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| Ironstone Villages Family of Churches St. Michael, Eastwell; St. Denys, Eaton; St. Denys, Goadby Marwood; St. Egelwin, Scalford, with Wycombe and St. Mary, Chadwell; St. Peter, Stonesby; St. Mary Magdalene, Waltham-on-the-Wolds.
Rector: Rev Canon Beverley Stark, The Rectory, 23 Melton Road, Waltham-on-the-Wolds, Melton Mowbray, LE14 4AJ.
Tel: 01664 464600 Email: beverley.stark@btinternet.com
Ironstone Villages Churches
Benefice wide Mission activities:
There is a dedicated fund for mission activity in the Benefice account. A Mission Initiative Group meets monthly, with members elected by each church. This has control of the mission fund. Members promote mission in the benefice and in their own churches and co-ordinate their church's mission action plan.
Cell Groups
About 50 people are active in 6 cell groups, meeting weekly for 3 weeks out of 4 by agreement. The material is written or adapted by the Rector: leaders meet termly. With the agreement of the Priest-in-Charge of the High Framland parishes, a group there is supported as well.
Cool Club
This meets monthly on the 3rd Sunday, approx. 10.00- 11.30am and is best described as family activity church, operating in the village hall. It has an attendance of 50-70 and is run by a group of lay people with clergy oversight.
Alpha
This runs annually: the last one was for men only and met in the pub. Between lpha courses, if there are enough people, we do Emmaus nurture, which is a six session course.
Back to Church Sunday
This is an annual event more popular in some churches than in others. We are trying it for the second time this year.
Holiday Clubs
Every July a holiday club runs for 3 days in Waltham and 3 days in Scalford. While it used to use the same leaders, we are now just about able to run two teams of helpers.
Teamwork Club Association
A new venture for us this year. A group of 4 lay people lead approximately 25 children in outdoor pursuits for six sessions in the summer.
Mission activities in individual churches:
Eastwell The annual Eastwell fete took place on Saturday 20th August and was as popular as ever. The Melton Times called it "the most successful fete around" and it certainly lived up to its reputation this year. In terms of the church's contribution it excelled itself: not only was there a splendid art exhibition in church, but there was also a comprehensive tour of the Christian faith from Creation to Resurrection all round the church. This exhibition is staying there and being extended on a monthly basis - so we have yet to see Ascension, Pentecost, the early church in the book of Acts - and Revelation, with the events at the end of time itself. Just to keep you up to date, here are some images of what is currently in church - but you need to go and see for yourself what the camera can only produce in a limited way....
Eastwell celebrates the Bible
Scalford
Open the Book Weekly in term time. These are school assemblies involving most of our congregation, with a simple format at the moment.
Messy Church A monthly event with an attendance of around 60 children and parents. This group meets on the last Tuesday of the month straight after school and finishes at 5.30pm. It is run in conjunction with the school, with lots of fringe members involved in leadership. See below for the feature report!
Church project This is ongoing, involves much hard work and has no certain succcess guaranteed, BUT the aim is to transform the inside of the church into a shared School, Church and Community space.
Goadby Marwood
Visit of city church This happened one day this June. As a new venture the PCC have invited a city church out to the country for the afternoon, finishing with a tea and a service provided by the city church.
Eaton
Coffee morning This monthly event was started by members of the PCC when the Post Office closed.
Waltham
Little Gems A weekly toddler group meeting in church with a monthly service.
Arts project We are developing the church as an arts venue for workshops, exhibitions, etc., as a complementary vernue to the Village Hall. We have a funded volunteer development officer.
Stonesby
Breakfast A cooked breakfast is organised by the Anglican and Methodist churches as a joint venture, every month for 8 months of the year. Ther is an attendance of around 20 people.
See below for the feature report! FEATURES 
Messy Church at Scalford
Messy Church is gathering momentum across the Deanery, with groups operating at South Croxton group; Old Dalby; and Scalford, in the Ironstone Villages. When I went along to have a look at Scalford, I was amazed by the number of children and adults present. Normally, Messy Church meets in the village hall, but today it was in Scalford Chapel rooms and bursting with life and activity.
Some 37 children were busily doing workshops on the theme of Easter: making cards and Easter nests, decorating eggs, creating Easter posies of paper flowers, colouring, doing word searches…. Others were doing quizzes and pinning the tail on the donkey in the chapel, while talking about Jesus riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday. They were all aided by an assortment of Mums and grannies. Usually, I’m told, there are some Dads who do larger scale building-type projects, but today they weren’t there. But it’s good to know that they are available generally, which helps to prevent Messy Church looking too female-dominated.
Speaking to the chief organiser, Penny, I discovered that Messy Church operates once a month, usually on Tuesdays at 3.30pm. She invited me to bring the (much smaller) Messy Church from Old Dalby to join in after Easter, and this looks like a good way to encourage other people to take up the event as a regular part of their Christian ministry to the community. If you want to know more, it’s worth going along and having a look – and it’s also worth buying the books, Messy Church and Messy Church 2, by Lucy Moore, published by BRF and a snip at £8.99 each. They contain what you might call “lesson plans” for sessions, with a whole range of suggestions for activities, resources needed, and a general outworking of the theology underlying Messy Church’s approach to children’s work. Have fun!
Rev Sue Paterson, Mission Partnership Development Officer Stonesby Fresh Expression! 
Welcome to Stonesby Chapel, tucked away in a small village in Framland and home to the latest fresh Expression in the Mission Partnership. Arriving promptly at 9.00am on a wet and dreary, not to mention cold, spring morning, I wondered what awaited me… Perhaps a handful of devout elderly people, shivering but resilient? Far from it. Even this early, the rather splendid and well heated Methodist centre was packed with keen and busy people of all ages. In the kitchen, a dedicated team was cooking bacon and eggs (and beans, tomatoes, sausages and toast!), while the tables were set to accommodate around 30 takers – and still were not enough.
A projector and screen had been set up at one end, indicating that we were not just there for culinary delights, and among the happy breakfasters I discovered the speaker for the day, Peter Godkin from the Salvation Army.
Settling down to a preliminary bowl of cereal and glass of fruit juice, I asked a fellow breakfaster what had led him to Stonesby Chapel. “I came because a friend invited me,” he said. “I had been planning to come for some time, and this is the first time I have made it. “ He was obviously enjoying himself. He was also recruiting for the local table tennis club, thus proving that the breakfast had more than one bonus: it provides a place where local folk can set up new initiatives and canvas support for community events. 
Looking around, I could see people of all ages, from a young child to people well into their 80s, men and women, all of whom were thrilled that the local churches had taken the initiative and set up the breakfast club. While the idea had come from Methodists and Anglicans working together, there were also other denominations present and quite a few people of no faith whatsoever. Or at least of no particular denomination. At a mere £2.50 for a full cooked breakfast, it was deservedly popular.
Time passed remarkably quickly, and the speaker was introduced. He spoke for around 10 minutes, giving us a snapshot picture of the work of the Salvation Army in Stamford and Grantham, quite simply showing us the sheer variety of amazing things that are achieved there. What struck me particularly was how fulfilled he seemed, and how natural a ministry it was. Everyone was attentive, and the applause was genuine.
Stonesby Saturday breakfasts occur once a month between October and April, usually on the 3rd Saturday. Topics for speakers are not necessarily religious: sometimes the speaker might talk about a favourite hobby or interest. (I foresee the table tennis club doing some self-promoting, perhaps…?) It is run by a small committee, and new helpers are always welcome. As I left, I was already wondering how many other villages might not benefit from undertaking a similar venture – and what funding there might be for equipping rural churches to set it up. Sue Paterson, Mission Partnership Development Officer 
Hope Springs Eternal... Mothering Sunday in some churches was not the numeric success this year that it often has been in the past. With the result that at the end of the service in one church there were posies of flowers left over. So your local neighbourhood Vicar asked the congregation to take away a posy each and find a worthy recipient. She herself took a posy to a new neighbour who had recently moved in and who was somewhat surprised, but nonetheless grateful to be remembered. This might have been the end of it, but a week later the lady approached her vicar and again expressed her thanks, adding that the flowers were still alive. She then said that she had been thinking about coming to church, which was wonderful news. The conversation then got even better: she wanted to give to the church, both financially and in terms of helping out. Isn't this a prime example of God at work? For out of the disappointment of not having many people turn out for Mothering Sunday has come the possibility of someone completely unexpectedly exploring their local faith community and becoming involved. Someone has responded to an act of generosity which has proved to be a catalyst for a whole new potential spiritual growth. Perhaps we should be encouraged when, although things don't go entirely according to plan, it turns out that God has a Plan B up His sleeve. Or maybe this was actually Plan A all along. Open the Book Open The Book is a simple concept: it is a tool to use in primary schools, using the Lion Storyteller Bible, a few volunteer adults from your congregation - and the children who are in assembly that day. It could also be used as a tool for Messy Church. I went along to Waltham School, where Rev Harriet Orridge and her helpers were doing assembly.... The first thing that struck me was bow little space there was in the tiny school hall. However, despite this limitation, it was easy to see that the assembly worked well. On the positive side, a small space means that everyone can hear clearly. Today's story was The Good Samaritan, and it needed several children to act out the key roles. A few minutes were spent recruiting robbers, priest and Levite, the hero and assorted members of the crowd: then, with a brief explanation of what a parable is, we were off! One adult read the script, and the others organised the actors. There were a few props, but not many: a couple of toy swords, a first aid kit, a sit and ride donkey (which could easily have been another child if equipped with a couple of long ears and on all fours....). The children were enthralled. After the scene had been acted out, there was a prayer and then we launched into "When I needed a neighbour". This is the sort of assembly that schools are keen to host: it ticks lots of Ofsted boxes. From a parish point of view, it's great to get older people into schools, not least because they are then recognised by children as "the lady who came into assembly", or "that gentleman who read the story" as and when they come into a church service. Open the Book is likely to spread widely across the country: cheap to resource, easy to put together and welcomed by schools - what more could you ask of a mission initiative?
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