July 2007
June is traditionally the month for weddings, I've missed most of them because I've had to work Saturdays but the rest of the team has been busy. We seem to be getting more mid-week weddings though and these can be difficult to arrange. Most of the Alvechurch team have full-time jobs and we can't keep asking them to take a half-day off work so that they can get back to the village for a couple of hours ringing. Luckily we can call on retired and self-employed ringers in other teams to make up the numbers but this does take a little time and planning.
The bonus is that we get to ring with people from different churches and traditions. Last week we had two visitors from Solihull making up the numbers on the team. Their church has a crack in the spire so the bells are temporarily silent whilst they find the money for the repairs.
Our own fund continues to grow. We didn't have any big events planned for June and July but we still managed to find almost a thousand pounds for the fund. The concert from the church choir went well and raised £300, the Bottle Stall at the Railway Exhibition on June 14th raised £100, Milton collected nearly £400 from his marathon, and we emptied another £50 from the bell collecting box. Some of the donations came in as GiftAid and the extra money from the taxman might add another hundred. Every little helps and we must thank all those who sponsored Milton and who donated bottles for the Bottle Stall.
Sian and Greg are making good progress with the sponsorship for their Kilimanjaro expedition. If all goes well we should soon have some team shirts for the mountaineers to wear on the ascent and I'm hoping that we'll get pictures of the St Laurence shirt on the top of the mountain. The only possible embarrassment here is that they're splitting the sponsorship with Cancer Research UK so there might have to be a quick change of shirts on the summit.
Our next event will be 'Frank's Classic Cabaret' in the Ark at 7:30 on September 29th. Frank will sing as himself and as Neil Diamond, Tom Jones and Elvis amongst others. Come along for an evening of surprises. Frank has performed before to packed houses in the village and at Rowney Green so fans should phone Karen now on 0121 445 4980 to make sure of a ticket. Tickets are £10 and include a light platter in the interval. There will of course be a bar. Further details will appear next month.