Dore Church

As those who were at Christ Church’s Annual Parochial Meeting on April 26 will know, two matters concerning our buildings were explained.

The Ark, the former air raid shelter attached to our Church Hall, was refurbished in the 1990s with a view to it becoming a centre for youth work. As it was not in continuous use for youth work a number of other groups have also used it for regular bookings. With the growth of youth work in the area under the leadership of Joel Toombs and Ben Harper and the development of Steelroots – the ‘umbrella’ name for the youth work across S17 – there is now need for a base for the youth workers that can double both as their office and also as a meeting place with youngsters. Our PCC has offered the Ark for this purpose and we hope that this new arrangement will begin in September. We shall be talking with others who have had regular bookings about alternative venues they may be able to use.

Most people will know that we are currently using in church a small chamber organ, since the pipe organ is unsafe to use until it has been thoroughly overhauled. The PCC has now placed an order for this work with Henry Willis & Sons, who are highly regarded organ builders. Because of their existing commitments they are unlikely to be able to do the work before the end of next year. When they do they will remove and restore the organ at their Liverpool workshops and then reassemble it here.

At the same time the PCC has also been considering other major aspects of our church building. Some concern general maintenance work such as redecoration/lighting. But in addition, the needs of worship today are not identical with those of a century ago. We have not only a choir but a band, youngsters are involved in ways that would have been unimaginable to our grandparents. This church building as we have it is, of course, not the original building (at first there was no chancel, nor indeed an organ) – it has been adapted in various ways over the years. In thinking about this the PCC has deliberately not tried say what alterations should be made – it has instead concentrated on drawing up a ‘wish list’ of what we would like to be able to do.

We want very much to respect the integrity of the building we have inherited: equally, we want to make it as suitable as possible for the needs of our worship and mission for the first part of the twenty first century. To help us with this we interviewed 3 architects approved by the Diocese and have appointed one of them, Brian Foxley, to help us. He will initially be meeting with the Development Group that the PCC have set up and with the whole PCC to help us refine our ideas & produce a design concept to show us how some of our aims might be realised. Once these ideas have begun to take shape there will be opportunities to involve the whole church membership and also the local community so that people are fully aware and can make their contribution to the discussion and evolution of proposals. Copies of the PCC’s initial ‘wish list’ are available in Church or from the Parish Office and we shall make a point of keeping people informed in the coming weeks.

Both the overhaul of the pipe organ and also the production of a concept design obviously involve considerable expense. Some people have already asked about the funding of the organ and offered help in one way or another. We are therefore inviting contributions for a Development and Organ Fund: everything received for this will be earmarked and not used for any other church purposes. If, as we hope, the design concept leads on to some significant new work there will obviously be more substantial costs and this Fund will need to take these too on board.