News

Richard Thompson has been in touch telling us about New Wine 2021. Here’s what he wrote. 

We have just booked our place for New Wine next August (got to live in hope that it will take place!) All the information you need about prices and booking is here www.new-wine.org

We have booked into Week B and have listed ourselves as Moortown Baptist Church so if people do go they should state that if they want us all to be together (and not if they don’t!)

There’s also an opportunity to attend all the events but actually stay off site for which of course there is a discount.

https://youtu.be/_KzaBpHtSnY

Issue 48 of the BMS World Mission magazine ENGAGE comes complete with three supplements. There’s a daily prayer guide that runs from September to December, a Christmas catalogue displaying cards, money wallets, notelets and wrapping paper and a DVD called Operation Chad which tells the story of the workbeing done at Guinebor II hospital, the organisations “beacon of hope in the hostile Sahel desert.”

The magazine itself quite literally covers the globe with stories and features about BMS staff and supporters from as far apart as Nottingham and Nepal. 

ENGAGE is free either online or through the post. To receive it simply go to  www.bmsworlmission.org and follow the links. 

Something else that arrived this weeks was John and Sue Wilson’s summer newsletter. In it John and Sue, two of MBC’s Mission partners who run a church in Paris tell us how the reopening of their building has gone, about the progress made on their “welcome Space” and about the preparations they are making to welcome Nadine and Dorcas, two young women who between them will run the church’s women’s hostel. 

There is a taster of the newsletter above but to catch up on all their news click HERE  

This is a message being sent out to those who have been volunteering in the Council/Voluntary Action Leeds Hub.

We’re launching a new campaign in August as we move into the next stage of the UK’s COVID response, and we need your help! I know many of you have waited patiently to be called on, so I’m really excited by this – it’s something each of you will be able to get involved with as participants, and also in helping us get the word out. AND it’s been put together by two of our Community Cares volunteers!!

Scroll down to find out how you can help.  

What is it?
The Twenty-Minute Timeout invites members of our local community to take at least 20 minutes out of their day or week for a socially distanced catch-up with a friend or neighbour.  

Why are we doing this?
The idea behind the campaign is that lockdown may be easing, but we know many people are still feeling anxious about the idea of socialising and meeting people. We want to gently encourage people to take just twenty minutes out of each day or week to meet up with friends and neighbours face-to-face – in a socially distanced way – to help build up their confidence and gently ease them back into normality. 

When’s it taking place?
The campaign launches on Saturday 1^st August. Flyers will be delivered to as many doorsteps as we can reach with your help, as well as being shared across online platforms. We will be sharing ideas and inspiration throughout August on our @InteractCCP social channels, as well as through our local networks – including you!

How can you get involved?
First and foremost, join the campaign! Commit to spending twenty minutes each day or week to meet up with a friend or a neighbour.  

Secondly, we’d love you to help us spread the word far and wide: 

1. Deliver leaflets
   Moortown Baptist Church has been asked to deliver these leaflets to some of the streets around the church building. If you are local and have time could you help deliver some by contacting Kate in the church office.
    
2. Share with your friends and neighbours. After the campaign has started, resource packs will be available from our website (www.interact.uk.net). They will contain ideas for inviting people to join in, a calendar of twenty-minute timeout activities, a poster you can display in your window, and a list of numbers and websites for support. Do download a pack and encourage others to do the same.

The campaign has been created by Community volunteer Lisa Farrell, who is currently on furlough from her marketing role. It’s been great to use Lisa’s skills in this way, and we would encourage any other volunteers to let us know about specific skills they have that they would like us to consider for future volunteering activities. Please reply to this email to let me know.  

We’re really excited about this campaign, so I hope you’re able to get involved. 

Ness Brown 

InterACT Church and Community Partnership

www.interact.uk.net

07961 535 767

Earlier this week MBC’s Senior’s Team set out on one of their neighbourhood food drops; this time the goodies in question were biscuits. 

“If you’ll pardon the pun” says Carole Smith “it was a baking hot day when we set out with a fabulous selection of biscuits (all expertly baked and packeted by Gill Duffy and Susan Dabrowski), our latest  mail-out info and on this occasion our garden chairs.” 

On this occasion the mail-out included: a feature written by John Hornby called ‘My Street’ in which he talked about the music mornings which he and Megan have hosted for 86 days during lockdown; a quiz compiled by our good friend Chris Puckrin in Edinburgh (Chris is actually posting a quiz a day – except Sundays, when he has a rest – through the doors of his neighbours, who are in turn sending this on to friends and family); How Does Your Garden Grow? a feature which includes photos from our members of their gardening endeavours (see budding sunflower pic); a selection of tips which under the heading ‘Being Kind to Your Mind and Body’ is put together by Mindwell Leeds, plus an assortment of jokes and word searches. 

Every week, or during August every fortnight MBC’s E-Newsletter is sent out by email to almost 200 regular subscribers. However, not everyone has an email address, so in order to keep those good folk in the loop we have started collating a number of our top stories and then sending out a big print edition which we call Roundabout MBC. Issue 2 (part of which you see above) which last week was distributed either by hand or through the post to thirty people was made up of seven different articles ranging from a message from our Leadership Team and an outline of our August Church at Home programme to a snapshot of a ladies sewing group meeting up for the first time in over four months. 

The response has been really positive; for many the large print is particularly appreciated. For many of us mobile phones, e-mail, texts and social media are so much a part of our daily lives that we take them for granted, indeed for me it’s it’s sometimes hard to imagine a life before Google, Facebook and the like but amongst those who don’t have access to all these online services the print edition is proving incredibly popular. 

If you know someone who would appreciate receiving Roundabout MBC issue 3 (due out around the beginning of September) please drop their details to mbcnewspics@gmail.com and we will add them to our mailing list.  

If you’ve not been past MBC recently then prepare for a big surprise. That’s because the properties just below church, the ones that faced onto King Lane have all been demolished to make way for a new development which when finished will comprise of 51 sheltered housing apartments and 34 “general needs” homes. 

The Queenshill Development which is expected to take 18 months to complete is a project being carried out by the Leeds Jewish Housing Association and when finished will bring the total number of properties in or around the Ziff Community Centre to 181. 

MBC’s friendship with its Jewish neighbours goes back many decades and we look forward to welcoming the development’s new residents. 

There’s a picture below of how the scheme is expected to look  when  it’s finished.