St Saviour's Parish in the news

This Saturday, 23rd February, we will be holding our first meeting about starting up a new parish newsletter and anyone who is interested in this venture is invited to come along to the Parish Hall at 11 am. We have had some good responses already and the makings of a very good editorial team is in hand, so if you feel you would like to take part, even if you only have a few hours to spare, do join us. The more we have, the more we can share the work involved and it won't become too onerous a task for any one person. I would also like to see parishioners getting out with their cameras, sketchbooks, paints and pencils to record the parish through the year and I would like to hear from anyone with any ideas for improving our community, especially if they are offering to help as well! You can contact me at the Parish Hall or via this website, at info@peterhanning.com
We have already received some suggestions for what to call the newsletter, and the final decision will rest in the hands of the newsletter committee.

If you went down to the woods on Saturday...

There was an enthusiastic response to the call to clear the little woodland below the Parish Hall last Saturday. In a short time, logs and branches were being cleared to make way for the rotavator that will come in to prepare the ground for the special woodland grass and wildflower mix than is going to be sown there. I would like to thank everyone who turned up: we were certainly lucky with the weather, which was sunny and bright and, although it was cold, we soon warmed up. For those who ventured down towards the bottom of the valley, there was the joyous sight of wild violets blooming in the cleared spaces. There were some violets here last year, our Parish in Bloom co-ordinator Graham Langlois tells me, but the opening up of the woodland has allowed more light into the area and the violets have certainly responded. Mike Stentiford popped down to share his cold with us...thanks, Mike...but soon popped off to, I hope, a warm fire and some hot lemon and honey. We have begun collecting names for our proposed group of Parish wildlilfe and woodland volunteers and I would like to invite anyone with a few hours to spare a couple of times a year to contact me at the Parish Hall so we can add your name to the list. Just a thought: does anyone know what that little valley is actually called? I am going to try and find out so that it can have a proper name attached to it and become part of our parish community amenties, just like Patier Park.

St Saviour’s Parish in Bloom: “Park”ing a priority

A WILD wood with squirrels and nesting birds is developing in hidden parkland tucked away below St Saviour’s Parish Hall. Work began on this peaceful haven between Government House and busy St Saviour’s Hill last February when the area’s overgrown trees and undergrowth were thinned, bird boxes put up and paths made to allow access.
The Parish has been greatly helped in doing this by Mike Stentiford and his team of volunteers, but they now have plenty to do as part of the National Trust and we must make our own effrt to make this little wildernness attractive and accessible. Now it is time to continue the project before the birds begin to nest again and I am calling for volunteers to meet outside the Parish Hall on Saturday 16 February at 10 am to go down to the area and work for a couple of hours or so on creating an idyllic woodland park where the community can enjoy the area’s burgeoning wildlife.
It’s a wonderful area that is both wild and accessible and we think it provides an opportunity for people, especially youngsters, to feel that it is a really valuable part of their parish, to come and help the site develop and to encourage wild life to come down and live and nest in the woods. As many people as possible are invited to help and no gardening skills are needed, just strong shoes and a pair of gloves are recommended to bring a forgotten area of the parish to life and create an outside classroom for youngsters in our parish.”
The scheme is ambitious and aims to develop three separate areas, each progressively wilder, and help is needed to clear the remaining logs and branches. “We’d like as many parishioners to come as possible,” said Graham Langlois, of St Saviour’s Parish in Bloom. “We’d also like to start a volunteer group that can be called on a couple of times a year in spring and autumn when we need to tidy up the area.”
With their help, the walled woodland will make a perfect small nature reserve which could be linked by natural planting through to other wildlife areas in the parish.

Looking forward: 2008

Last weekend I was delighted to welcome our Honorary Police officers to a lunch as a small thank-you to them and their partners for the many hours of their time they give to our parish. As well as forming a large part of our spirit of community in St Saviour, the recent discussions about the policing of events makes me realise just how much we owe to our Honorary Police in keeping down costs to the parish and, therefore, to our rates. Being a member of the Honorary Police is a very satisfying role as you are working directly for the benefit of our community and yet it need not be too time consuming... the more officers we have, the more the workload is shared.
I do hope that more people, men and women, will come forward to stand for election as Constable's Officer and if, in the meantime, you would like to know more about what exactly is involved and what might be expected of you, do please contact me and we can have a chat about it. I was a Constable's Officer myself for many years and while it was sometimes uncomfortable standing out in the cold and wet, there are times when I can look back and feel that by volunteering in this way, I may have been able to help somebody at a time of crisis in their life.
Last weekend also saw the annual get-together of the St Saviour's Battle of Flowers team at the Parish Hall to thank all their supporters for the work they put in to last year's successful entry. Many of us were sporting green thumb nails for the whole of August after our efforts preparing flower heads for sticking! We have a really good committee enthusiastically preparing for Battle 2008 and I hope that many parishioners will come along and help this year...again, sharing the workload is a way to make life easier for all of us. If you would like to contribute in any way to making our float for 2008 a great success, do contact Ann Quenault (879881 or annieq@jerseymail.co.uk) or have a look at the website at stsavioursbof1.tripod.com and see just how many different ways you can take part. We also enter a junior float and this is a great way for young people to work together on an exciting project. I would also ask you to start thinking about who you might encourage to enter the Miss St Saviour competition in April. We have been so well-represented by our Miss St Saviours and the role is an important one for the whole parish and the whole year and not just for the Battle of Flowers.

A New Year dawns

Seeing in the New Year last Saturday, more than 300 of our senior citizens joined us for an excellent lunch at the Hotel Ambassadeur, including our stars for the day, Jack and Eileen Le Sueur, who are about to celebrate their 70th wedding anniversary. The Honorary Police made an excellent job of fitting all the cars into the car park and, after a pre-lunch sherry or orange juice, we all enjoyed a good lunch and a sing-song. Elaine and I enjoyed meeting so many parishioners, old friends and new, and, although it could be said that perhaps the numbers are big enough to split the event into two occasions, I do love seeing everyone dress up and get together for a real Parish "do" and there was such a great atmosphere.

A Cracking Christmas

The 12th December saw us being welcomed back to the Assembly Room by some of our more senior citizens, members of the St Saviour Social Club, who extended their famous hospitality. We saw many of them again the next afternoon when we joined the St Saviour Golden Age Club to share tea and pull crackers and listen to the really excellent choir of youngsters from St Saviour's Primary School. They were a real credit to their headteacher, Kate Sugden, their music teacher, Gwenda Harris - an old girl of the school, she tells me - and, of course, the families of all the children who led us in singing many of our favourite traditional Christmas carols as well as their own version of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.
I also attended St Paul's Church on the 13th December for the Grand Vaux Primary School carol service where we were each presented with a handmade Christmas card from the children. Mine was from Katie-Ann in Year 5 and included a cheerful snowman and glittery snowflakes. Thank you very much, Katie-Ann. It was a lovely service with choir and dancers as well as traditional Christmas carols and readings, and I do congratulate Year 6 on singing Silent Night so beautifully in German.
Elaine tells me that on Friday, 14th December, she popped her passport into her handbag "just in case!" as we headed out to the Far(if not quite Wild)West to have a wonderful evening in St Ouen's Parish Hall booing and hissing the machinations of thinly-disguised politicians and big businessmen.
With just over a week to go to Christmas Day, I was delighted to be asked by our Rector, Rev. Dr Anthony Swindell, to take part in a moving celebration of the season with a service of nine lessons and carols at St Saviour's Church. It was a warm, friendly and spiritual event and the church was most beautifully decorated.
The next evening began two nights of concerted Christmas celebration with the annual evening of song presented by Les Conteurs. This is the first time we have seen Eric Le Conte take his place with his wife, Pauline, in the audience. He and his family and choir have a wonderful gift of music which they has shared with so many of us over the years, and their usual outstanding raffle helped them also to make their generous gifts to local charities (this year Jersey Family Nursing and Home Care and the Constable's Fund). Annette Blanchet is the musical director and we all enjoyed the mix of traditional carols and Christmas fun.

Christmas in St Saviour

It has been a busy month and I have to admit to not spending much time at the computer. This has been my first Christmas as Connétable and Elaine and I have enjoyed all the fruits of the season and a real sense of the good community spirit in the Parish. Christmas began with a visit from Father Christmas to the Parish Hall on 11th December to collect gifts and donations to the annual Jersey Christmas Appeal. He arrived with his sleigh and, with his accompanying shepherds, led the eager awaiting children past the superb 24-foot Christmas tree that has graced the Parish Hall this year, and up to the Assembly Room where he quickly settled down to the main business of the afternon - listening to the children share their dreams and wishes. It was lovely to see so many St Saviour youngsters (we estimated about 60) come along and enjoy the spirit of the day.

Wintry weather

What a weekend we had! Atrocious weather that brought a real bite of winter and not a few falling trees to the Parish. Fortunately, St Saviour was not too badly hit and I was delighted to hear that the Parish and the Honorary Police did their bit to clear the roads quickly and help parishioners in their homes. Well done, everyone.

St Saviour's Twinning Association

Today was a miserably wintry day, but about 50 parishioners met at the Bistro Rocque for a splendid lunch and a chance to talk about St Saviour's Twinning Association. There was a great atmosphere, plenty of chat and laughter and I hope everyone really enjoyed themselves. My congratulations to the committee for yet another successful event. Next year, St Saviour will have been twinned with Villedieu-Les-Poeles, in Normandy, for 25 years, and we will also host the Jersey Normandie Association Jeux Intervilles, the Fun and Games in which all the Island's parishes and their twin towns participate. As the games are only held every other year, it will be many years before our turn comes round again and we want it to be a marvellous weekend. I was delighted to see so many new faces at the lunch and hope that all our new members will enjoy their experience of twinning events here and at Villedieu. Bob Olliver is the man to contact if you want to know more about our twinning association and perhaps join us. He can be contacted on 735864 or by email at
bob.olliver@poss.gov.je

Parish news and views

We have been so busy since our return from Canada that I have not updated this blog. My apologies for that and I shall try to do better in future.

Remembrance Sunday was a very special day this year. The 11th day of the 11th month fell on the Sunday and Rev Dr Anthony Swindell included the dedication of our new Parish Memorial in the short service at 11 am. A contingent of our scouts were present and planted their crosses and poppies in the new turf around the cross. We were lucky with the weather which, though chilly, was dry and bright.
It is a fine memorial to the fallen. The original plaque has been set in the wall below the Parish Hall and the new plinth states simply that "For your tomorrows we gave our today". The old flagpole with its cross trees has gone and has been replaced by two single flag posts, one one each side and, without the hedge that masked so much of the front of the Parish Hall, it really is a fine sight as you approach.

The little woodland below the Parish Hall is really showing the benefit of the efforts made by the team of volunteers, led by the indefatigable Mike Stentiford, who went down on Saturday, 17th November with some of our parishioners and Garden Festival Committee to clear logs and brushwood for this Woodland Regeneration Project. It has already made a difference and we are hoping to organise another effort before Christmas so the ground can be rotavated ready for seeding and planting. I would like to see many more parishioners joining in such a worthwhile Parish effort that just requires a pair of wellies, a pair of gloves and a couple of hours of your time.

On the subject of planting, my thanks to two of our parishioners who have bought trees which they planted in Patier Park on Thursday. The ground was prepared by Graham Langlois, our Floral Co-ordinator and I was delighted to meet the two donors and see them plant their trees. This is a wonderful way to commemorate or celebrate a particular event or person for many years to come.

A warm welcome in our Parish Church

Our Rector, the Rev Dr Anthony Swindell, arranged a special service on Sunday, 16th September, in our Parish Church to include inauguration prayers to support me at the beginning of my term of office. This was much appreciated by me, and by Elaine, who is gradually taking up her own role as Connétable's wife. At the moment of sharing "The Peace" I did try to shake hands with as many people as I could, and hope I did not miss out anyone. During the last month, when Elaine and I had expected to be fighting an election, we had a quieter time of it and I was able to take up the reins more gradually than I had expected. Now, however, work begins in earnest and we were grateful to be surrounded by so many friends and experience their support and encouragement in a beautiful service and to join them in the Armoury for coffee afterwards. Our warmest thanks go to Dr Swindell for his thoughtfulness.

Bringing harvest home in Georgetown

At the annual Harvest Festival at Georgetown Methodist Church, last Sunday, Elaine and I were warmly welcomed and made to feel very much at home. We were invited by the Rev Chris White and soon learnt how to say "Amen" in signing by touching left thumb with right forefinger for "A" and then both fists together to complete the word. We were intrigued to meet Pat Bougeard who is very involved in extending the church's welcome to people who are deaf or hard of hearing. We also learnt some Swahili: "Hello" or "Jambo", with a picture of our own Jambo the gorilla flashed up on the wall; and "Asante, sana", or "Thank you very much" which was then brought into the prayers.
Projecting the words of the hymns on to the wall got all our heads up, with no riffling through hymn books, and all the children agog at what was going to appear next.
Ed Le Quesne, of the Jersey-Kenya 2007 group, brought us up to date on the latest work done in co-operation with local people on the medical centre which serves some 25,000 people around Ombeyi near Kisumu on Lake Victoria, Western Kenya, a project supported by the Georgetown Methodist Church.
We very much enjoyed meeting all the congregation afterwards and particularly noted (and tasted) the delicious fresh fruit on offer instead of biscuits and presented in bite-size chunks to tempt adults and children alike.

A day of sadness and pride for St Saviour

The funeral of my predecessor as Connétable, Philip Ozouf, on Thursday, 20th September, was an occasion of sadness and great pride. Sadness that the Parish and Island had lost a great character; one of the old school of Connétables, who had devoted himself to his parish for nearly 60 years. I shall miss his encylopaedic knowledge of St Saviour. But it was also an occasion of great pride to see the representation of the municipality of the Parish in St Thomas's Church and our Honorary Police work together in cooperation with the Honorary Police of St Helier, to see that the old Connétable was conveyed to his last resting place in a fitting way. The sunshine gleamed in the polished sides of his old Jersey vanne and on the coats of the handsome pair of greys that pulled it, with his coffin draped in the St Saviour flag and bearing the chain of office of Connétable on its top.
His is a record of service which is unlikely to be surpassed.

Death of former Connétable Philip Ozouf

It was with great sadness that Elaine and I heard the news that our old Connétable, Philip Ozouf, died this morning. He had been in ill health for some time and it is a measure of the man that although his strength was failing he was still able to summon his inner resources to preside at the Nominations Meeting where I was elected to take his role as Father of the Parish. He was present for the last sitting of the States and the thunderous drumming of feet on the floor of that august chamber...the traditional method to show approbation...showed how respected he was as a States Member, although he would have been the first to admit that his heart was always in the Parish of St Saviour. Although he was in the event not well enough to attend my swearing-in at the Royal Court, we visited him at his Highstead home afterwards and found him frail and tired but alert and interested in all that was going on in the Parish and in the States. His will be big shoes to step into: his 59 years of service to his Parish are unlikely to be bettered and his depth of knowledge about his home parish will be sorely missed. He was a kind and caring man who certainly did not suffer fools gladly and his death is a loss not just to his family but to his larger parish family.
The brave St Saviour flag that always flew from the Highstead flagpole is at half mast and we are saddened by Philip's passing, but his gift to us is the safe and soundly-run Parish in which we can take such pride.

Youth turn out for air and sea

This weekend we have seen and been involved in a series of events which have helped to show us that while out-of-control teenagers hit the headlines, we have in the Island large numbers of young people who are actively involved in making the most of their life in Jersey. After a good day out at the Footie Fun Fest yesterday, we thoroughly enjoyed the atmosphere of enthusiasm that surrounded the beginning of the annual sea cadets' gun-pull, when a 21-ft replica field gun is pulled along most of 40 miles of Jersey roads. This year cadets of the Jersey Sea Cadet Island Charity Gun Pull chose Parkinson's Jersey to be the recipients of their fund-raising. The young men and women listened intently as Eileen Smith of Parkinson's Jersey explained a little about this distressing condition and the help and support the group supply to sufferers and their carers, before our Lieutenant-Governor, Lieut-General Andrew Ridgway sent them on their way, led by the indefatigable Swasie Turner, a former police office and now proud honorary member of the Royal Marines who has made fund-raising his life.
A short while later, we were at St Luke's Church where we attended a service of thanksgiving and re-dedication marking the 67th anniversary of the Battle of Britain. The cadets of the Air Training Corps Victoria Collage Combined Cadet Force and 7 (Overseas) Squadron, Air Training Corps, were a credit to their officers as they presented the flag for re-dedication and formed an honour guard from the church to the War Cemetery where the official party laid wreaths.

A Fun Footie Day Out

A bright, sun-shiny day, easy parking and loads for families to do...that was the St Paul's Football Club and Jersey Focus on Mental Health Fun Day Out held on the field today. It was a great success and there was plenty to amuse all ages and interests and nothing was too expensive for pocket-money spenders. Seeing so many young people enthusiastically joining in the football just shows how right Standard Chartered were to choose the club as winners of their Community Award for Services to Football. A big thank you goes to everyone who was involved for all the hard work they put into making the day such a success.

Building on firm foundations

Over the last six weeks or so, I have been pleased to see that there is a real sense of community centred in our Parish, but I would like to see the Parish Hall really take its place at its heart. So, I am looking for imaginative ideas for ways we can encourage people to step forward and join in and really get the place humming with life.
I'd have some ideas already, but I would like to hear what you see as good ways to build on our community spirit.

Congratulations to the team...

Well done, St Saviour! Winner of the Best Set Design-Floral in the Battle of Flowers today. Work finished around 2.30am this morning with the final work of putting on the top of the cathedral and the bells to be done when the float arrived on site.
It was a huge effort for all those involved and we are lost in admiration for the work put in by the St Saviour Battle of Flowers Association who have been working on the float and fund-raising all year.
This is a wonderful community effort with parishioners from little ones of four and five to teenagers as well as older ones ... the oldest in her eighties!
If you didn't take part this year, then we thoroughly recommend joining in next year. We took part as lowly flower decapitators and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves, met up with old friends and made new ones.

Flower power

The flower heads are beginning to cover the Parish float and the St Saviour Junior entry as the pace hots up. If you have time to help, do come and do so; if you don't, at least pop by and see what your Parish is doing and encourage the workers. There is such a happy atmosphere and the hard work is relieved by rgular breaks for tea and coffee, and the early evening barbecue to feed the hungry. The music that's been chosen is perfect for the theme built around the Cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris and there was many a helper muttering "The bells! The bells" as they cut and stuck flower heads.

The flowers arrive...

It was organised chaos at the Parish Depot last night with the arrival of fresh flowers in gorgeous profusion. All hands were needed and there was a wonderful turnout...the best ever, according to Anne Quenault. I counted more than 80 people at one point. Outstanding were the young people, from teenagers to little ones of only five or thereabouts. They ran and fetched and carried and gofor-ed and were a real help to the grown-ups. It was a wonderful scene of adults and children working together to reach a target. The result was that we were finished by 8 pm with all the flowers stripped of their stem leaves, ends clipped, and stored in buckets of water to finish opening over the weekend.
Flower-head cutting and sticking begins on Monday, 6th August at 10 am, working through to the evening. Be there. You'll work hard and enjoy yourself.