St Ursula's Church Berne, Switzerland A Church of the Anglican Communion, welcoming all who seek the Lord Jesus Christ
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What's New? Shrove Tuesday, Ash Wednesday The beginning of Lent has been an occasion for fasting and abstinence, symbolized by the ashes we are marked with at our Ash Wednesday service on 22 February (it's at 18.30 - mark your diaries.) But before all this fasting, it was customary to use up all the rich animal products in the house on the previous day - Mardi Gras - and to confess sins and seek to be shriven - an old word meaning absolved and forgiven - hence the English term, Shrove Tuesday. In England, this also involved using up one's milk and eggs by making pancakes (and even racing the length of the village high street while tossing them in a frying pan). We won't be racing round Jubiläumsplatz, but we will be making pancakes. Come along and join in, from 19.00 on 21 February. Sweet and savoury pancakes, and soft drinks will be provided. All you need bring is good humour and willing jaws! Lent During Lent we shall be following a course exploring the problem of evil, using a course booklet by Professor Mike Higton of Exeter University. There will be two parallel sessions, one on Friday lunchtime starting on 2 March, and one on Friday evening starting 24 February. Both will consist of five units. Why not come along? Lenten Soup You are invited to our traditional Lenten soup lunch in aid of Cecily's Fund on 11 March from 11.30 to 13.30. There will be delicious homemade soup, coffee, cakes, and a chance to learn more about, and to contribute to, this valuable charity, which works with AIDS orphans in Zambia. Choral Evensong St Patrick's Day, 17 March, sees a spin-off from the Anglican Archdeaconry Choir Festival. It was felt to be a good idea if singers could get together informally to practice and sing a service during the year. So there is a choir practice for singers from all over Switzerland in church from 14.00 to 16.30, followed by a service at 17.30, to which all are invited. There are fuller details of the music on the flyer. (The Choir Festival itself is in Basle this year, on 28 and 29 April.) Our AGM Our AGM this year is on 25 March. Mark your diary! To vote at it, you need to be on the Electoral Roll. If you are not on the roll already, pick up a form in the church hall or download one, complete it, and give it to Tricia Carrick, our Electoral Roll Officer. Facebook There's up-to-the-minute news as well on the church's Facebook site. Take a look! Baptism To help with service planning, and to avoid having series of baptisms close to each other, we shall be setting aside four Sundays in 2012 for candidates to be presented for baptism. (There will also be an opportunity for baptism during our confirmation service on 24 June.) The dates are: 12 February 27 May 24 June (at the Confirmation Service) 26 August 25 November If for some reason these dates are not possible for you, please have a word with the Chaplain.

Dates for your Diary

What's Happened Recently? Mission Sunday On 29 January, we combined our traditional Candlemas celebration with our annual Mission Sunday service. We invited our mission partners to come and share the service with us, and afterwards to present their charities to us over coffee and a Pot Luck lunch. Representatives of Zentrum 5, TEAR Fund, the Anglican Health Network, Cecily's Fund and Family Life Mission came and talked to members of the congregation about what they did - the last having made a 28-hour bus journey from Warsaw to be with us (and facing a 28-hour journey back!). Our youth group have contined to enjoy varied activities and to have fun. With our Youth Co-ordinator, Mary McKinley's help, we hope to plan yet more activities among the teenagers of our church family, and to reach others "on the fringe". So if you are interested, why not get in contact and come along! Old Pictures Do you know that we regularly put pictures of church events on our Picasa website? They are worth taking a look at to see if there are faces you recognize, or memories you recall. Take a look! Welcome Cards We also want to keep our address lists up to date, so that we can contact you if the need arises. We now have cards in the seats for newcomers to give us their details. If you have not yet filled one of these cards in, please help us by doing so and leaving it in the box in the porch, or giving it to the sidesperson. And if you change your address, please let us know! Communicating We want you to make the most of the information we have on the web. Have you looked at our sitemap to see just what there is you can find out about? Have you tried clicking on some of the links on our pages to find out more? In addition to photographs on this website (see the magazine index page for a list), the church has a Picasa site, with pictures of church events, new and old, and many of the sermons in St Ursula's in recent years have been recorded for you to listen to. If you have ideas for improving the information we can give, or if you have pictures of the church or our activities that you would be willing to share on this site, do please contact us. The church magazine now appears every two months, in paper format and on the web. If you are interested in saving paper and reading the magazine on line, please use this link to ask us to provide you with details. And you can see the weekly notices by clicking here. The readings are available too. Shrinking the Footprint The Church of England's environmental campaign, Shrinking the Footprint aims to make church members more aware of their place in the world. It also aims reduce the church's consumption of non-renewable resources, and specifically to cut carbon emissions by 60% by 2050. You'll find the diocesan environmental policy document on the diocesan website. Walter Bisig has taken on the task of being our chaplaincy's environmental officer, whose task is to look at ways of making our activities greener. We hope that he will be proposing further ways of helping St Ursula's participate in the work of making this a better world to live in.

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