Regrettably, this is the last edition of the Parish of Powick’s community magazine, Voice of the Villages, produced by the church for the communities in Powick and Callow End. Your subscription has also supported the mission and operation of your churches in our villages. I want to say a massive thank you to Kay Shuard and Vicky Whitehouse for all the time, effort and creativity they have put into the magazine over the years. Equally I want to acknowledge the great roll of honour of all those who have contributed to the production and distribution of the magazine over the many years it has run. It has been part of the fabric of our villages for so many years. Interestingly, when I came to the parish 4 years ago, I inherited a stock of back copies originally produced in the 1980s/90s. They were left as loft insulation but delving into these back copies has been a journey into our social and community history. Interestingly, some of the characters and issues featured in these old magazines are still around today- the issues haven’t been solved and the people featured are thirty years older: where’s the shop? How do you get the Community involved with the Church? Speeding traffic on the A449. A sobering thought that.
In terms of our onward communications with you all, we will still have our regular pew sheet, Old Hills Headlines, which is a useful digest of what’s happening across the churches. Please contact me if you wish to subscribe to that by email. Additionally, it’s pinned on each church notice board and available to collect from churches too. Times have changed and increasingly our Villages get their community information from a plethora of sources – from social media, websites, and rumour/ word of mouth- even the vicarage answerphone. These options are still available but that’s not to say that everyone has access to such means. I’m sure the loss of this magazine will be felt by many that may not be able to connect with their communities via social media. The magazine has also offered you regular dose of Christian hope to inform your faith too. It will be missed so we do need to double our efforts – church and community- to keep people informed.
The closure of the magazine comes at a challenging time for the churches as change or “transformation” is contemplated. Will we grow or just fade away? Can we stay as we are? These issues too were pertinent in the 1980s/90s but the issues now facing your local churches is very serious. Communicating is one key to assessing need and with the closure of the magazine comes a greater need to reach out and be even more visible to the communities the churches are here to serve. Maybe the communities of Powick and Callow End will see the value of a new form of community magazine – produced by the villages for the villages and available to all. I pray for that and look forward to contributing to any successor magazine that surfaces. There is little sign of that at the moment but I believe in resurrection so let’s pray for that in the context of the community magazine. Thank you for reading this and your subscription to this magazine.
God Bless And Merry Christmas Rev Gary