| Topic: | Re:Re:Re:Re:Re:In defence of Alpha (St Alban's Acton Green) | |
| Posted by: | Jenn Irvine | |
| Date/Time: | 19/01/16 19:00:00 |
| Ian - thank you so much for your informed views. I'm grateful that someone so impartial who has had a bird's eye view of the St Alban's resuscitation has weighed in here. I had the honour of attending the last ever wedding at St Alban's before it closed many years ago. It was a beautiful, if neglected, building then and when the doors were closed it was left to deteriorate over time. It is about to have hundreds of thousands of pounds (donated from a variety of places but in large part from parishoners of Christ Church W4) pumped into it to help bring it back to life - for the benefit of the whole of Chiswick. Our community spaces (anyone remember the Day Centre off Belmont Road that was sold off by Hounslow and is now multi million pound homes for sale??) are being flogged to the highest bidder. A building like St Albans is saved for community use and there are complaints about the church that is reviving it?! To all of those who think St Albans church will be used primarily to 'brainwash'... here are a small handful of examples for your consideration: For the past five winters I have served in the kitchen at Christ Church on a weekly basis as a part of The Shelter Project Hounslow. We have over a dozen homeless guests join us for a beautiful homemade meal, friendship and a warm, clean, safe place to sleep. They are looked after by an overnight team of volunteers and then the breakfast crew arrives. At my last shift, we took in an extra TEN guests because Severe Weather Emergency Protocol had been activated. They were given a delicious, nutritious meal and a warm place to sleep. Let me be clear when I say that if it were not for TSPH's provision, they would be sleeping on the streets. There is absolutely no hidden agenda other than to serve the least fortunate in our community. For the past five years, the National Childbirth Trust charity has used Christ Church as a venue for their Large Equipment Sale where local parents can pick up second hand baby items that are normally hundreds of pounds new for a fraction of the retail price - providing an essential service for our local families. My son and daughter's school, Belmont, uses Christ Church as a venue for our whole-school functions and believe me, we have to shoehorn in! St Albans is a significantly larger venue and the prospect of being able to head over to Acton Green and being able to accommodate even more parents and carers at these events is a very welcome thought indeed. These are just a few examples of the way the church serves the community - St Albans will be no different. Why any person in their right mind would wish the building to be used for anything other than this type of essential community service is beyond me. |