AFRICAN CHILD TRUST

For those of you not in the know, African Child Trust is a sponsorship scheme whereby several of us at St. George's contribute towards the education of an African orphan. In fact, currently we have two sponsorships running. This is in addition to any other link which St George's has with other parts of Africa.

I invited Kunle Onabulo down to talk to us, and to other invited churches on 21st September in the hope that the other churches might take the message away and organise sponsorships within their own congregations. Of course, I should have known better!! Of the very few replies from our fellow churches in the Deanery, most were all full of excuses why not, so on the day we were left to see if we could arrange to sponsor a third child within St George's to make Kunle's visit worthwhile.

We had an interesting and lively meeting in the church hall to hear and see more. It seemed at the time that many were interested and several offered me money at the time. Unfortunately, important matters like this have to be handled correctly and forms have to be completed especially with regard to the commitment to the scheme and the recovery of income tax which this scheme can operate. Therefore I had to put off those keen participants and now I find I am struggling to find just who they were! Despite notes in the bulletin, few have come forward. If you were one please contact me so that we can get our third sponsorship off the ground.

We still have only nine promises (only four have completed forms) of the 15 we need to make up the scheme, so I am looking for several more. Please can you come forward so that we can get this sponsorship off the ground soon.

We sponsored Kunle in the great South Run and several of us went down to see him finish and to congratulate the team as a whole. About 20 runners ran in ACT colours and they hope to have raised several thousand pounds for this worthy cause! Kunle sent his best wishes to all the many friends he made on that memorable day at St George's.

Tony Rice-Oxley