Page 68 - BR December 2023

December 2023 December 2023

POP IN PLACE NEWS FUNERAL TRIBUTES

Christmas at the Pop In Place
vegetation around the church and, most notably, putting
As we head towards Christmas, now more than perhaps his tree surgeon skills to use. The enormous willow trees that
ever, the words Peace on Earth echo a very urgent line the mill race and the peace garden grow at an
message. It is hard to arrange celebrations while so many extraordinary rate and by the time the great covid
suffer : in wars where the innocent are killed, when pandemic struck us they had achieved a very great size
people can’t feed their families and when many more people are now forced to that was a threat not only to occupants of the churchyard
sleep on the street. but also to road users, not least the school buses that pass daily beneath the

We have to try though; we have to trees. Something that the council had written to remind us of. So, with no other
bring joy to those around us, do our bit local tree surgeons available or willing to take on the task at the time Mike set
to make people feel better, so we will to work fearlessly, with the council harassing him on one side to take action
have our Community Christmas Party and on the other the impending expressions of horror and criticism that would
on Friday 8 December 2pm invites follow from locals at the stark sight of a row of willow trees after pollarding.
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should now be out. Our thanks to Three years later those trees, fully recovered, are a tribute to Mike’s efforts and
Jagtar of Nisa for his help with the also incidentally saved the church a fortune.
funding of this and on Friday 22 Mike was never a man to be intimidated by controversy and it is with this in
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December we will have Carols and mind that I move with some hesitancy to the subject of the church lavatory.
Mince Pies 10am -noon at the final Long before anyone else dared to raise the subject Mike campaigned for the
café of this year. installation of a loo in the church or churchyard. He argued that having held
Community Café will reopen in on for the better part of 800 years it was time that the parishioners of Affpuddle
Friday 5 January were given some relief. Since the proposal was seriously taken up the storm of
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controversy and argument, with intermittent lulls, has been endless, with

favoured or disfavoured locations flitting about from one corner of the
Pop In Place Community Café at Bere Regis Village Hall churchyard to the other and then back again.
Every Friday morning from 10 am until 12 noon we run a Community Café at the Despite all of this Mike, as the new churchwarden, decided to re-energise the
Village Hall North Street. project and, putting his shoulder to the wheel, once more took on the
challenge. It is very much thanks to Mike’s tireless energy and enthusiasm that,
We offer a warm welcome, to everyone who walks through the door.
after seemingly glacial progress, it is now moving forwards at last. Like the
We also welcome new volunteers to help on our team serving the drinks and great engineer Brunel, Mike was a man of vision and had dreams of one day
helping at events. Also and very importantly to chat to the people who attend drawing power from the River Piddle by means of a turbine. Sadly, that dream
the café’s. was not to be realised in Mike’s lifetime but, as they say, ‘never say never’.
If you want to make a difference in your community? then call the Team Leader Rather than limiting himself to the mundane secular responsibilities associated
Alison Bennett 01929 472023 for more details. with the day-to-day life of the churchwarden Mike was eager to
communicate, express and discuss his deeply held Christian faith. Therefore,

always a man of imagination and innovation, Mike started to run a new series
Pop In Place Food Crisis Support of monthly services which he called ‘Morning Praise. These gave a different
approach to our services and enabled individuals to discuss matters of faith
The Pop In Place have a Food Crisis Project, if you are struggling and you need and worship. Mike also introduced monthly articles in the parish magazine in
food please get in touch we have gained funding to provide crisis packs for which he discussed and raised issues of our faith.
people in the Parish in a difficult situation.
The list of Mike’s practical contributions to the parish church of St Laurence

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