The Guild

Our Guild normally meets in the Session House every second Thursday from October to March from 2-4 pm.  The Guild is open to all, men as well as women, and we meet for fellowship, friendship and fun.  Our syllabus is always a mixture of music, talks (often about projects we support, both in this country and overseas), demonstrations and presentations.  We always have tea and biscuits as well!  This year, the Guild theme nationally is “Wee Seeds, Big Trees” to highlight the message that small ideas and changes can have big results.

The Guild nationally was started in 1887 by Rev Dr Archibald Charteris. Today, almost 135 years later, with around 15,000 members, the Guild is one of Scotland’s largest voluntary organisation. Although women make up the bulk of our membership, increasingly, men are becoming members and taking active roles at local and national levels.  We are pleased to report that Christina Patterson, our local Guild Together convenor, is now one of the national vice-convenors. and we pass on our congratulations and best wishes to her..

The Guild motto is “Whose we are and Whom we serve” and members across the years have lived up to this.  The first mention of the Guild in the Session minutes of St Mungo’s was in 1896 when they were thanked for giving cloths for communion to the Church and over the years since then the Guild has contributed a lot both in items donated to the Church and time given to support Church projects.  They also look outwards and have supported Guild projects across the world in recent years and sent “comfort packages” to troops during the world wars.  Last year we extended the hand of friendship to Ludgate Guild which restarted with a view to sometimes holding joint meetings perhaps with project speakers.  This worked well with joint meetings on different topics so we will continue with this in the new session.

This session we have a varied programme with a variety of different topics and our first meeting about the Clackmannanshire Tapestry illustrates the Guild theme perfectly as a wee seed, where it was noticed that Clackmannanshire did not feature in the Great tapestry of Scotland, was planted and grew into the big tree of a 5-panel tapestry which is in place in The Hub in Alloa.  We will also hear about the Trishaw project, Give a Dog a Bone and The Gate which all grew from someone noticing a need in the community.  We will also have a welcome return from Kenny Cook to inspire us to be more active after the excesses of Christmas and Julie will give us a floral art demonstration to inspire us to display flowers more attractively and, of course, there will be the annual Christmas lunch.

The old stereotype of Guild meetings is long gone and the guild is prepared to tackle hard issues as well as more fun things. It provides fellowship to those who attend and during the periods of lockdown efforts were made to keep in touch with members if we could not meet in person.  Each year the National Convenor sets a Convenor’s Challenge.  Our challenge to you is to try a Guild meeting for yourself!

 

October 2022

Craft Group

Chilly days are looming, but a warm welcome is guaranteed on Monday afternoons (2 to 4 pm) in the Session House at the Church when the craft group members get together.   Tea/coffee and biscuits are enjoyed too along with pleasant conversation

With rising fuel costs in mind, we will be busy knitting blankets for the young and not so young I.e.  knee blankets, baby blankets or throws to use while reading a good book or watching a favourite tv programme.

Below we give you 2 patterns to try for yourself.  You can either try these at home or come and join us on a Monday.

  1. Blanket.

Double knitting yarn, 4.5mm knitting needles.

Cast on 30 stitches

K.1, wool over, k.13, k2 together, k.14

Continue until you have 18 ridges.

Change colour

8 colours = 1 strip

8 strips    = 1 blanket

……………………….

  1. Baby blanket pattern.

(Stroller, Baby, Small, Medium, Large)

92       104   116      128          140

Cast on the number of stitches needed for size you are knitting.

Garter stitch, 12, (14, 16, 16, 18) rows.

Then Row 1, knit

Row 2, k6, p8, *k4, p8* repeat until last 6 stitches, k6.

Repeat rows 1 and 2 until blanket is as large as you want.  You might like to change yarn colour every 6 sets of 2 rows as seen in photo.

Then knit 12 rows garter stitch and cast off.

Warmest good wishes to all.  Happy knitting.🧶🫖

October 2022

Sunday School

The Sunday School meets every Sunday during the school term at 11.15am. We have a lively group of children aged from 3 to 11 who participate in bible studies and craft work on various topics from the Bible. If your child attends nursery or primary school and would like to join us please come along on a Sunday morning.

On Easter Sunday this year the Sunday School children organised an Easter Bonnet parade for the congregation to take part in and the picture to the left shows some of those who participated.

Connect Alloa

Connect Alloa (now known as ‘Connect’) have gone through some changes over the last year but we are as always pushing to make Connect the best service it can be. We were even featured in Youth Scotland’s recent Impact report because of the difference we had made to our community and young people.

Groups were running on a phased return, with one day online and the other 2 being face-to-face however we have recently taken the decision to reduce the online day and focus on moving to running face-to-face on a Tuesday in the near future.

Young people enjoyed our online sessions however there is a need to utilise our time together in our space at St. Mungo’s and keep our online server for certain events, occasions or if we are in a situation where we must go back to online due to the ongoing pandemic.

The Project Leader has been funded until July 2023 and alongside this there has been funding allocated for a Digital Engagement Worker Until October 2022 and a youth worker post until April 2023.

Our Trustee team has changed and now we have team of dedicated individuals who take time out of their already busy schedules to support the growth of Connect, ensuring staff are supported and guided to be the best they can. With some Trustee’s having unfortunately left us – we have found new people in the local area stepping up to help and we have welcomed three new Trustees aboard in the last 6 months.

We are currently looking at volunteer positions we would love to fill, they will support Connect of course but more importantly, they will hopefully benefit local community members who want to build their skills, reduce levels of social isolation, and gain valuable experiences.
The positions we are seeking include Trustee’s for the board and specifically a Treasurer as ours has had to step down very recently unfortunately. We are particularly keen on anyone with finance experience, experience of the Third Sector or youth and community work.
This is by no means an exhaustive list however; all experience will be considered.

We are also looking to recruit for volunteers of the youth groups themselves, funding volunteers who will help us raise funds in these hard times and we would also like to introduce ‘micro-volunteering’. Micro-volunteering can be many things, but it is essentially volunteering on a small scale, remotely or in person and finding something that can be a taster to volunteering with Connect or supporting us in a way we may not have time for.  The hope is that with this, we can support more people who are not ready for a larger commitment or even people who are more comfortable to volunteer from their own home.

If you want to get to know more about Connect you can find us here: www.connectalloa.org.uk or you can find us on all social media platforms by searching ‘connectalloa’.

We support any young person aged between Primary 7 and 19 years old as long as we have a parental or guardian permission form which can be completed here: https://connectalloa.org.uk/join-connect-alloa/

If you have any questions, comments, or queries you can also contact Dave Crozier, Project Leader on 07598247277 or dave@connectalloa.org.uk.

Stay safe & take care,

Dave & The Connect Team
Connect Alloa | SC049028

#WeAppreciateYou’’