September 2004

The Book Sale - time for a re-think?

This year's Book Sale raised at least £524 and a little more money may still come in. To the many people who helped, thank you very much. The teamwork was brilliant and the cheerfulness and good humour shown by everyone was really inspiring. Once again, so many people took part that I have not been able to thank you all individually.

After 6 years, it is time to review the annual Book Sale. It has been our most profitable event until now, when it is being matched by the success of the Celebrity Lecture. This year we were given more books than ever, partly in a response to our advertisement in See Round. I collected car loads from Waltham Cross, St Albans, Aston, Stevenage and Hitchin and other people brought in vast quantities as well.

Unfortunately either we did not put the same energy into publicising the event or people are losing interest in second-hand books, but the number of buyers seemed to be down on previous years. It is also becoming more difficult to dispose of surplus books as so many charity shops now stock them and they, like us, have no storage space. So please give this some thought and let me have any suggestions for improving or altering the Book Sale format.

Next Event -

Saturday 23rd October 2004 at 7.30p.m. - Archaeologist Adrian Gibson

Adrian will give an illustrated talk on historic buildings of the Stevenage area. Tickets are £7 or £3.50 for Friends, available from The Choc Box, 95 High Street, or from Sarah Tickner or Margaret Ashby. If you buy your tickets from The Choc Box and wish to pay half price please show your membership card. Every member of Friends is entitled to one half price ticket.

As usual the ticket price includes buffet refreshments and this year Eva Greaves has kindly agreed to organise them, but she would be grateful for some assistance. If you could help on the day in setting out the food, serving it and clearing up at the end, please get in touch. Also, if anyone would like to offer home-made delicacies, Eva would be delighted to hear from you and will reimburse your expenses. But please do talk to her first so that we don't end up with 5,000 doughnuts for example!

Suttons Fundraiser scheme for gardeners

Following the success of the Sutton Seeds offer which gave the Friends an easy £50, we have now received leaflets promoting spring bulbs, for which the Friends of Holy Trinity will again receive 20% (£1 in every £5) of all orders. A leaflet, with order form included, is available. If you would like to order some bulbs, please fill in the order form, write a cheque payable to "The Friends of Holy Trinity" and return the order form and cheque to me, as soon as possible please.

Forthcoming Events

The Lydian Trio and Holy Trinity Choir concert will take place in the early part of 2005. Date and details to follow.

Two further dates have been reserved for Friends events. They are Saturday April 16th and Saturday July 16th. Again full details will be announced soon.

We are also delighted to announce that Ken Follett will give next year's Celebrity Lecture on Sunday November 20th 2005 at 4.00 p.m. His subject will be "The Art of Suspense: One Hundred Years of Thrillers" and we very much look forward to this.

Statement of Accounts

For your information a copy of the Annual Report and Accounts for the year ended 30 June 2004 is available. You will see that we are in a very healthy financial position and are steadily building up funds towards the cost of the church's new heating system.

Again, thank you for all you do in support of the Friends of Holy Trinity.

Yours sincerely
Margaret Ashby
Chairman