Narnia Experience; Dean Cassidy Memorial Organ Recital; Duneane Church re–dedicated after major work; Duneane Church re–dedicated after major work; Volunteer at Corrymeela; Nativity plays not at risk, says Department of Education spokeswoman
Narnia Experience
The Heyn Hall of St Mark’s, Dubdela, Belfast will become the magical land of Narnia for a day.
You are invited to journey with Peter, Susan, Edmund and Lucy to the Stone Table and meet Mr Tumnus, Aslan and even The White Witch! The event is one of a series organised around the 50th anniversary of CS Lewis’ death. The Parish of St Mark’s Dundela, along with others across Belfast and Northern Ireland are coming together to mark the life of our famous son and to celebrate his contribution to the world of faith.
Saturday 16 November from 10 00 am – 4.00 pm in the Heyn Hall. Guided groups at 10.30 am, 12.30 pm and 2.30 pm.
Dean Cassidy Memorial Organ Recital
Joshua Stephens will give the second of the Dean Herbert Cassidy Memorial Organ Recitals on Sunday 27 October 2013 at 4.15pm in St Patrick’s Church of Ireland Cathedral, Armagh.
Acknowledged as one of Britain’s ‘most brilliant and exciting young musicians’, Joshua Stephens is the recipient of many awards and prizes, including the 2012 Royal Northern College of Music Organ Recital Prize, the 2012 May Dale Young Organ Recitalist Award, and was a finalist in the 2012 Northern Ireland International Organ Competition in Armagh.
Joshua began his musical career as a treble chorister in Sheffield Cathedral Choir, under the direction of Neil Taylor, who was later to become his first tutor for the organ. As a member of the choir, he participated in numerous engagements outside the daily liturgical routine of the Cathedral, including performances with the Halle Orchestra, BBC broadcasts, CD recordings, and several tours to Paris, the Netherlands and the USA.
As an accompanist, continuo player, and conductor, Joshua has worked with a number of choirs, ensembles, and orchestras. Liturgically, he has held posts at Doncaster Minster, Manchester Universities’ Catholic Chaplaincy, and is currently organist at St Wilfrid’s Church, Northenden. Additionally, Joshua was also assistant musical director to the Manchester Universities’ Gilbert & Sullivan Society for the 2012-13 academic year.
As a solo recitalist, Joshua has had recent performances at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Bradford Cathedral, and Leeds Town Hall (Leeds International Concert Series). He has also made solo appearances in recent Royal Northern College of Music keyboard festivals, performing works by Calvin Hampton and Per Nørgård. Joshua has worked with a number of musicians including Elizabeth Watts, Trevor Pinnock, and Thierry Escaich. He has also worked with actress Maxine Peake in the 2013 Manchester International Festival’s The Masque of Anarchy. He has participated in masterclasses by Thomas Trotter, Colin Walsh, Jacques Van Oortmerssen, and Olivier Latry.
Joshua is currently in his fourth and final year of studies at The Royal Northern College of Music, Manchester as a principal study organist, studying with Darius Battiwalla.
Joshua’s programme in Armagh will include works by Charles-Marie Widor, Cesar Franck and Percy Whitlock.
While admission is free, there will be a retiring collection to the recital, which will last approximately forty-five minutes.
The Dean of Armagh, the Very Revd Gregory Dunstan, said, ‘We are most grateful to Joshua for fitting in a return to Armagh among his many commitments, and are delighted to welcome him back to the Cathedral. As his career continues to develop, we will be glad to remember that he played for us here.’
Duneane Church re–dedicated after major work
A Service of Re–dedication was held in Duneane Parish Church, near Toomebridge in Connor diocese, to mark the completion of an eight month refurbishment of the historic church.
Project manager Stanley Love said that 55 people had worked on the project along with him and his team of Stephen Kerr and Eddie Hampton.
The final net cost for the completed project was £187,000. “The majority of spend on the project has been to improve the fabric of the structure, and therefore prolong its useful life, with the balance expended on decoration and aesthetics.
“Design for the proposed improvements was undertaken in–house with actual work carried out on a self–build basis that negated the need to appoint a main contractor. This not only provided for better control and management of the proposed work but also contributed to significant savings in the overall cost of the project.”
The church was completely re–plastering internally and externally, the vestry extended to include a new boiler house. A new disabled toilet was built, new central heating system installed, the church was completely rewired, the vestry and porch re–roofed, new flooring was put in under pews and communion table, the sandstone aisle was refurbished, the porch floor retiled, and new doors, frames and hardware were installed.
In addition existing timbers were treated for woodworm, new lights were installed and repairs carried out to stained glass windows. Walls, doors and furniture were repainted, and other improvements included new cupboards, carpeting, a new PA System, new drainage systems and widening of the avenue to the church.
Stanley said: “Work has been carried out by skilled craftsmen/tradesmen to the highest possible standards and each and every one of them is to be commended for their workmanship and quality of work produced. Their collective efforts will undoubtedly preserve the church for many more years to come.
“The rector and select vestry were extremely supportive of our efforts right from the outset through to completion of the work. Consequently work was always allowed to progress without interference and interruption.”
Stanley added that he was ‘proud and privileged’ to have been involved with the restoration of what he described as this ‘picture postcard’ church.
Volunteer at Corrymeela
Corrymeela welcomes applications for Mid-Term Volunteering on a rolling basis.
“We are currently recruiting for January-March 2014 and applications are still being considered. Due to visa processing times, we can no longer accept applicants from outside the EU. Applications for this timeframe from within the EU may be considered after this date if there are still places available. If you wish to be considered for April-June 2014, the deadline for applications is Friday 10 January 2014 and interviews will be conducted the week commencing Monday 13 January.
“If you wish to be considered for a different timeframe (July-September 2014, October-December 2014 or later) you are also welcome to apply. Final deadlines and interview dates will be confirmed later in the year.”
Please email volunteering@corrymeela.org for more information. Completed application should be emailed to Aileen O’Reilly on volunteering@corrymeela.org. Alternatively applications may be posted to: The Corrymeela Community, 5 Drumaroan Rd, Ballycastle, BT54 6QU, Northern Ireland.
Nativity plays not at risk, says Department of Education spokeswoman
Claims that Minister for Education Ruairí Quinn was putting the nativity play at risk in schools have been dismissed by a spokeswoman for the department, who said “there has been no suggestion that the nativity play is to go”.
Irish Times – She also rejected suggestions that cuts in education were aimed at driving the churches out of schools. There had been no cut in the pupil-teacher ratio in last week’s budget and no cuts involving non-fee paying schools this year or for the past three years, she noted. A consultation process with parents was ongoing, she said, and did not wish to comment further lest it prejudice the outcome.
During an education debate at the Church of Ireland Dublin and Glendalough diocesan synods last week, it was suggested that the Minister’s policies were putting the Christmas nativity play under threat.
“The current Minister of Education has been very clear about his agenda to make schools more secular,” delegate Joyce Purdue told the synods in Dublin’s Dundrum. Seconding a Board of Education report, she said the Minister wanted “schools to ‘respect the right to opt out of religion class’”.
Ethics programme
He “has asked for a new ethics programme to be developed and introduced. He wants schools to have written policies on religious and cultural celebrations as well as policies on how school assemblies and communal prayers should be conducted. Are we now seeing the beginning of the end of the Christmas nativity play so loved in schools?”, she asked.
Referring to a leaflet circulated to parents recently by the Department of Education on inclusivity in schools, she said that, reading it, “you would think that there is little inclusivity in Irish education”. But “Protestant schools are now, and have always been, inclusive. They have always enrolled children of different faiths and none. Before the advent of the Educate Together sector, Protestant schools did just that, they ‘educated together’”. Secular agenda
She said there was a risk that secularising schools would have a “detrimental effect on parish communities” and that “in pursuing his own secular agenda the Minister is at risk of throwing the baby out with the bathwater and dismantling a system that has placed the school at the core of the parish community.”
Malahide rector Rev Norman Gamble described spending cuts in education as “part of a campaign to remove the churches from the education system and push us to the fringe.
“Yet 80 per cent to 90 per cent of people in our own country identify with a Christian denomination of some sort”.