The Reverend Philip Elston, Regional Director of the Missions to Seamen has again written an interesting letter in acknowledgement of July's retiring collection amounting to £127.58. The letter reads as follows: -
Will you please pass our very sincere appreciation and thanks to Malcolm Ferrier, the PCC and the congregation at St George's Church for the very generous collection taken on behalf of The Missions to Seamen during July - traditionally associated with our ministry. Parishes may wonder how we use their gifts and the following account may be of some interest to the congregation given its local emphasis.
On the first day of last year's Festival of the Sea at Portsmouth the Regional Office received an emergency call from our London headquarters. Among the ships taking part in the Festival was the Russian Sail Training Ship SEDOV. As the value of the rouble continued to plummet, the ship's catering officer had less money with which to purchase the essential supplies of food for the ship's company. At 4.pm on the Friday afternoon of the August Bank Holiday a provisioning run was made to farm shops and wholesale food outlets to buy large quantities of fresh fruit, vegetables and flour.
The first consignment was delivered on the Saturday morning and a further consignment went on board two days later. Shortly before the SEDOV sailed on the final day of the Festival an informal presentation took place on the ship's bridge when the Southern Regional Director asked the SEDOV's flag captain to accept a copy of the Bible in Russian as a gesture of friendship and goodwill from The Missions to Seamen. Man does not live by bread-flour alone - or perhaps as Ian Fleming might have expressed it, a case of "To Russia With Love".
We take this opportunity to thank you for the interest and support shown in the work of The Missions to Seamen. I enclose our official receipt together with a Porch card for display purposes. These come with our best wishes to all the congregation.
The Porch Card is displayed on the church noticeboard in the hall by the servery where I display for your information all the receipts I receive.
September's retiring collection for St Mary's Axim, Ghana, realised £93.67. The Jubilee 2000 Collection raised £108.16 over two weeks and was boosted by an additional donation of £50 from the Wednesday coffee morning monies. Our investments paid a welcome dividend of £565.59 this month but this income will gradually decrease as we continue to draw on our resources to pay for ongoing budgeted work on the church roof, canopy, ramp etc. Our annual bill for the photocopier is £718.54, lawn mower repairs £80 and insurance for leaders involved with our youth groups £56. And finally I have been notified that the provisional figure for our Quota for 2000 is £36,657, a 3.87% £1368 increase over 1999.
Linda Wainwright, Hon Treasurer to the PCC
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