The regular cleaning team provides a valuable service to all our church users, keeping the place neat and tidy, helping to reunite owners with items left behind! ... and spotting things that may need a bit of maintenance or repair.

Flowers enhance our church, bringing in nature’s colour and beauty to complement the more austere medieval backdrop. Our flowers team provides and displays their arrangements for our regular services and for many of the other special events throughout the year.

We also aim to decorate our church for special services in ways that help to mark the significance and meaning of these events.

How you can help

It’s a great blessing to have new members volunteering for our regular cleaning team. Men and women, old and young are welcome and welcomed! The work usually takes no more than an hour or so per week - in a way that fits in with your own schedule. No previous experience required!

If you have an artistic or creative flair, the flowers & decoration team would love to hear from you. And if you’re not too sure of your skills, there’s lots of support and opportunities to learn from experienced arrangers. Even if you can’t get involved yourself, perhaps you have ideas on ways to enhance the church for particular services and events—do let us know.

The maintenance & repair team have a long list of routine inspection and maintenance tasks. Some of these need to be sub-contracted (like testing the lightning conductors!) but many are done competently by volunteers giving their time and expertise.  Small repairs are tackled as needed to avoid big repairs later! 

Bigger projects (such as the Chancel roof repair and the Renewal Project) must be done under the supervision of an architect. But there’s a huge role for our Large projects’ team in helping to draw up specifications, apply for permissions and liaise with contractors, grant providers etc.

Some members of the community generously support the maintenance of the church through the Friends of St Mary’s by making regular donations and fundraising.

How you can help

From changing light bulbs to clearing drains all tasks need attention. In some areas experience might be necessary and safety is a top priority for the maintenance & repair team. Training is given where required and sometimes it is possible to involve youngsters and give them some practical lessons in serving our Lord.

Our maintenance & deep cleaning days take place regularly, when we all get together to do a number of tasks - with refreshments and lunch provided. It’s a great opportunity to get involved and meet other members of the team.

As well as volunteers to carry out maintenance and repair work, we need people with some technical background in building maintenance to help carry out inspections, specify tasks and know when to call in the experts!

Do you have experience in working with end-users to identify needs and find solutions, or making grant or planning applications, or managing finances for large budgets? If any of these skills is your forte, you could make a huge contribution to our large projects team, as can people with creative skills and an ability to see the bigger picture! Our next large project is the imminent renewal of the Church interior and we are now establishing a team for this £600,000 project.

We need members of the church family to take on a leadership role for the Friends of St Mary’s.