Festival Edition 2013

Mothers’ Union notes

March meeting

Our meeting on 21st March was a Lenten Meditation led by the MU Chaplain, Mary Morfill. She took as her theme ‘Take Up Your Cross and Follow Me.’

Lady Day Service

This service which celebrates the appearance of the angel Gabriel to Mary announcing that she is to be the Mother of the Christ child, is normally held on 25th March, which this year fell in Holy Week. It was deferred until 8th April and was hosted by the MU of St Wilfrid’s, Cowplain and led by the Deanery Coordinator Audrey Hilliard. Revd Mary Morfill, the new MU Diocesan Chaplain gave the address and stayed on afterwards to meet members over morning coffee in the hall. Beautiful MU cards, books etc were available for purchase and the stall appeared to do a good trade.

April meeting

The speaker at our April meeting was Eileen Oades, one of our members, whose talk entitled ‘A Touch of Africa’ was about her experiences in Kenya.

Fr Peter Oades became a teacher at the Alliance High School in 1952. This was a boys boarding school about 15 miles from Nairobi. They had a very busy life there: as well as his teaching duties Fr Peter trained the choir, became a scout leader and joined the police, going on armed patrols. (This was a dangerous time and place in the 1950’s with the Mau Mau uprisings). He was also the school bursar.

Eileen was in charge of first aid at the school and judged the tidiness of the boys dormitories - which she said were always kept very clean and tidy.

After four years Fr Peter, Eileen and their two young children returned to England. In 2001 they were invited back to an ‘Old Boys Reunion’ which included past teachers to celebrate the school’s 75th Anniversary. It was an extremely interesting and informative talk which was very much enjoyed by all the ladies present.

The King who wouldn’t listen

St George’s MU members were invited to the Baptist Church on 23rd April. After a service during which there was a play entitled The King who wouldn’t listen, a lovely tea was served in the church hall.

Spring Tea

On 1st May St George’s MU were invited to a Spring Tea at the Sacred Heart Church. We had a very pleasant afternoon; first we had to mingle and were given one half of a postcard we then had to find the person with the other half and sit with them for the rest of the afternoon, we then did a quiz with much hilarity followed by tea with some very delicious sandwiches and cakes. To end this happy occasion we all said the Grace and said our farewells.