There is now a new page on the website all about better Broadband in the village

Lent starts on Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the forty days before Easter. This year it falls on March 6th and the Lent lunch will be at Wincle vicarage. The next week, March 13th it will be at Blaze Farm and on March 20th at Sutton church hall. There is a gap of a week and then the Bosley Lent lunch is on 3rd April at Hawkslee, the Wain’s up on Bosley Minn, and on the 10th April at Bosley Chapel. All these are for Christian Aid.

The Macclesfield Male Voice Choir are giving a concert on March 16th at 7.30pm at St. Mary’s Church. This is a much admired choir and will be an enjoyable evening. Tickets are £8 which includes refreshments, and can be obtained from church members, on the door or phone 01260 226542.

The Plough Service was held this year at St. Mary’s church with many farmers present and a good congregation for the blessing of the plough, and a new born lamb (see the photo) was brought up by the children to be blessed and the choir sang two anthems. We sang ‘Happy Birthday’ for Ava who was eleven that day.

The Electoral Roll is revised every six years and people have to renew their membership by filling in the required form. These are available in church or phone 01260 226131.

On the 31st March, Mothering Sunday, the service will be up at Wincle at 10.30. This will be Kim’s last service as she, Corniel, Ava and Amara leave for St. Albans where she has gained a prestigious post at the cathedral working with the youth. Many congratulations to her as we say our goodbyes to someone who has brought a breath of fresh air to us at Bosley with lots of fun and laughter as well as bringing a serious message in the services; we will sadly miss her and the family. Corniel has made a big contribution to the Peak Parishes with his editing the magazine and he now starts his study to be ordained. Good luck to all of them as they start their new life and new schools and hope they may visit sometime.

Church Improvement Project

Thanks to all those who continue to support us in our fund-raising efforts to improve and revitalise the church building; so that it may become a shared Community Hall for both community activities and for worship, whilst meeting the needs of the 21st century. Outline plans are available to view in the church at any time.

We have so far raised over £112,000 from pledges, donations & grants, but there is still a lot more required to reach our target of £215,000. Our aim is to start the build project this summer if funding is in place. Further grant funding applications have recently been submitted and we await their outcomes over the next few months.

Meanwhile we continue to seek your support of donations and attendance at forthcoming fund-raisers. We are currently organising a Race Night for the Spring and Open Gardens weekend in the Summer. Other activities suggested include a Casino night and a “Buy–a–Brick” campaign – so watch out for these developments!

If you would like to donate to the fund to build our Community Hall, donations can be handed to any church member,

or by cheque to “St. Mary’s Church”, Bosley, SK11 0NX,

or sent direct to the bank –

BARCLAYS Bank, Account No. 83966275, Sort Code 20-53-77

Youth Club

March 4th - Welsh Night

March 11th – Youth Club 5th Birthday Ceelbrations

March 18th – Irish Night

March 25th - Football Match.

April 1st - Treasure/Egg Hunt, Lakeside.

St. Mary’s Church Services at 9.30am; - unless stated otherwise

Preacher Sidesman Reading Flowers

Mar 3rd 9.30 Holy Communon

Revd. Ivan Whinton Dorothy Gilman Alison Tottle

Mar 6th 10.00 Praise and Play for carers and tots with Kim Q-W

Mar 10th 11.00 Joint Service at Chapel

Mar 17th 9.30 Family Service

Revd. Kim Q-W Jenny Ratcliffe Jane Nixon

Mar 24th 9.30 Holy Communion

Revd. Ivan Whinton Bill Dowse Joan Dowse

Mar 31st 10.30 Farewell Service for Kim at Wincle

Apr 7th 9.30 Holy Communion

Revd. John Harries Jane Wain Neil Wain

Chapel Services at 11.00

Preacher

Mar 3rd Revd. Tony Tagg – Holy Communion

Mar 10th Revd. Tony Tagg - Joint Service with St. Mary’s -

Mar 17th Mervyn Lovatt

Mar 24th Dennis Smith

Mar 31st Revd. Andrew Lindley

Christmas is over and our New Year Resolutions and we have the dark days of February to get through, however there are events and things to look forward to. Below is a request for individuals to get involved with the history and heritage of the village, a new web site for the church is being created, Bobkins have a Bingo evening and on February 10th the church celebrates Plough Sunday when the plough is blest and sometimes a lamb if we can get one, and we remember our farming community as the season progresses.

Our condolences to the Done family on the death of Maureen Done, a long Bosley resident. Her funeral was on 21st January at St. Mary’s Church.

Easter is late this year on the 21st April so the weekly Lent lunches will start on 6th March at the vicarage in Wincle and on the 13th it will be at Blaze Farm. The one in Bosley and at the chapel will be later in the month, details next month.

BOSLEY SCHOOL NEWS

The windows have now been replaced at the front of our school, so the rebuilding the main gable end is now finished and the school should be good for another 160 years.

We had been concerned for sometime about the state of that gable end wall. It was bowed out, and there were cracks in the stone mullions. That wall carries the weight of the school bell tower, which added to our concern.

We called in a structural engineer for advice, who said the wall needed supporting with immediate effect! And it needed to be taken down to the floor and rebuilt!

A major job! As a listed building it had to be taken down brick by brick and rebuilt to look the same as it did before. We think "Maysands" the company that did the work, have done a really good job.

When taking the wall down and they got to the top of window they found the cause of the problem. The wooden beam over the window carrying the inner skin of the wall was perished and disintegrating. This allowed the inner skin of the wall to move which cracked the mullions carrying the outer skin.

As we know the wall had been like that for many years, and we, like many of you, wondered whether we should have "left well alone"!

Having seen the state of the beam that was taken out, the cracked mullions, and considered the weight of the bell tower they were carrying we feel we made the right decision.

Alec Needham.

School Governor

Bobkins are holding a Charity Bingo Evening

Thursday, 7th February, at The Knot Rushton

Eyes down at 7pm

All proceeds to Bosley Bobkins Preschool and Bosley Youth Club

For further details please contact 01260 222993

Youth Club

February 4th Volley Ball Tournament

February 11th Talent Show

February 18th Spring Break – no youth club.

Susanne is training for the London Marathon so volunteers may be needed to help occasionally when she is training.

Bosley's Millennium Project

As a millennium project, instigated by Richard & Christian Bass, Bosley raised money to build a school in Gambia. There were different fund raising events, I think we had a dinner and charity auction at the Boars Leigh restaurant, just one event that I remember. The building of the school was done in conjunction with "Schools For Gambia" a charity set up by Mae Winterton [Mae's family are local sawdust merchants]

On Sunday 13th Jan, Mae came to Bosley's united Church service which this month was at the Chapel and told us about the work of the charity. The Gambian school which we helped to build, is in the village of Madina Mannen is called "Bosley School". It was planned for around 90 pupils, but pupils came from neighbouring villages and they now have over 600 pupils [the government have put in money to build extra classrooms]

From the late 1990s, Gambia has gone through a period of political turmoil and it was difficult to keep lines of communication open, but 4 years ago democracy has been restored and things are much better. In this improved situation Bosley School in Gambia are keen to reconnect with the village who gave them their school.

Through that difficult time Mae and the charity have kept on working, they have now built over twenty village schools in Gambia, and dug or repaired even more wells to provide clean drinking water. Mae stressed that through it all they felt God's hand guiding them and helping them. The story she shared with us was truly inspirational.

Thank you Mae for coming to tell us about the wonderful work you and "Schools for Gambia" are doing.

St. Mary’s Church Services at 9.30am; - unless stated otherwise

Preacher Sidesman Reading Flowers

Feb 3rd 9.30 Holy Communon

Revd. Ivan Whinton Joy Collis Tom Collis

Feb 6th 10.00 Praise and Play for carers and tots with Kim Q-W

Feb 10th 10.30 Plough Sunday for all four parishes

Revd. Kim Q-W Bill Dowse Jane Gilman

Feb 17th 9.30 Family Service

Revd. Phil Williams Jenny Ratcliffe Jane Nixon

Feb 24th 9.30 Holy Communion

Revd. Ivan Whinton James Massey Rosemary Massey

Mar 3rd 9.30 Holy Communion

Revd. Ivan Whinton Dorothy Gilman Alison Tottle

Mar 6th 10.00 Praise and Play with Kim

Chapel Services at 11.00

Preacher

Feb 3rd Revd. Tony Tagg – Holy Communion

Feb 10th 10.30 @ Wellspring

Feb 17th Harold Mellor

Feb 24th Alec Needham

Mar 3rd Revd. Tony Tagg – Holy Communion

As part of the Church Improvements Project we would like to know whether members of our community are interested in learning about, researching, preserving, or archiving the heritage & history of Bosley village and the surrounding area. The church itself is a Grade II* Listed Building and contains many interesting artefacts & memorials, but what about the rest of the village?

Please take a moment to look at the list below and vote on which area(s) you might be interested in.

Which areas of village history/heritage are you interested in?

o 150-year-old School

o Local Industry and the Mills

o Church; including War Graves & Genealogy

o Canals & Reservoir

o Railways & the Viaduct

o Oral history of village life over the decades

o Other….. (please specify)

If you’d like to take part in any part of the project (e.g. talking about your history, writing down records, researching at the library or online, looking into heritage artefacts, or helping the schoolchildren with similar tasks) please let us know.

You can email your details to bosleystmaryschurch@gmail.com or telephone Jane on 226542

All are back to school, university, apprentiships and college after one of the best summers most of us can remember. I hope those taking exams got the results they had hoped for and needed. Sarah Nixon has passed some of her accountancy exams and her brother, John, has completed a year with JCB and goes back to uni for his final year. John Ratcliffe has excellent A level results and goes to Sheffield to read electrical engineering and his sister, Nicky goes to Bangor to read environmental science.

By the time the magazine comes out a busy week will be over, the Harvest Festival, both for the school and church, the harvest auction and the Harvest Supper; a week of celebrations for the school’s 160th anniversary culminating in a Gift Day at church with a bouncy castle, games, bunting and not forgetting the cakes and teas. A report on all these events will appear next month.

Youth Club

The youth club is back in action and October will bring the first talent show on the 1st, the Big Bake Off on the 8th, the 22nd ‘Making the Best Guy Fawkes’ and the 29th Pumpkin Party fund raiser. There is no youth club on the 15th.

Bobkins and school are having a coffee afternoon for Macmillan on Monday 1st October 2pm-2.30. Come and have an informal chat and get to know each other better in the community.

St. Mary’s Church Services at 9.30am; - unless stated otherwise

Preacher Sidesman Reading Flowers

Oct. 3rd 10.00 Praise and Play for youngsters with Kim Q-W

Oct. 7th John Harries Neil Wain Jane/Samuel Mrs. Done

Oct. 14th 11.00 Julia Tomes Chapel Harvest

Oct. 21st Own Arrange Dorothy Gilman Jane Gilman Mrs. L.Whittaker

Oct. 28th Ivan Whinton Tom Collis Joy Collis

Nov. 4th John Harries James Massey Rosemary Massey Mrs. M. Billing

Chapel Services at 11.00

Preacher

Oct. 7th Revd. Tony Tagg – Holy Communion

Oct. 14th Julia Tomes – Harvest Festival with St. Mary’s Church

6.30 Brian Donlon - Harvest Festival

Oct. 21st Own Arrange

Oct. 28th Revd. Keith Jarvis

Chapel Notices

It is with sadness that we must report the passing of Evelyn Twigg, wife of Harrry. Evelyn was a regular worshipper at the chapel for most of her life. She was a much loved lady, with a keen interest in, and knowledge of, all things local. She will be missed. Our condolences to her family.

Chapel Harvest Festival celebrations are on 14th October. 1.00 am Julia Tomes will lead a H.F. United Service. Special guests Trinity Choir, will be singing for us at the 6.30 evening service, Brian Donlon will be our preacher. After the service there will be a Ploughman’s supper to which everyone is welcome. Monday 15th at 7.30pm there will be a sale of harvest produce in the chapel schoolroom. Proceeds to Famine Relief.

The WAY group where all manner of religious topics are discussed will be held on 23rd October at 7.30pm in the chapel schoolroom with Kim leading it. She was suffering from a bad cold so was unable to lead the last meeting.

W.I. Report

The August meeting was well attended with much to plan for the coming months. Invitations have been received for Bosley members to attend Adlington, Macclesfield Forest and Wildboarclough, and Mow Cop W.I.’s in September and Timbersbrook in October.

The beginning of September is the Cloud Group meeting at New Life Church, Congleton when the speaker will be Lesley Smith of Tutbury Castle, plus the raffle, a bring and buy stall and the competition which this time is for “A home-made garter”. Liz Tomlinson’s garter was chosen by our members to represent Bosley in the competition.

Our speakers for the evening were Sylvia Boden and Jill Bent their subject being “I won a competition”. Sylvia recalled how her, and Jill’s, regular visits to France gave her an interest in French cookery. She entered a competition organised by French chef, Raymond Blanc and won the first prize of a cookery course worth several hundred pounds and supervised by the chef himself! Plus a “Maille” apron which she proudly wore for her talk. Sylvia had brought along lots of recipes and the ingredients to make them which they generously raffled and were won by our lucky members. Jill had written an hilarious poem entitled “Learning French” which she read in her immaculate Pam Ayres style, Relating from when she started to learn the language from books, she found that on arrival in France and trying out her new skill, she could hardly understand a word due to the fast speaking, conversational French spoken by the people there. Jill has entertained us at a previous meeting by reading Pam Ayres poems and writing her own.

The vote of thanks was given by Bar Harrison and our monthly competition won by Shirley Moss with Dorothy Gilman second.

Thanks, also, to Kath Bullock and Moreen Whittaker for providing and serving their lovely cakes and tea.

The subject of our September meeting will be “Women’s fashion during WW2” when we look forward to welcoming our guests from North Rode and Wincle WI’s.

For further information about Bosley WI please telephone 01260-222933.

School Report

We held our breath over the summer to see if the building work at school would be finished in time for our return at the start of September and … by the end of final Saturday of the holiday, it was!

Everyone is admiring the wonderfully rebuilt gable wall, which just awaits its custom-made window to be complete. It’s easy to imagine what the school building might have looked like when it was new 160 years ago!

The children are also enjoying a hugely bigger playground area now that the drive tarmac has been relaid and extended. In the next few weeks there will be markings for playground games and P.E. sports, and a whole new assault-course and den-building remodelling of another part of the grounds.

Our Christian value for this half term is generosity, our September Prayer Space is called Jenga Prayers (praying together, we are stronger as a community…) and we are enjoying visits from the Open the Book team to tell some Old Testament stories through drama – never short of volunteers from the audience!

This being our 160th year, the theme of Victorian School will continue throughout the term as we dig into the archives – log books, photos, registers, etc – and learn and re-enact as much as we can about how Victorian school life must have been at the Bosley National School.

Meanwhile, we began our term with a super Welcome Service on the first day of term, when many parents and friends joined us as the six new Reception children were given Bible story books by Vicar John and we celebrated being back together again at the start of a new school year with many exciting things planned for our school community!