What's On | Holy Week & Easter

Following Palm Sunday and the triumphant entry of Jesus into Jerusalem on a donkey, we now find ourselves in Holy Week.

Online Worship

Morning Prayer continues as usual on Facebook beginning at 10.00am this week. In the evening, the team will be visiting different places in Gloucester to lead Holy Week Reflections, Monday-Wednesday on Facebook at 7.00pm. On Thursday evening, we will be joining in with the Gloucester Cathedral's Maundy Thursday Communion live from the Cathedral at 7.30pm. This will replace Evening Prayer for this week!

On Good Friday, join online for The Last Hour at 2pm where we will reflect on the crucifixion and the amazing sacrifice that Jesus made for us on the cross. We will meet both in person in the church grounds and online on Sunday at 10.30am for Easter Sunday Celebration! If you would like to join in person then please email office@stbarnabasgloucester.org.uk or contact us through the "get in touch" page.

Messy Easter Weekend!

We're getting REALLY excited now! The Church in Tuffley has been busy planning & filming crafts and we're now getting ready to upload all the videos online! Keep reading to get a sneak peak and download craft templates. You can download the sheet here to find out what ingredients and craft items you will need!

MESSY EASTER 2021 - detailed list

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Good Friday

10:00am: Opening Prayers and Welcome with Helen McGeoch

10:05am: The Easter Story - Part One!

10:20am: Egg Weaving

10.35am: Scratch Art - Rainbow Egg

10.50am: Easter Hand Prayer Card

11:05am: Easter Chick

11:20am: Palm Sunday Donkey

11:35am: Stone in the Tomb Biscuits

11:50am: Marble Rolling

12:05pm: The Easter Story - Part Two!

12:20pm: Closing Prayers with Revd Sarah Todd

2021 Messy Donkey and Palm Templates

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2021 Donkey Picture and list

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Remember, you can find the videos on the St Barnabas YouTube/Facebook page or the Facebook Pages of our brothers and sisters in the Church of Tuffley! Please note that the timings are a little different on YouTube and will be on the 00, 15, 30 and 45.

Easter Saturday

10:00am: Opening Prayers and Welcome with Helen McGeoch

10:05am: Puppet Show with Pippa and Smudge!

10:20am: Cross Craft

10:35am: Cross Cup Cakes

10:50am: Easter Bunnies

11:05am: New Life Crosses

11:20am: Easter Story Spinner

11:35am: Cross with Nails & Thread

11:50am: Bunch of Lilies

12:05pm: Hand Print Flowers

12:20pm: Closing Prayers with Father Gerry Walsh

Cross Cup-Cakes

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Tuffley Easter Egg Hunt!

The map has arrived! Once you've finished all of your Messy Easter crafts, how about joining in with the Tuffley Easter Egg Hunt? Several volunteers have decorated their windows and may have hidden some chocolate eggs! You can view or download the map here. Send you pictures in when you find the windows!

Easter Window Hunt Map!

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It's going to be a great week!

What's On | Easter 2021

Daffodils and bluebells are appearing, the trees are full of blossom and the air seems a little bit warmer - Spring has finally arrived and with it, we're looking ahead to Easter!

Messy Easter Weekend!

This year, Messy Easter is online and we will be joining together with St Georges, English Martyrs and Grange Baptist churches as part of the Church in Tuffley. There's art, craft, baking, stories and a puppet show and we are excited for it all to start! The event begins at 10.00am on Good Friday (2nd April), ending at 12.00pm on Saturday 3rd April. Videos will be popping up throughout the days and you can find them on St Barnabas Gloucester Facebook page and YouTube, St George's Messy Church Facebook page and Grange Baptist's Facebook page. If you "like" the page you'll be able to get updates when new videos are up! You can find out how to do this here.

Lists for craft materials will be available closer to the time and we'll post any updates in the news sheet and also on the event page on Facebook.

Easter Egg Hunt

For those of you who prefer to get outside and get moving, join the Easter Egg Hunt! If you were walking around Tuffley over Christmas time, you may have noticed that some windows were beautifully decorated and lit up as advent windows. This time, we have an Easter theme. The windows will be decorated from Friday 2nd April until Friday 16th April and a map will be available closer to the time. If you'd like to decorate your window and appear on the map, sign up on the Facebook page Tuffley Easter Egg Hunt - make sure you include an Easter egg!

Easter Worship

After a recent PCC meeting, we will be physically gathering for all age worship on Easter Sunday, place and time to be announced soon but it will most likely be outside. We will also be online worship as usual. Keep an eye out for more news over the coming week!

Easter Holidays

We are going to be working with other churches and organisations in White City on a Easter holiday food project based at Trinity Baptist church. We need 10 volunteers to help pack food in Holy Week in the mornings from about 0930, and then in Easter week, some early bird volunteers who can be available from 0700 until 1100. This is a city wide project to help children receiving free school meals eat well in the holidays. Please pray and see if God is calling you to volunteer for this important Mission and Outreach project at this special time in our churches year. Contact Sarah on 07534 720160 if you can help or have questions.

Easter Services

Any questions at all, get in touch! Looking forward to seeing you all over the coming weeks.

Spotlight on Community - Footlights

The story of ‘Footlights’ really began way back in 2012, when I asked the PCC if I could begin a project to restore the stage at the Hall. It had sadly fallen into disrepair, and I remembered it in its ‘glory days’ when I was a member of the resident Amateur Dramatics Group, The St. Barnabas Players, over 40 years ago.

I applied for a ‘Then & Now’ Grant, set up to commemorate the Centenary of World War One, but was unsuccessful. However, we went on to produce three Commemorative Music Hall Supper Evenings in 2014, 2016 and 2018, as planned.

Ivor Griffiths and ‘The Players’ provided original Drama for the first two of these productions, and all proceeds went towards the refurbishment of the stage. This money, along with a generous Community Grant from Councillor Gerald Dee, provided new curtains and lighting equipment.

We received invaluable ‘hands on’ practical help from Gloucester Arts Council and the Tesco Community Team, in 2015. In one remarkable day, they painted the interior of the Hall and the stage, supplying all materials and labour at no cost to Church at all.

Proceeds from touring productions performed by ‘Rain or Shine’ Theatre Company at the Hall on four occasions, have also helped to boost the stage refurbishment fund, and we are most grateful to them.

Councillor Gerald Dee and I both felt that a Community Group needed to be formed, to ensure that the Hall and developing stage facilities, were used regularly, therefore sharing the benefit of all this new work with as many people as possible. Together, we secured funding from Gloucester City Council, Gloucester City Homes, Barnwood Trust, Gloucester Rotary Club and Gloucestershire Gateway Trust, to set up a voluntary community Nostalgia and Friendship Group for over 55’s at St. Barnabas Hall.

So on 2nd October, 2017, ‘FOOTLIGHTS’ was launched, and became hugely popular, attracting 80 folk each week. There was definitely a need for something designed especially for this age group. We were amazed and delighted at the response. Monday afternoons became like a weekly ‘Family Party’ with our ‘Footlights’ friends!

We had the honour of being acknowledged as ‘Community Champions’ in Tuffley, and we were nominated for Best Community Project for the Believe in Gloucester Awards in 2019.

Our unique blend of tea, cake, singalongs, nostalgia, quizzes, old style entertainment, friendship and fun, proved to be a winning formula, and we were well established and flying high after two and a half years, until Covid-19 brought everything to a halt….

Undaunted, all through the Lockdown we have been keeping everyone connected through phone calls and our ‘Jolly Jukebox’ Request Service. For this, we received an ‘Unsung Champions’ Award from Richard Graham MP, given to those who helped the City of Gloucester during the Covid-19 Crisis…. What a great honour….

The need to find an alternative way of keeping people together and supported through the Pandemic, led to ‘RADIO FOOTLIGHTS’, which launched on 20th October 2020. It provides a similar mix of chat, poetry, music, song, jokes, news and fun that we used to enjoy all together at the Hall on Monday afternoons.

We applied for the Covid Recovery and Growing Our Communities Funding from both Gloucester City and County Councils, (through Councillor Andrew Miller) and we are very grateful for their support. We’ve used the generous Grants to obtain the equipment necessary to produce the podcasts.

Alongside this, we have also published an 8-page magazine called ‘The Encourager’, with news, information, and a bit of sparkle! 100 copies have gone out to all ‘Footlighters’ and anyone else who has expressed an interest.

‘RADIO FOOTLIGHTS’ has already attracted over 400 views on Youtube, and we invite anyone of any age to listen in! Become an ‘Audio Footlighter’ – you are very welcome to join us! We aim to continue delivering our podcasts monthly for as long as it takes, and we hope that this audio version of our ‘Footlights’ style Entertainment will boost morale and keep spirits buoyant until we are able to meet again at the Hall during safer times…

Until then, we say ‘Long May the Footlights Shine’!.....

Lorraine Campbell