As usual December was a hectic month in the world of SPRED Galloway (hence the wee bit of a delay in this newsletter). It began right at the beginning of the month with an Advent Diocesan SPRED Mass and Christmas Party on Sunday 1st, continued with an Advent Service on Thursday 5th and finished with our Carol Singing on Wednesday 18th. You will find plenty of photos from these events on our Gallery page.
ADVENT DIOCESAN MASS
We joined with the Parish of Our Lady and St Meddan’s at their usual 10 am Mass. Can I thank them for their warm welcome. Members from all our Groups were present and the celebration was led by Fr Laurent.
SPRED members were involved in the liturgy in a variety of ways.
Young John a friend of SPRED lit the first Candle of the Advent Wreath. During the Liturgy of the Word, as well as reading the Psalm we lead the congregation in appropriate gestures to the response. A large number of SPRED members were involved in the Procession of Gifts. We also joined in with gestures to the final hymn, Shine Jesus Shine, which is one of our favourite hymns to sing.
CHRISTMAS PARTY
After Mass we all headed into the Church Hall and again joined in with the local parishioners for Tea/Coffee etc. The atmosphere was joyful, and the hall was a hive of activity. A big thank you to the hall committee who had worked hard to prepare the hall and provide sandwiches and sausage rolls. Crackers both small and large provided party hats to be worn and jokes to be told.
As the parishioners departed, our Christmas party got into full swing.
Scott our resident DJ and friend member of our Ayr Monday evening group provided some festive and other music to dance to. A local Troon community Choir named Marr Cappella led us in a number of Carols and Christmas songs. They kindly provided a sheet with the words and encouraged everyone to sing along. In a touching moment they also joined us in singing our anthem Companions on the Journey. As the music subsided hooves could be heard and Santa burst into the hall giving out presents and Christmas good cheer. The event finished with the usual large circle Shalom before we all headed home tired but full of joy.
ADVENT SERVICE
We again held our recently established annual Advent Service for the second time, which is open to all group members to attend. This appears to be a popular event as it is well attended.
CAROL SINGING
Again, Scott was heavily involved in this event, this time in his capacity as Friends Representative on our Board of Trustees. He made the booking with South Ayrshire council and secured us a 3-hour slot from 11 am to 2 pm in the Ayr Central Shopping Arcade/Centre. We had no less the 3 Choirs who entertained the local shoppers.
Proceedings kicked off with a bang! The St John’s Primary school choir made up of pupils from P5, 6 and 7, gave an energetic performance of both Carols and Christmas songs. A particular favourite was Sparkle and Shine from the film Nativity. A very big thank you to the pupils themselves but particularly to their leader Miss McKeown who really got into the swing of things.
We then had a Queen Margaret Academy Choir made up of S6 Caritas Pupils who then performed another mixture of Songs and Carols. Mrs McIntosh of the Religious Education Department came along with them and could not resist joining in.
The rest of the time was taken up by members of SPRED from various Groups making up a SPRED Choir. We sang a number of traditional Carols including the Little Drummer Boy. There was time at the end for a rendition of Michael Bubble’s “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas” and “I want a Hippopotamus for Christmas”. There were also a few members who held the buckets in order to ensure that we raised the healthy sum of £244 for SPRED Funds. A special thanks to Liz Petrie and Billy Hendren for their enthusiastic shaking of buckets and engaging people in explaining what SPRED is and the work that it does.
SPRED GALLOWAY 