Vacation Bible School: Beach Be-Attitudes!

Once again Vacation Bible School will take place for a week in the evenings. July 28-August 1 from 6:00 – to 8:15. The theme this year will be Beach Be – Attitudes. Ann Avallone, Kathy Dick and Kathy Vera are busy planning a great week of crafts, games, music and Bible lessons. More help is needed in set up, decorating and other things that may only require an hour or two and would help us make our VBS grow into something bigger and more fun!

Yea God! Church School

I’m looking over the calendar for this month and we have a lot of things going on!

May 4th is the annual meeting @ 9:00. While the adults are in the Parish Hall, we will be planting some of our Easter bulbs in the memorial garden and around the church. We’ll have regular church school afterwards.

May 11th is Pentecost, Mother’s Day, and Youth Sunday! This is a great day to invite the family! We’ll have our youth readers and a very special Pentecost Procession with our young Acolytes, who have learned so much working with David Mair. We’ll have a very interesting guest speaker that day as well.

May 18th is the Church Picnic after the 10:00 service. Sign up in the Narthex! We would love to see all the families come out for food and outdoor games.

May 18th Youth Meeting. We’re inviting the kids from All Hallows to join us for lunch, then we’ll have a brief lesson with Father Hastings and go to see the new movie “Prince Caspian”. It’s based on the second book in the Narnia series (after “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe”) by the Anglican writer C.S. Lewis. I read these books as a child and am reading them to my children. It’s really exciting for me to see them being made into movies. It’s a wonderful series, if you’re not aware of it please ask me about it. You can also talk to Julie Sudler who is also a big fan of the series. This is a Youth group event, but all are welcome to join us for the movie. Please let me know by May 4th if you can come. Our last youth group event at All Hallow’s was really great. There were about 5-6 kids from All Hallow’ and 3 from St. Anne’s. Together we made 50 meals for the group “Aid for Friends”, and had a lesson about Baptism and what it means when we renew our own baptismal vows. May 18th is also the last day of church school. Vacation Bible School is July 28th through August 1st.

Blessing of the Motorcycles

Saint Anne's will hold a blessing of the motorcycles on Saturday, May 10th @ 10:00AM (Rain or Shine*). All bikers are welcome to come and have Father Hastings lay down a blessing to keep you safe this riding season.

Adult Education: Learn More About Mary

Adult Education: In honor of mothers & Mothers' Day, come to Adult Education to learn more about Mary, Mother of Jesus, our "adopted Mother". Although, she is mentioned only a few times in the Gospels and in Acts, she has been elevated to such a high level that songs, ancient (Ave Maria by Franz Schubert) and modern, (Let it Be by the Beatles) have been written and sung about her. Icons, rosaries, books, movies, people named after her, and so on; all about Mother Mary. Join us Sunday mornings, 9-9:50 AM, in the Dixson Lounge. Watch the Sunday Bulletins for a possible movie presentation about Mary.

Annual Parish Meeting Sunday May 4th

The Annual parish meeting of Saint Anne's Church will convene on Sunday, May 4 at 9 am. The Vestry and I decided this time slot will encourage the 8:00 congregation to stay and the 10:00 congregation to come early. Plan on coming to the parish hall; enjoy a coffee and bagel; hear reviews of 2007 presented by the Senior Warden, Diane Mair and Accounting Warden, Bill Vera. Also, new members to the Vestry will be elected.

First Youth Acolyte Class Commissioned

It's be a long-time coming. However, after recruiting the Sunday school, galvanizing the interest with the youth of the church, gaining the support of parents, going through a formal training, and with loads of practice, the first class of St. Annes Youth Acolytes was formally commissioned on Sunday, April 6, 2008, by Father Brewster Hastings at the Youth Sunday service.

Jeffrey Avallone, J.T. Capps, Cameron Carty, Kellie Smith, Kimberly Stout, and Amy Vera, were welcomed into the acolyte family during the service with a small blessing from Father Hastings. David Mair, Youth Acolyte Director, presented each with a wooden cross and a certificate signifying their completion of their formal training and commissioning as acolytes.

We are happy to announce that both Amy and Kellie are ready to make some advancements in responsibilities. Look for both of them as they lead the procession as crucifers during the summer months and into next year during the Youth Sundays. Kimberly Stout is also going to start carrying a torch during the summer as well.

Youth Acolytes Wanted!

The Youth Acolytes, under the direction of David Mair, are looking for able-bodied youth to serve at God's table during Youth Sundays, Festival Sundays, and during the Summer months. You will receive formal training in everything from carrying a torch to following the liturgy.

During the summer, there will be one training session in mid-July and then one more at the end of August just before Sunday school starts in September. Hope to see you up at the altar with all of us.

Fr. Damian Higgins to visit Saint Anne's!

Youth Acolytes Wanted!

The Youth Acolytes, under the direction of David Mair, are looking for able-bodied youth to serve at God's table during Youth Sundays, Festival Sundays, and during the Summer months. You will receive formal training in everything from carrying a torch to following the liturgy.

During the summer, there will be one training session in mid-July and then one more at the end of August just before Sunday school starts in September. Hope to see you up at the altar with all of us.

Mission Trip IV Complete!

Three members of Saint Anne's (Carol Chamberlain, Barbara Schada, and Ken Houseman) teamed up with Kristin Wiesenhutter from All Hallows in Wyncote, and Bill Spall from Saint Alban's of Staten Island, as the latest mission trip to New Orleans.

On our first day of mission work, we were put into a large crew. The next day we worked on repairing one of the parish buildings. There was enough work to last us the rest of our stay. We ran electrical wiring and hung drywall.

We sampled some of the local cuisine (catfish, crawfish, oysters and po boys) and experienced some of the city's night-life like the French Quarter and a great Zydeco band.

There are definitely signs of improvement, however the city is far from what anyone would consider normal. There are still houses that have not been touched since Katrina. Suicides are unfortunately all too common, and just about all of the children have post-traumatic stress.

Thanks to everyone who supported our mission trip!

Saint Anne's is looking for new web team members!

When we launched the new Saint Anne's web page last year, our first story was about our second mission trip to New Orleans. Since then, there have been many other newsworthy events that have taken place within our Saint Anne's community. Unfortunately, many of the announcements, updates, and newsworthy items never made it onto the web page because the stories never made it to the small group of parishioners that makes up our web team. Events like Youth Group outings and Shrove Tuesday's pancake supper are just two examples of the kind of newsworthy events that get overlooked. Well, we are looking to change all of that! We are looking for parishioners who would like to join the web team to serve as Web Reporters and Web Editors. No experience required!

As a Web Reporter, you will:

• Write short articles about an event (upcoming or past)
  
• Submit your stories (and photos if available) to one of the Web Editors
  

• Proof reading / editing the stories that were submitted by the reporters
  
• Updating the Saint Anne's web page. ***NOTE - Adding / Editing / Deleting stories will be done through a data entry page, so you will not need any special programming skills
  
• Alerting the Webmasters when a new photo gallery needs to be created (The Web Editors will eventually have the ability to perform this task as well)