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Harvest Festival 2018

We enjoyed a  wonderful Harvest Festival service and communal lunch at St Oswald’s School.  Harvest  also marked the end of our three week Time & Talents campaign, asking people to offer their time and talent to our two churches: St Oswald’s Guiseley and St Paul’s Esholt.

Well done and thank you to all those who have put in so much effort, both today and the last few weeks, we are truly blessed to have you.
The produce – generously given by the congregation at our 9.30 service – has been donated to  Bradford North Foodbank.

Harvest Festival – Sunday 30th October – A Message from Bradford North Foodbank

This year we are supporting Bradford North foodbank – can you help?

Please bring any of the following items to our service at 9.30am on Sunday 30th September.  Your donations will be passed on to the foodbank.

Bradford North Foodbank provides  emergency food parcels to people in crisis in the North Bradford / Shipley postcodes (BD2, BD9, BD10, BD17, BD18) plus the Rawdon, Yeadon or Guiseley postcodes (LS19 & LS20).

Since opening in Bradford, in early 2015, we have handed out over 4,200 food parcels feeding nearly 10,000 local people. The numbers of people in need are increasing for various reasons such as the ongoing economic austerity measures, which disproportionately affect the most
vulnerable in our society, and the introduction of Universal Credit in our area.

As ‘numbers fed’ increase so our food stocks decrease. Over the past year, we have had to purchase over £2,000 worth of food, because donations have been insufficient to supply our foodbank centres. We really need your help to build up our food and non-food stocks for the winter period.
Harvest Festival is a key time for us to receive donations for our emergency food parcels and last year churches, schools and businesses donated just over 7 tonnes of food – 23.4% of our annual donation total.

This contributed to the 1,698 food parcels we distributed during the 2017 – 2018 year, feeding 2,365 adults and 1,522 children. 39% of the people we feed are children.

Seven Last Posts. Friday 2nd November.

To mark the centenary of the end of WWI,the Parish of Saint Oswald Guiseley and Saint Paul in Esholt, are offering much in the way of commemoration and remembrance to the fallen. None more so than Seven Last Posts – a reflection in  words and music – on Friday 2nd November.

Do join us in this act of remembrance and feel the words and music as they take us to an age long past, but not forgotten.

 

Heritage Open Day 2108

St Oswald’s Church will be open as part of the 2018 Heritage Open Days Festival from 2-4pm on Sunday 16th September.  There will be teas, tours, displays and  activities for children.  Everyone is welcome and it’s all absolutely free!

Heritage Open Days is England’s largest festival of history and culture, bringing together over 2,500 organisations, 5,000 events and 40,000 volunteers. Every year in September, places across the country throw open their doors to celebrate their heritage, community and history. It’s your chance to see hidden places and try out new experiences.

The event on Sunday 16th September will include tours of the church and churchyard, displays, all run by church volunteers. Teas will be served during the afternoon

Church history will be brought to life with guided tours of the church, and local war heroes remembered with a display of the stories of WW1 veterans.  Stephen Barber, our WW1 history expert, author of Guiseley Terriers, A Small Part in a Great War, to be published later this month, will be on hand and, weather permitting, run tours of the WW1 War graves in St Oswald’s Churchyard.  David Pickett, Rector of Guiseley with Esholt says “It’s a really great way of bringing people into this local landmark and to give them a flavour of Guiseley’s past.  We love having visitors in Church and hope that this year is as popular as our previous Heritage Open Days”

Our Church, thought to be the oldest building in Guiseley, has been the location of countless life events – marriages, baptisms and burials.  The Church registers will be on display and visitors will be able to see a copy of the registers of the marriage of Patrick and Maria Bronte, parents of the Bronte sisters, who were married at St Oswald’s Church.

The Heritage Open Day runs from 2-4pm, entry is free, no need to book in advance.  There is an accessible entrance and disabled parking on Church Street in Guiseley.