Involving the community at St Mary’s, Snettisham

Author: Marian Abramovich

Published on: 25 June 2017

I am chair of The Friends of St Mary’s and also Churchwarden and this year we have a very exciting programme of events to raise funds for the church.

In 2016 the church had £100,000 worth of repairs done to the roof but sadly in January we were the target of lead theft and so in the last two weeks we have had to have a further £11,000 of work done. A sad reflection on society.

In May we welcomed the girl choristers and men of Norwich Cathedral Choir which was a very important fund raiser.

In April we had a lunch time recital where a very accomplished tenor performed Vaughan Williams and Cole Porter in his programme. Lawrence Thackeray is currently singing with Bergen Opera and went to New York in May to sing solo at St Patrick’s Cathedral in that city so we feel privileged that he came to Snettisham. Our lunch time recitals were free and included a simple lunch (we had a collection plate in case anyone wanted to contribute). This was a good opportunity to outreach into the village and surrounding areas and show them how welcoming and amazing our place of worship is.

Two years ago we started a village cinema and last year were awarded £5000 worth of state of the art film equipment by the British Film Institute. Previously we held the screenings in the church hall but on April 24 we relocated to the larger Memorial Hall in the village which also has better parking.

In these times when village country churches appear to be dwindling in congregations it is good that sometimes we manage to fill the church for a more social event and hopefully on those occasions we also attract other people into our regular worship. It does happen! At Christmas it was standing room only.


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Marian Abramovich

Chair: The Friends of St Mary’s

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