Norwich, UK
Scenes of teddy bears parachuting down from church towers and experiments with paper planes to see how far they can fly when thrown from a high point are just some of the ways churches are enlivening local community life in the UK as they look to increasingly innovative ways of fundraising.
St Mary’s Church in the Cotswold village of Bloxham. PICTURE: Courtesy of Sir Tony Baldry.
Catching the attention of the wider community is key to fundraising efforts and news of a church holding an Easter ‘Wash Away Your Sin With Gin’ did just that recently.
“This evening is going to be just the tonic for anyone who is abstaining through Lent,” said Sir Tony Baldry, a former MP and a committee member of St Mary’s Church, Bloxham, in the Cotsworlds in south-central England where the event was held.
“We felt that gin was a good idea, as there is a lot of interest in artisanal gin,” he said in an interview before the event was held on 22nd April. “We contacted the Cotswold artisanal gin company to organise a tutored gin tasting session in the church. We are hoping to sell about 100 tickets at £15 each. It will be a nice way to bring Lent to a close. The Church of England has long held events like cheese and wine parties so having an alcohol event in the church hasn’t aroused any criticism. There has been no adverse criticism – I think people recognise that talking of a ‘Wash Away your Sin with Gin’ is a way of promoting it tongue in cheek! Our priest has a sense of humour. ”
Apart from gin tasting and a briefing on how gin is made, the evening included a look at the humorous history of Gin and Sin from its origins among the working classes in Georgian London via gin palaces, the Royal Navy, gentlemen’s clubs and the lively cocktail parties of the ‘bright young things’, especially in Prohibition America.
All monies raised went to St Mary’s Church’s ‘Building Our Future’ campaign.
We rely on our readers to fund Sight's work - become a financial supporter today!
For more information, head to our Subscriber's page.
“We are seeking to reorganise the church so that it could work for the community and congregational groups for greater periods of time, not just a few hours on a Sunday,” Baldry told Sight.
“We want to make space for social prescribing since it is next to the GP surgery, and enable it to be used by other faith and community groups. We need half a million pounds to replace the heating system, put in a kitchen and reorganise the interior of the church, and we are still £150,000 short. We have raised money via grants, but we need to pay our share of the cost and this means organising lots of events.”
Over the years, UK church fundraising committees have become increasingly inventive. In 2016, Church Times highlighted a variety of fundraising ideas which had been the focus of a competition held by Ecclesiastical Insurance. It include a mouse hunt involving images of mice, a sponsored cyclothon (promoted as ‘Go Cycle, get plastered’), and a chocolate mint race in which a thin piece of chocolate started on a person’s forehead and had to be moved, without touching, down to their mouth.
Topping the list was worm charming at St Elizabeth of Hungary Church in Liverpool. It involved a village green being marked out in sections, and teams paying for a plot. On the chosen day, the teams gathered on the green in their appropriate plots and competed to be the champion worm charmer. Some simply jumped up and down to make the ground vibrate and bring the worms to the surface, others opting for the traditional method of sticking a fork in the ground and banging it. As the worms surfaced, they were collected up and placed in jars to be counted. A local wildlife officer was on hand to check on worm welfare and all worms were returned safely to soil after the competition had ended.
