The Annual Parochial Church Meeting (APCM) – 11:30am

More commonly known as an Annual General Meeting (AGM), St Peter’s church will hold its APCM on Sunday 16th May at 11:30am  after the morning service.  If you want to learn more about the church’s  ministry, where the money comes from and how it’s spent, and what the various church officers do, then come along and find out! 

This meeting will review what has happened over the past year, as well as setting out the church’s plans for the year ahead.  There will certainly be quite a lot to talk about as it has been a very unusual year!  Some of our usual activities have not been able to take place, but we also started lots of new activities, such as our online services and Bible groups, and our hot meal deliveries and links with local people in need.

Members will be elected to the Parochial church council (PCC) and officers elected.  We have three vacancies on our PCC.  It is a great opportunity to join our friendly committee and get involved in planning events and making decisions about the future of our church.  If you want to find out more, please contact Rev Glenn Coggins or Ellie Plant in the church office.

It is very exciting that congregational worship has restarted at St Peter’s church; Palm Sunday was the first service in the church with a congregation since the beginning of January.  There are still lots of  restrictions in place: numbers are limited, we still have to wear masks, keep our distance from each other, and we can’t sing yet.

A major difference is that many in the congregation have now received their first, or even both, vaccinations.  So, even though we still have to take precautions and be careful, there is less risk and less fear about the virus spreading.

At the time of writing, we are still on schedule to re-open the building to community groups from 12th April, in line with the government ’roadmap’. Our children’s activity providers such as Mini-Maestros, Sapphire Supreme Majorettes, and the Total Sport youth club will be resuming straightaway.

We are awaiting further guidance about our community activities for older people, including the Tuesday lunch club, Stanley Community Singers and Knit & Natter but hope that we will be able to restart those too: we can run the activities in a covid-secure way and have all the necessary risk assessments and precautions in place. 

We have not made any plans yet about our coffee mornings, other fund raising events and the pantomime, except that we are unlikely to hold a summer gala this year, at least, not on our usual date at the end of June. 

Even before the recent announcement of the government ‘roadmap’ to open things up, St Peter’s PCC had made the decision to return to in-church worship at the 10am Palm Sunday service on 28th March. 

This will be the first service that the congregation has able to  attend since the beginning of January.  Places of worship have been allowed to stay open the whole time, but the PCC took the decision to minimise the risk to everyone by staying shut.  When we open, there will still be many restrictions in place: we will still have to wear masks, keep our distance from each other, numbers will be limited and we won’t be allowed to sing.  But we truly hope that this is the beginning of things getting back to normal.

The next significant date for the church will be 12th April, after which community centres are allowed to reopen.  This means that some of our social activities will be allowed to restart, beginning with the return of some of our children’s activity providers such as Mini-Maestros and the majorettes.

We hope that at that point we will be able to restart the Community Choir, the Tuesday senior citizens lunch club and Knit & Natter.  However, these will all be dependent on the rules about socialising and permitted activities, which may of course change again over the next few weeks.  However, most people who attend these groups will hopefully have had both of their vaccines by that point, so it will be wonderful to be able to meet together again with much less fear about the virus spreading.

It is far too early to make decisions about all of the other things that we used to enjoy doing at the church such as coffee mornings, fund-raising events and the pantomime.  All we can do is stay hopeful that as a nation we make steady progress towards the future, and give thanks for those rolling out the amazing vaccination programme. 

During the current national lockdown, we have decided to stop congregational worship, although it is allowed by the government guidelines.  There will continue to be an online service every Sunday, filmed at either St Peter’s in   Stanley, or at St Paul’s in Alverthorpe.  The decision on congregational worship will be reviewed in mid-February.  For our online services please see: 

· Facebook: St Peter’s Church, Stanley, Wakefield

As well as the Sunday morning services, we are broadcasting  morning and evening prayer sessions several times a week on our Facebook page.  Please visit our Facebook page to watch these services at the times shown below.  Once broadcast, the services can be watched as many times as you wish.

The Panto is coming ….. albeit online!

Full details here: https://www.stpeters-stanley.org.uk/whats-on-at-st-peters/pantomime/

Full details of our Christmas services are now available online:

This year our remembrance service will be a little different due to the COVID restrictions.

To ensure we can maintain a COVID secure building we have to severely limit numbers to our Sunday morning services. We are therefore are planning the following for Remembrance Sunday.

10am at the Church will be our usual Sunday morning service, this is usually full to our COVID capacity.

We therefore ask that those wishing to take part in the act of remembrance go direct to the war memorial for 11am, where we shall meet outside for a short remembrance service.

Please remember that although outside you will need to social distance from people outside of your household.

On Sunday 1st November at 4pm we will be hosting a memorial service online to remember those who have died recently or in the past. Unfortunately we are not able to open the Church for this service due to space restrictions.

The service will be broadcast on our facebook page.  Please follow this link to take part.

Please join us online at 4pm on Sunday the 1st.

Stanley Community Singers – Every Monday, 1pm-2pm

The Stanley Community singers have restarted after a very lengthy break, and although we aren’t singing together yet, we are enjoying doing some fun musical games, activities and quizzes. 

The group meets every Monday (term-time only) at St Peter’s Church, 1pm—2pm, cost per session = £2.50

We aren’t serving refreshments afterwards, but the church café is open beforehand for delicious lunches e.g. hot meal, sandwiches, soup etc.

St Peter’s Senior Citizens’ Lunch Club – Every Tuesday, 11am—1pm 

Arrive from 11am-1pm and enjoy tea or coffee and a chat, followed by the activity of the day e.g. crafts, talks, films, games, quizzes, reminiscing.

We are taking lots of precautions to keep everyone safe, including extra cleaning and hygiene measures.

Lunch served from about 12:15pm: a freshly cooked hot meal followed by dessert, for just £5 per person.

Ideal for anyone wanting a bit of companionship and     something to do!  Please come and join our friendly group.

Knit and Natter, Sew and Chatter! – Every Thursday, 2pm-4pm

Enjoy a cuppa, company and a ‘crafty’ afternoon!

Please come and join this established group of ladies as they knit, sew, compare ideas and patterns, learn new crafty skills, and share conversation, refreshments and friendship. Just turn up: you will be very warmly welcomed

Precautions are being taken to keep everyone safe; come along and give it a try!

Straight after the harvest service on Sunday 11th October, we will be holding our APCM, more commonly known as an Annual  General Meeting (AGM).  The AGM was originally scheduled to take place back in April, but had to be delayed because of the coronavirus pandemic. 

This meeting will review what happened in 2019, which seems rather a long time ago now!  The church finances from 2019 will be presented, and members will be elected to the Parochial church council (PCC) and officers elected.  There will also be a discussion about our plans and hopes for the future.  If you want to learn more about the church’s  ministry, where the money comes from and how it’s spent, and what the various church officers do, then come along and find out! 

The next AGM (to discuss the events and finances of 2020) will be taking place in only 6 months time, in March or April 2021, assuming that the world will have returned to a bit more normality by then! No doubt we will reviewing how the coronavirus pandemic has affected us at St Peter’s church.