days’ with displays and demonstrations of 17 different traditional rural crafts. October saw us again taking part in ‘Big Draw Day’, a nationally organised event with the purpose of encouraging people of all ages to take up drawing and painting. We finished the year with our Christmas Fair, in November, with 35 stallholders filling the church and selling seasonal gifts.

 

Waterloo Flea Markets

 

The ever popular ‘Waterloo Flea Market’ continues to flourish and regularly now has about 80 stalls selling a wide variety of items and is open between 9.30am and 1pm on the first Saturday of every month.  They run from February to May with a summer break and then start again in September. The income from the Flea Markets together with grant monies has enabled the committee to run our summer programme with free entry to the public.

 

Farmers Markets

 

We are endeavouring to organise a Farmers Market on a regular monthly basis, possibly on a weekday, rather than a weekend, and we would welcome the opinion of our members as to whether they would support such a venture as we think such a facility is lacking in the area. Please let us have your views.

 

 

 

Other News

 

We were fortunate in 2008 in attracting a substantial grant from the National Lottery ‘Awards for All’ scheme that has enabled us to purchase new furniture for the church and also to ensure that we are up to date with fire precautions and health and safety issues.

 

The Churches Conservation Trust has recently replaced the high level lighting in the church and the improvement is quite noticeable.  They have also given us permission to install infra-red heaters which now provide us with much needed and very welcome background heating. The bad news is that erosion of some of the stonework to the tower is a cause for concern and is likely to be very expensive to rectify which will take monies otherwise reserved for much needed improvements to facilities at the church.

 

The church is now much sought after as a venue for private parties and wedding receptions and we already have four confirmed bookings for 2009 and even one for 2010. However, the committee are continually seeking ideas for fresh activities to increase community use of the building and welcome suggestions from our members.

 

In the hope of attracting further visitor numbers we have recently joined the

North west multi faith tourism association’ and have applied for their ‘Marque of Excellence’ award.

 

If you have not yet visited our web site then please do so at http://oldchristchurch.tripod.com.

 

The committee

 

Sadly we recently lost Joan Crichton who was a stalwart on the committee where she had served for many years and she will be very much missed by all who knew her.

 

Fortunately we have been able to recruit three new committee members, John West, Elaine Rody and Karen Salmon and we hope they will get as much satisfaction as the rest of the committee from helping to look after this architectural masterpiece.

 

 

Finally our AGM is to be held in the church at 3pm on Friday 8th May and you are most welcome to attend

 

 

 

John Bramham

Chairman