This was a big day for our parish. We celebrated Fr David’s Silver Jubilee and the Feast of St James with Mass at 11.00am attended by Bishop Pat Lynch. The church was packed for the magnificent Mass at which Fr David presented the Parish with a Papal Blessing. The bishop presented several servers with their Bronze Medal, which is awarded after a year of altar serving. Mass was followed by our annual Parish Fun Run and Garden Party. Everyone joined in the celebrations by participating in the run or taking a more relaxed approach in the garden. By early afternoon the parish garden was packed with parishioners and guests, including members of Fr David's family and old friends, The weather was wonderful as was the food, music, decorations, and lively atmosphere.
The garden party featured a beautiful cake made by Hilary Teare as well as a vast array of cupcakes donated by parishioners. People enjoyed a barbecue, beer tent and face painting for the children. Music was supplied by Terry Connolly as usual, but supplemented by live music from our own “Iron Mountain”. Many many people contributed to the success of the afternoon which was co-ordinated by the Friends of St James. The event raised £420 for the maintenance fund.
More than 170 parishioners took part in the run and there were more spectators than usual cheering them on. The weather was very warm, sunny and dry and about 150 bottles of water were consumed.
It was extremely difficult to record the times and positions this year, especially with some people doing one lap and others two laps but most have been recorded and can be seen in the results link above.
Fr David was grateful to those who sponsored him and for completing the course!
Due to maintenance work being carried out on the railway footbridges, the course this year consisted of two laps of Jubilee Park (instead of the usual Tong’s Farm route) with the option to do either one or two of the laps. Most entrants chose to do the two laps despite the hot weather. The two lap course was 4.8 km - or nearly 3 miles!
No prizes were given out this year but we did try to keep track of times and those we took are included on the website.
After costs the Fun Run raised just over £700 in entrance fees and sponsorship which will go to the St James' maintenance fund.
The Fun Run organizing team (Chris Delf, Michelle Norman-Brown and Peter Benson) would like to thank all those who helped put on this event especially: