Yet again, the Garden Party was rained off, but that didn’t stop the fun as we moved to the church hall. Many thanks to all involved, and especially to the Social Committee for providing a splendid afternoon tea.

In June 2017, the Bishop of Guildford held a confirmation service at Christ Church, Epsom Common, and six adult candidates from St Mary’s were confirmed, along with candidates from other local churches. If you would like to discuss confirmation for adults or children, or would like to find out more about the Christian faith through our Pilgrim courses, please do be in touch.

St Mary’s celebrated the month of May with “Mayhem”– a parish dinner. Many thanks to all those who made the food, served at the tables, helped behind the scenes, and provided the musical entertainment and quiz.

The latest in our series of recitals, St Mary’s Singers– who sing at our monthly baptism service at St Mary’s– led a varied evening’s concert which include audience participation, piano duets, solos from “A Sound of Music”, Gilbert and Sullivan, and much more. It was a splendid evening, at which we remembered the late Arthur Mathews, who was so instrumental in organizing the recitals and running front-of-house for so many years. He will be much missed, and it seemed fitting that on this day the winner of the Grand National was “One for Arthur”!

The parish choir sang carols at Ewell Yule in Ewell Village: Winter Wonderland was our parish Christmas dinner: Decorating the church for Christmas: Many thanks to all who made the above possible, and to all involved in the six school carol services and nativities we have hosted in the run up to Christmas. It has been good to welcome over 1900 pupils, teachers, and parents to church over this time.

In October 2016 we installed a projector and screen in St Mary’s. When out of use the screen retracts up behind the chancel arch, so it is completely hidden. When deployed, it can be put to many uses. On the first Sunday of use, the Vicar referred to a painting by Fra Angelico in his sermon, illustrated on the screen. Then after the service, over coffee, we were able to watch a video on the new diocesan strategy. Many thanks to the Golden Hours Fellowship and others, whose donations made this possible, to our contractors SFL, and to all those involved in the installation.

On 24 September St Mary’s Church was open for our annual ‘Day for All’ with lots of activities for everyone, including swop shop, craft activities for children, a guided tour of the church, a free bread and soup lunch, a talk about Nonsuch Palace and Morris dancing by Ewell St Mary’s Morris Men. Lots of people from the local community as well as members of St Mary’s came along to enjoy the day.