The Friends were very sorry to hear of the death of The Reverend John Paul, whom some of you will know was until recently Rector of St James Garlickhythe and St Andrew by the Wardrobe. He was elected a member of the Friends of the City Churches’ Committee of Honour and always took a close interest in our affairs. At his moving funeral service, the preacher was the Bishop of London, appropriately a St Andrew’s parishioner, who described John Paul as ‘a partner in the revival of confidence in the City Churches’.

One of the ways we help City churches is to invite members who renew their subscriptions to the Friends (only £15 p.a.!) to include an extra donation for our ‘project of the year’. The first year that we tried this, the recipient was St Bartholomew the Less. Their PCC had long wanted to refurbish the central chandelier in the church, which had become very dirty and probably electrically unsafe. During our subscription year 2001/2002, over £3,500 was donated by our 800 or so members and the church is now going ahead with the work. Furthermore, they have put some of their own funds into the project to allow them to take advantage of the economies of scale and all the other chandeliers will be refurbished at the same time! This subscription year the project chosen is to help restore the clock outside St Mary at Hill.

Web: www.london-city-churches.org.uk