St Francis Church has a wide variety of Leisure activities - Men's & Women's Clubs, Musical Occasions, Away Weekends, House Groups Trips to London and Bible Study Groups. 

All have varying and active programmes and it is not possible - within the policy of having longer term information on the Web Site - to keep up with all of these on a regular basis. This page will therefore just give occasional examples of experiences which catch the Editors imagination and which - with your help - will add a dimension and flavour of the St Francis Family.

The Easter Holiday Club

Why is there a Christmas Tree in Church?

I was at one of the meetings held to discuss the future of youth work at St. Francis, when to everyone's surprise, including my own, I opened my mouth and offered to run the Easter Holiday Club!

I was offered help by Sue Stilwell and a week or so later we visited the Diocesan Education Centre in Hall Grove to look for suitable materials. I was positive that an Easter Holiday Club should be about Easter, however we could not find any pre prepared material really focussing on Holy Week.

So, I went home, prayed and wrote a programme, called the 'Footsteps of Jesus'. Each day looking at one event in Holy Week - Palm Sunday, Jesus in the Temple, the washing of the feet, the Last Supper, ending on Good Friday with a service, hot cross buns and making individual Easter Gardens.

The week was a great success, with over 150 individual attendances. Some children came every day, some just once. Most of the children were not regular members of the St. Francis congregation, and it was therefore great to have an informal service for the children on Good Friday, many of whom were joined by their parents.

We all had a lot of fun and hopefully the children learned something too. I would like to thank everyone who helped especially Jenny Gray and Andrew Crookall for the lovely service on Good Friday. Many of my helpers were older children, and one real blessing of the week was seeing them so involved in assisting and helping the younger children.

My own children have already instructed me that I have to run the Holiday Club in the Summer, so it looks as if I'll be busy 22 to 26 July!!!

So, if you are not on holiday during that week and would like to help in any way, please look out for the holiday club notices nearer the time. Perhaps you have young grandchildren, nieces, nephews or even neighbours, who you would like to introduce to the church. This could be an ideal opportunity!

Helpers of all ages are welcome - all you need is the time and the a heart for young people.