ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, MARTON.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 810, 6 May 1910, Page 6

ST. STEPHEN'S CHURCH, MARTON.

The annual parish meeting was hold in the schoolroom, at St. Stephen's, Marton, on May 3. The vicar was in the chair, and there was a good attendance, •the balance-sheet was adopted. Ihis showed that owing to the heavy special expenditure incurred during the year for additions and repairs td the church (including a new vestry for the ladies' choir, organ screen, choir stalls), and repairs on the vicarage, there was an actual deficit on the vestry account of JEI6 15s. with liabilities of £B is. (against ■which there was an asset of .£8 25.), which would have been considerably more but for the Diocesan Standing Committee consenting to a transfer to the vestry account of the amount collected for stipend during the period the district was without a vicar. The general offertories showed an increase of .£l3 9s. Id., and 6peciol offertories a, decrease of <£10 2s. 2d. The report congratulated r the members of the guild on the success of the bulb i ehow,- which resulted in a reduction in the organ fund liability of '£!0 is. lOd., which left some .£2OO etill to be raised.

Tiio vicar spoke of the momentous ;change that had taken place in the parish during the past year by the resignation of the late vicar (the Ven. Archdeacon Towgood), who, since 1870, had watched over the spiritual interests of the parish. He thanked Miss Mabel Wilde for the gift of a red silk Chalice Veil and Btrrse, and a complete set of altar linen; Miss Mary and Miss Margaret Wilde, of Tunbridge Wells, and Miss Barbara Wilde, Hiss Grace Lane, and Miss Margaret Cox, of Morton, for thn gift of two hymn boards, with figures complete. He congratulated the parish upon the beautiful organ, built for the parish during the past year by Norman and Beard, of London. It had given great satisfaction. Hβ expressed the thanks of the parish to all office-holders; to the Eev. W. E. Drinkwater, ILA., chaplain at Huntly, who kindly took the services until the arrival of the now vicar j to the Rev. E. I. Sola, JUt.C.O., Vicar of Bulls, who kindly opened the new organ; and also to Mr. W. J. Birch, who had kindly undertaken ihe laying out of the church grounds. The following appointments were then made:—Vicar's church warden, Mr. A. J. Alloway; people's churchwarden, Mr. E. J. Wilde; auditor, Mr. A. J. B. Sicely; vestry, Messrs. G. Barnett, B. E. Beckett, W. J. Birch, A. W. Fuilerton-Smith, T. Funston, J. W. Warwick, and E. Young. A committee, consisting of Messrs. W J. Birch, G. Signal, J. H. Miles, T. ArmStrong, and P. C. Wilson, was appointed' to continue the movement, already begun by Mr. A. J. Alloway, who had circulated a subscription list, for the erection of a chapel at Mount View, which should be a permanent memorial of the life and work in the parish of the late vicar There was, up to the present, £55 in hand. The vicar stated- that the Marten Extension Company wero most kindly giving a good quarter-acre section to the Church at The Junction, for which he sincerely thanked them, and, in the course of a year or two, a building should be erected tor the needs of that steadily-growing part of ttic parisn. St. Stephen's Church end school required painting at the cost of .£IOO or.more. There was ,£2OD still due on the organ. Mechanical apparatus for blowing, which wonld probably cost £1(10 inoro, and there was what all would like to see, some fitting memorial of the archdeacon's work to be provided. The accomplishment of this would need cooperation and perseverance. But he did not doubt that they would be enabled to meet the necessary demands of a growing parish.