Newsletter – Week Ending 9 July

Liz Grigg

With great sadness, we received the news that Liz Grigg has passed away earlier this week.

Liz began teaching at St Mary’s Early Childhood Education Centre in September 1999. She was a valued member of the teaching team until March 2023, when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour. Liz was a passionate teacher who loved the children and their families and was always willing to upgrade her training, ensuring the children were getting the best teaching possible. Liz has cared for and educated many children and have gotten to know many of their families well.

The Centre will be closed on Wednesday 12th July in order for teachers and staff to attend her funeral.

NEARLY THERE 

It’s been a big week for Te Korōria. The offices have moved into the bottom floor of Te Korōria and the Vicarage has been transformed into a residence (wow it needed a good clean!).  Thank you so much to people who gave up their Saturday and put in a full days work to make the transformation happen!   You are greatly appreciated. We have a lot of boxes still to unpack, but we will get there!

Our tenants have moved in over the weekend and I am sure they appreciate the clean and tidy rooms that they are in.

We had a council inspection for our Certificate of Public Use (CPU) on Tuesday and we were given a couple of minor items to resolve and we have been busy putting them right. The inspectors will return to check on Monday at which point we hope to have our CPU approved.   We are working towards having the café and softplay room operating by the end of next week.  Until then, please continue to refrain from coming on site, and temporarily use alternative meeting spaces.

As you may have noticed. our new digital sign is up and running! We will use it to promote events and programmes on the site of Karori Anglican Churches. We have already noticed it its effectiveness, with enquiries coming in for SMASH.

There is lots of community interest in what we are doing, so please keep spreading the word that we will be operating really soon and encourage people to follow Te Korōria on facebook and Instagram to stay up to date with the latest news.

ROOMS FOR RENT

We are still looking for tenants for the remaining two rooms in The Vicarage. If you know of anyone looking for a room, please refer them to our listing on the Roomies Website. You can click here to access it. Or send them this link : https://www.roomies.co.nz/rooms/397402

CASUAL STAFF AT TE KORŌRIA

Are you a young person looking for some casual hospitality work?  Dana (Te Korōria Manager) is recruiting a pool of casual staff who she can call on to work in the Café/soft play.  You need to be able to learn quickly, use initiative, and make people very welcome.   If you are interested please send your CV to dana@tekororia.org.nz.  If you have no experience, that is not a barrier, but you may need to do a few unpaid hours as a training.

Transitioning to Parish Giving

We are very grateful for all the donations towards Te Korōria and the property fund.  Going forward, money that is being donated regularly to Te Korōria will become part of our general giving donations, unless we hear from you that you specifically want this funding ringfenced towards Te Korōria. This enables Vestry and Finance committee to plan and manage our finances as effectively as possible, balancing our financial obligations (including the loan we have for completing Te Korōria) and our ministry needs (including salaries for Youth worker, Treasurer etc ) as we seek to increase the way we serve and strengthen our local community.

If you have increased your donations over the short term to contribute to Te Korōria, we ask you to prayerfully consider keeping up this level of overall giving to Karori Anglican to enable the ministries we believe God has called us all into to continue.

There will be no youth group over the holidays instead there will be a youth-led service this Sunday.

40 Hour Famine

Congratulations to all those who participated in the 40 hour famine to raise foods for World VIsion. A total of $2513 was raised. Well done everybody.

The Vicarage 

With our move to Te Korōria, The Vicarage will become tenanted accommodation. In effect, it will be a private residence and should be treated as such.
If you are holding a key to The Vicarage, please return it to Andrew at the office or drop it into the letter box in the church foyer.

The roster for July and August is ready

Sabbatical Leave

Please note that our Vicar, Rev Ian Cook will be away on sabbatical from Monday, 19th June for three months.  Sabbatical leave is an important time to reflect, learn and be renewed for priests.  Ian is visiting Australia and Europe during this period and will be taking part in learning communities, retreats and visiting various parishes in the United Kingdom.  In Ian’s absence, we have a number of people temporarily taking on particular roles. If in doubt about who to talk to about anything, please contact the office in the first instance.

SMASH