EVENTS AT AND AROUND ALL SAINTS
Finally with, hopefully, the worst of the COVID pandemic behind us, we are almost back to a normal programme of events at All Saints' church. Wec started with the Five Church Walk which this year was "clockwise" and took place on the May 1st Bank Holiday. About 800 walkers turned out on a fine day and consumed a huge amount of food provided for the occasion by the parish's ladies. Next year's walk will be on May 6th and will be anti-clockwise. Full details on the Walk's own website here. Following this we had the annual pilgrimage from Trafalgar Square to Canterbury by The Connection at St Martin-in-the-Fields. As usual it took place on the Bank Holiday at the end of May and 100+ walkers arrived mid-morning fill up on sandwiches and warm themselves by the fire in the Tudor porch before heading off to Chilham and Chartham for tea and cakes. As always it was great fun, but involved a lot of sandwich making! If you would you like to help with this in the future, or any other planned event please phone 627117 for info and a warm welcome.
Then we had the Stour Music Festival with some stunning performances of early music enhanced by a brand new sound system to facilitate the spoken word and improve contact between audience and performers.
And finally in July we had a rousing - and free - performance by the Kent Police Band (see flier below).
But not everything takes place at All Saints. On June 18th and 25th we repeated our open-air Sunday services in the beautiful and tranquil setting of St Mary's church, now a ruin, by the lake in Eastwell Park. What a magical setting! And before we finally return to St Christopher's church on the Green we'll be celebrating Harvest Festival at All Saints on 24th September, followed by a Harvest Lunch. Our regular Sunday services in both churches start at 09.30, except when there's a fifth Sunday in the month when all eight benefice churches meet in one building - we take turns - for a shared service, as we did at All Saints on 30th July.
