Update on Royston Church
The last couple of months have seen steady progress on the final phase of the restoration/refurbishment in line with the programme for completion by early July.
The major part of this work has seen the laying of the underfloor heating and services as well as the limecrete surface. All that now remains for the completion of the floor of the nave and the aisles is for the York stone paving slabs to be laid which commences in early May. The radiators to supplement the underfloor heating are also in place.
The new high level LED light fittings are currently being installed and low level decoration is under way.
Although there is still some way to go the more recent progress has enabled us to begin to see towards the finished article which is creating much excitement.
In our last update we made reference to the Gift Day on the 26th March which turned out to be great success in a number of ways. Helped by superb weather a large number of people turned out not only to bring their gifts but also to take the opportunity to view inside the church to see the progress that had been made as well as many exhibits showing what had changed since the fire. But perhaps the most successful aspect was on the financial side where our original target of raising £50,000 was well exceeded and resulted in more than £65,000 being gifted. We were grateful to all those who made it such a wonderful day to remember. Needless to say this will go some way to helping to complete all the work we require to do. We will be holding other fundraising events in the coming months one of which will be a quiz night to be held at Icknield Walk First School on 9th July. Make a note in your diaries and look out for further information.
Our other major fundraiser, the “Sponsor a Chair “ scheme, continues to attract great attention and, helped by the Gift Day, we have now received donations for around 190 chairs.
As we have previously mentioned, once the church is handed back to us, we are planning a series of events as a “Festival of Re-opening” in which we will invite everyone in the town and all our generous donors and supporters to come and see the beautiful new space and to celebrate the church building as a hub for many exciting activities. The exact date for this is to be confirmed, but is anticipated to be in the autumn, after we have had a few weeks to settle in. More information will be available in due course.
On the worship front we continue to offer two services on a Sunday with a said Eucharist at 9am followed by a sung Eucharist at 10.15am. These take place at Icknield Walk First School with both services proving popular and despite the increase in the number able to attend it remains necessary to continue with a booking system, the details of which are on our website. We also continue to live stream the 10.15am service on our Youtube channel.
We have re-introduced the popular Tea Time Praise service on the first Sunday of the month at 3.30pm which also takes place at Icknield Walk First School.
All of these details will be found on our website together with information on how to support the church through donation as well as progress on the building works.
