Update on Royston Parish Church
Good progress has been made on the final phase of the restoration/refurbishment in the last couple of months since our last update although again, disappointingly, there has been further slippage. The new target date for completion is set at the end of September.
Much will have been done by the end of August including the commissioning of the electrics, the completion of the flooring, the laying of carpets and the fitting of the oak staircase to the ringing chamber. In addition, the soundproofing of the belfry, the installation of the Audio/Visual system, and the testing of the lighting system will all take place in the coming weeks as well as the installation of the new kitchen, servery and toilets. We will also see the commissioning of the bells which will be ringing out once again in Royston.
Although there has been further slippage, much progress, as mentioned above, has been achieved so much so that we can at last see completion approaching. Excitement is growing that we will soon be able to return to our beautiful house of prayer.
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 and more information will be available in due course.
Despite the many generous donations and grants that we have received to date, for which we are most grateful, we still require to raise further funds in the coming months. The Quiz Night held in July raised the sum of nearly £1,700 and a good time was held by all. The other major fundraiser, the “Sponsor a Chair” scheme, continues to bring in donations with the result that we are currently approaching 200 chairs. There are still chairs available to sponsor and we would encourage those who haven’t done so yet to visit the website for the details as to how they can do so. It would be a great achievement if we could cover the 250 chairs we will be acquiring.
There will be further fundraisers in the next few months including an “Auction of Promises”. All the information will be available on the website.
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 we are pleased to say that it is no longer necessary to book in advance for either. We also continue to live stream the 10.15am service on our Youtube channel.
The popular Tea Time Praise service on the first Sunday of the month at 3.30pm also takes place at Icknield Walk First School.
