On Sunday 15 February, we welcomed the Archdeacon of Dorking, the Ven. Paul Bryer, who preached at the 9:30am service, and blessed our newly-refurbished parish room. Many thanks were expressed for all who made it possible through donations and through hard work and talent, and we prayed for all who will use the room for years to come. Later on in the day, many of our Toddle Up! congregation enjoyed a splendid lunch in the church hall, and the day was rounded off by Choral Evensong sung by the parish choir. It was good to see over two hundred people in church today across our four very different services.

On 24 January 2015, we held our annual board games afternoon in the church hall. Around two dozen people attending, of all ages, and great fun was had by all. Tea and homemade cakes were provided by the Social Committee. Games played include Ticket to Ride, Blokus, Blokus Duo, Scrabble, Forbidden Island, Qwirkle, My First Carcassonne, Hey that’s my fish!, and Snakes & Ladders.

On Sunday 11 January those of us in church we able to watch the premier showing of a new DVD about the life of St Mary’s. This DVD was put together by the skill and hard work of Pamela Smith and others from Epsom Moviemakers, a society who have met for many years in our church hall. The DVD includes short films about the history of the church, our Morris men, our services, the Father Willis organ, the church hall, our churchyard, our bells, and more. In my original conversation with Pamela, we talked about a short 5 minute film for the website, but the project has blossomed and tells…

On 9 November 2014, Remembrance Sunday, the Civic Act of Remembrance for the Borough of Epsom and Ewell was held at St Mary’s, followed by Choral Mattins. The service was preceded by wreath-laying at the War Memorial. Attending were the Mayor of Epsom and Ewell, the Worshipful Robert Foote, our MP and Lord Chancollor, the Rt Hon Chris Grayling, and representatives of many local organisations, including the Royal British Legion and 135 Geographic Squadron Royal Engineers of the Army Reserve. The congregation at the church service numbered 596– a record– including fifty people standing outside listening to the service on external loudspeakers we rigged especially for the occasion. Further photos…

On Saturday 27 September St Mary’s threw open its doors and – in celebration of our 166th birthday – hosted what proved to be a very lively “Parish Day – A Day For All!”.

The annual garden party held in the Vicarage garden had to be relocated in June 2014 because of heavy rain. But the rain didn’t stop us from having a good time. Thanks to the hard work and adaptability of the church Social Committee, a wonderful and happy event was held in the church hall instead.

Once a year our monthly all-age service “Praise@11” takes the theme of “All creatures great and small”, to which family pets are especially invited. This year, we were privileged at the service to have as our guest preacher the Revd Professor Martin Henig, an archaeologist, priest, and Vice-President of the Anglican Society for the Welfare of Animals. Professor Henig’s sermon explained to us how our love of companion animals could raise our awareness of wider animal welfare issues. At the end of the service, the Professor gave each of the pets a special, personalised blessing.

Thanks to the generosity of many people in our church, our local community, and charitable grants, we were able to complete phase 1 of our sound system installation in June 2014. New microphones, speakers, amplifier and signal processing, and cabling gives us a much better and more up-to-date sound system for services and other events in church.

This month’s recital was a little bit different. Our Director of Music Jonathan Holmes began by playing some of the all-time favourites from the organ repertoire. The evening concluded with a sing-along, led by the St Mary’s Singers in their concert debut. There was an excellent turn-out for this evening: so watch this space for future recitals with a twist!

The Vicar writes: “I am most grateful to everyone in the parish for their kind words, best wishes, and gifts over the weekend of my 10th anniversary of ordination to the priesthood. It was a real joy to be surrounded by so many friends in church as I marked the anniversary.”