Really lovely evening. Everybody joining in with singing and Brian’s humour creating laughs. He sang a tribute to Mavis, who loved these evenings and ended the event with Christmas carols and festive songs. A total of £195 was made for church funds.
 Mavis Coggins 1922 - 2019 It is with deep regret that we record the passing of our longest serving member, Mrs Mavis Coggins.
She was born Mavis Webb at Kingsbury in August 1922 and had one twin brother Maurice. When she was 21 she married Jack Coggins ,a miner ,at Kingsbury Methodist Church in August 1943. Jack had to get his Father’s permission to marry as he was not 21 until the September. They lived with Jack’s family in Dosthill for their first year together and in 1944 moved to Station Road Whitacre. Using their tandem they continued to attend Kingsbury Methodist Church until the birth of their children Valerie and then Vincent. Finally they crossed over the road to worship here. The minister at that time was Rev.Hodges and the organist Harry Hill. There were over twenty members and Mr & Mrs Dryden ran a flourishing afternoon Sunday school, supported by Mr.Shaw. Every year there were anniversary celebrations when the children sang and were presented with attendance certificates. Annual outings were organised. The other main activity at the chapel was the Women’s Social Hour, which Mavis joined of course. She became a dinner lady at Nether Whitacre school and when her children were bigger, went to work at Woolworths in Birmingham. She cycled to Nether Whitacre station and when it closed used Water Orton until 1982 when she retired. That gave her a year with Jack because he died in 1983. She has worked tirelessly for our chapel in many capacities and told me she particularly relished the many friendships she had made and the hymn singing at services. One of her favourite hymns was "O Jesus I have promised to serve Thee to the end." This she most certainly did! We shall miss her so much. Lovely evening being treated to a traditional Romanian Christmas meal by the group who use our church on a Friday evening to celebrate in their own language Romanian style. Our main course of food was sarmale (a cabbage wrapped meal ball) with a mămăliga (polenta) and goat cheese side. This was topped with cişcă (a hot pepper) which many found rather hot indeed! Second course was cotonac (a fruity nut and turkish delight bread) and turtă dulce (ginger bread biscuits) all washed down with fruit and tea to finish. We all experienced a lovely sociable evening talking and finding out about each others traditions and life experiences. We thank our hosts for a really memorable evening. A good turn out again for our monthly coffee morning where we met to support the charity ‘Different Strokes’ - a charity who aim to inform and support younger victims of this unfortunate and life changing disease. Lots of chatter as I’m sure quite a few of our attendees were already starting to share their Christmas plans!
We raised the healthy sum of £120 to send to ‘Different Strokes’ and many thanks to Dave and Manny who hosted our event and provided us with some lovely home made cakes! Twenty two shoeboxes were taken to the midland collection point for the charity "Link to Hope" These were checked over and along with a further extra £30 in donations will ensure that the boxes make their way to Bulgaria, Moldova, Romania and Ukraine.  The annual Macmillan Coffee Morning which took place at the chapel at the end of October was brilliantly supported by our local and chapel communities; we boasted a full house with additional tables needing to be set up at the back of the chapel and attendees were more than happy to have a go at our raffle and Macmillan games. Homemade cakes were generously brought in and a full team of washer-uppers were engaged almost non-stop in our newly refurbished kitchen! With additional donations from "The Gate" pub we raised the magnificent sum of £525 which has now been forwarded to this great cause.
Many thanks to all who attended and supported in any way to make this extra coffee morning a real success. A busy coffee morning once again this month as we met together to raise money for the Dogs’ Trust - our generous coffee drinkers raised £120 which will be sent away to support the re-homing and care of our four legged friends.
Two services on the Sunday celebrated our Harvest Festival. Food donated will make it way to a food bank. Monday evening our quiz master Vince delivered his much anticipated questions after the Harvest meal ably served by our The Coggins and Waggs crew. Our thanks goes to all who were involved to make another memorable year celebrating Gods harvest gifts. Playing once again to a near full church Switched on Swing entertained with a range of songs from Uptown Funk to some Beatles songs. Interval tea and cakes were enjoyed with the chocolate being demolished. Many helped washing up afterwards including our young reporter. Ours thanks to the band for supporting the Methodist Chapel once again raising £272 in total.
Our family service lead by Peter Tonks featured the parable of the men who built their houses on sand and rock. A number of young people were involved in a short play and some experiments and we were delighted once again by the music played by Peter as well as joining in with the hymns with our own instruments. |
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