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Bridport Unitarians
The new ‘White Room’ at the Chapel
The White Room – ‘For Positive Living’
A massive decorating project was under-taken and completed by a host of amazing volunteers. We now have a fully functional and beautiful workshop room. We use it for our weekly medita-tion group, soul choir, shared lunches and more. We are also working with local small businesses and individuals to offer classes that promote posi-tive living. Up and coming classes include yoga, Reiki and shamanic group sessions. We have an
ongoing alliance with Charlotte Gush at Shamanic Way and she is offering a free talk on the 17th October (7pm) which will offer an introduction to Shamanism and all that she does.
We will also be hosting a playgroup for the winter months and a home-schooling group.
We are interested in alliances with any local per-son interested in promoting positive living whether it is supporting the elderly, young or self-empowering individuals of any age.
Services and Messages for Peace
We are still enjoying some fabulous and varied services from our own Philip S, Angelica and Lizzie as well as some wonderful visitors. It is amazing to see so many varied ways a service can be presented. As Shaman Charlotte has said many times, ’We are now truly multi-faith!’. We have enjoyed a few services now from our friend Inter-faith Minister Rev. Noel Lockyear-Stevens. He is very soon to travel to Everest base-camp with messages of peace. If you would like to add to the message from Bridport Unitarians please email! Please email Lizzie.
Coal boiler uncovered after 50 years!
Underneath the kitchen at the Chapel is a coal boiler made by Messenger of Loughborough and is thought to have been hidden for the last 50 years at least.
IN OTHER NEWS!
Weekly events
Tuesday Open hour 1.30-2.30 and Soul Choir at 5.30
Wednesday shared lunch at 12.00 and Meditation at 1-1.30
Thursday Peer Support at 11am
Saturday Coffee and Books 10—12
Sunday Services at 11am.
Other Events :
Full Moon Fire Ceremony 12th Oct. Contact Charlotte (see next page)
Reiki Level 1 (6 week) class starting Nov 1st. Contact Lizzie
More decorating. Contact Sarah.
Christmas planning committee –contact Lizzie.
How are you celebrating 11.11.11? We are holding a Unity consciousness meditation at 11.11 am and later that day a Despatcho and Full Moon Fire Ceremony held at the Chapel with Charlotte.
Look out for upcoming films.
Newsletter Issue 2
Cute cat caught
on camera at
Chapel!
The new ‘White Room’
Click HERE to visit
our facebook site.
Bridport Unitarians
Wise Words from our LPC Philip Sealey
In the 21st Century we have seen before our eyes the literally deadly effect of over zeal-ous persons whose belief they claim is the one true orthodox way. Yet no belief in life is complete unless we are in a harmonious relation with the life of the universe around all humankind.
So we would have a universal vision that is just that, a tree of life that embraces all faiths and gives a reverence for all life in whatever form.
Here in Bridport we have our own ‘Chapel in the Garden ‘ a reflection of the universal va-riety of God’s garden. Some people presume
to know God and what God approves of, or disapproves of. This makes it difficult to take up this subject with-out being thought oppressive by some or maybe as a prophet by others.
We come again to that garden that embraces Good (or God), truth, and beauty.
Soaring and embracing all faiths and diversi-ties, so that we might truly say God’s garden would be dull indeed if all the flowers in it were the same.
Let blossoms shine forth for all.
.Soul Choir
Tuesday night is now Soul Choir night . It is a an ongoing weekly event (5.30 pm at the Chapel). Please do come along and share in the joyful and soulful singing. All abilities welcome.
Christmas Festivities
Planning is under-way for very special inter-faith events including an unforgettable Carol Service and Christmas day service. Plans at this point include a craft fayre and family events and films. If you would like to be involved in the planning or just volunteer your time on the day please contact Lizzie.
IN OTHER NEWS
Contacts:
Bridport Unitarians
Chapel in the Garden
49 East Street
Bridport
Philip Sealey (Lay Person in Charge)
01308 427931
Angelica Kennard (events for elderly)
01308 485529
PhilipColfox 07918188497
LizzieHornby 07917704305
Sally Vaughan 07796684519
Charlotte Gush 07769800897
Sarah SaintJames( decorating) 07765133909
WEBSITE www.ukunitarians.org.uk/bridport FACEBOOK www.facebook.com/bridportunitarians Also search for The White Room on facebook.
The Chapel in the Garden—
’For Positive Living’
Media Coverage
The Bridport News
Bridport Unitarians
What a Team! Our family at the Chapel in the Garden is growing and growing. Including two new beautiful babies, Art and Celia; Congratulations to Aimee and Rob and Havana.
The rapid growth that we have experienced could not have happened without so much help from original and new members. It is difficult to know where to start!
We have enjoyed a truly beautiful garden all year so far so a big thank you to our Chief Gardener Stanley Tilley and his team – Terry, Sally and Jim. Do get in touch if you have itchy green fingers. Sir John Colfox has offered to restore the gravestones in the garden, Karl Dixon will be doing the restoration and we look forward to seeing them anew.
Thank you very much to Terry Peters, our in-house builder and caretaker for all the work you have done, in particular, preparing the White Room for painting, fixing the windows and making us a wooden (and engraved!) disabled ramp. The team for the White Room and further rooms needs a big thank you too. Angelica Kennard almost single hand-edly painted the floor and with a team of all ages painted the walls and woodwork. Thank you to Philip, Mamie and John Colfox, Caroline Lever, Lizzie Hornby, Sally Vaughan, Jim Morgan, David and Edgar Kennard and Alice. Newly joined painting whizzes are Sarah and Vince SaintJames who have taken on a whirlwind painting frenzy including finishing the computer suite and bathrooms. Thank you so much!
We have a wonderful team of volunteers for our Saturday ‘Coffee and Books’ and we are always looking for more people to join in and share the load. Derrick, Margaret and Rosie have volunteered their time every three weeks for a long time now. Thanks also to Stanley, Ruth Aldridge, Lizzie, Anne-Marie Vincent, Anne Clarke, Philip and John Colfox, Philip Sealey, Georgia Ayling, Jane Saunders and Cathy Kelly.
Thank you to our musicians especially Wendy for brilliant Organ playing. Jane Saunders, Lizzie, Sally and Angelica have also put in time and practice to play for some Sunday services on Harp, Flute, Ukeleli and Accordian respectively. While on the subject of music, Angelica and our Soul Choir are joining a project in Poole for a composition by Nick
Cave! Angelica has done an amazing job with the choir and inspires us all to find a voice to share. Thank you also to Gill Capper for your help with Soul choir and Meditation Group, absolutely invaluable!
Our books are on the move at the Chapel. The gallery is now entirely taken over by a massive book project. John Lever, Anne Clarke and others have been busy sorting and selling these treasures.
We have had help from a planning and vision group – Anne-Marie Vincent, Malcolm Piers-Taylor, Kit Glaisyer, Martin Ternouth, Kathy Kelly, Lizzie Hornby, Angelica Kennard, Philip Colfox, Stanley Tilley, Philip Sealey, Terry and Marga-ret Peters and more. We have embraced the traditional ‘roots’ with contemporary ‘wings’ and visioned a very bright future for the Bridport Unitarians and friends.
Thanks also to Andy Pakula and all at the New Unity Church in Islington for inspiring the visitors from the Chapel who went there earlier in the year , to the General Assembly of the Western Union for inspiring those of us who went. To Churches Together in Bridport who are a constant source of ideas and inspiration. To all our faithful attendees at our coffee mornings and bookshop whom we would like to get to know better and give them more opportunity to help co-create our common vision
Our meditation group is open to all and is a short burst of quiet bliss in the middle of the day. Every Wednesday at 1-1.30 we meet at the White Room. It is even possible to join during your lunch break! Thank you to Malcolm Piers-Taylor who has led many beautiful and useful meditations in the Sunday services. It has introduced us to newer concept of led meditation which I guess used to be just called ‘prayer’. If you have a meditation you would like to share, do get in touch.
Philip Colfox has put in countless hours this year in many different capacities. He is now our treasured treasurer and a constant inspiration and well of new ideas. I don’t think any of the movement forward we have experienced would have happened without his enthusiasm and encourage-ment of all to get involved and feel supported in doing so.
The Chapel in the Garden—
’For Positive Living’
Bridport Unitarians
What a Team– continued! Philip Sealey is our ‘Lay Person In Charge’ and has done a fantastic job taking care of things at the Chapel including giving lovely services and booking the many people in who want to give them too. He is also so welcoming to people every Saturday at Coffee and Books.
A few words from Philip Colfox:
Angelica Kennard joined the chapel in the late Autumn of 2010 and in the time since then has worked exceedingly hard to give birth to our shared vision of a thriving commu-nity of tolerance and kindness. Nowhere more so has her selfless kindness been shown than with her project to helpthe homeless (which is in temporary abeyance) but most excitingly during a frantic period of the late spring and early summer the chapel thrived with the rejected and dispossessed who greatly valued her openness and vision. Of late she has worked hard to inspire the redecorating of the rear rooms and led by example. But services would not be the same without Angelica either, playing on her squeezebox or singing with her trained operatic soprano voice, waving her rattle and raising the spirits of us all, young and old. Come the winter season it will be time for us all to get behind her again for the next big push, whether it is reaching out to vulnerable people, or those closer to home. Her energy is a valuable, even priceless re-source and we are most lucky to be blessed by her and her extremely large heart.
When Lizzie Hornby joined the chapel, fate really did shine (at least) twice. How could we be so lucky as to be blessed first by Angelica and then by Lizzie. When we first met at the Spirit of Bridport launch I am sure none of us realised what would happen next. Lizzie was so pleased to have dis-covered that here in Bridport was a home grown chapel that was into all faiths (or none) and was open and toler-
ant, completely modern. If we did not exist she would have had to invent us! Within seconds of her arrival she had brought in her friends, helped us have an impromptu Fringe Film Festival and a Holistic Market. Her energy, like Angelica's is unbounded. If we could all of us discover her secret then I am sure we would all be invincible!
As a congregation we need to treasure all our volunteers - not just Angelica and Lizzie who are inspiring and leading us to take our next steps into the future, but also all those who are helping in thought, word and hard working deeds and all those who got us to where we are today, many of whom have done so in times when there was no discern-able future that could be aimed at. It is truly remarkable that in a short nine months we have come from a small congregation to one that has over 200 people registered on our mailing list and that has several events most days taking place within the chapel, all of which are firmly based on our missions of friendship, opportunity, happiness and personal development.
Our mission is based on openness and participation, so please do not be shy. If there is anything that we should be doing or which you would like to be involved with please come forward. May it be so.
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This can’t be all the people that need thanking but it is a start!
Look out for next newsletter where we will link Kate Mid-dleton to our own Chapel in the Garden and see how the internet could have been owned by one company if a Uni-tarian hadn’t given the technology away so that this could-n’t happen.
The Chapel in the Garden—
’For Positive Living’
