24th (Wed) Christmas Eve:
5pm at Christ Church Swan Hill, Christmas Pageant
11pm Christ Church Swan Hill – Midnight Mass
25th (Thur) Christmas:
8am All Saint’s Nyah West, Eucharist
9.30 Christ Church Swan Hill, Eucharist.
Our Christmas Cafe last Sunday was our full dress rehursal for the 5pm Christmas Eve Pageant and it ran very smoothly so we are well prepared for Christmas Eve.
The front of the old rectory was basically still standing this morning.
Looking from the end, we could see that most of the back was gone.
By lunch time there was only the corner room still standing.
By the end of the day there was only this tiny corner of the house left.
The site is virtually reduced to rubble and being loaded into trucks.
Here the sign tells us about the future plans, and there is a website, so I found some Artist’s impressions of the future ECU Building
And here is an artist’s impression of the new Extended Care Unit, to be completed by October, 2015, looking from High street towards McCallum Street.
I think this is the projected view of the new Extended Care Unit from the corner of High and McCallum, with our church outline in the far left.
At first I thought not much had happened, because the front of the rectory was more or less intact. This photo shows the hospital in the background; with the two story Extended Care Unit to the right.
Farewell rectory and clergy house. The machines moved in today. It will be interesting to see what is left tomorrow.
As I walked around I could see that the Clergy House was nearly finished. You can see what is left of the front left of the building.
Here we have the clergy house from High Street.
This is almost the same view ast the last one, but from a different angle, so I could include the letter box still standing there so hopefully.
This last one shows the full devastation, and our church in the background. There will be lots of space soon for the construction of the new Extended Care Unit to be started.
We booked the Catalina Museum at Lake Boga for our 5th Sunday Service which was amazing foresight, as the heat of the day reached 39 degrees. It is such a beautiful (air-conditioned) setting looking out over the Lake. We had dedicated this service for celebrating James Noble who died on the 25th November 1941, the first Indigenous Australian to be ordained in the Church of England. We also celebrated Rev’d Robyn Davis and Ed’s Walkabout Ministry as Robyn described some of the places they visited in their 3 month trip this year. On top of that, it was the 5th anniversary of the ordination to the diaconate of Rev’d Robyn and Rev’d Jan.
After the service we enjoyed morning tea of bush tucker; Kakadu Plum and chilli dip, Wild Lime and ginger dip, Australian Wild Hibiscus flowers in syrup and Quandong chutney with dried saltbush all served on Johnny cakes and damper. Many thanks to Rev’d Robyn for introducing us to some new culinary delights.
Audrey Walsh and Claire Stemmer contemplating the cream cakes.
Thora Brown and Rev’d Jan Harper enjoying a cup of tea.
Around the table: Shirley Wilkie, Betty Dillon, Morwena Hobson, Marj Rogers, and Ada Wood
Joan Blackman giving the history of the Swan Hill Mother’s Union Group.
Alison Blair, Marg Finnemore and Marg Walsh, at the pretty in pink table.
There were many smiles as Joan recalled the fun and fellowship of the group’s meetings and functions.
Thora Brown (right) as the most senior members present had the honour of cutting the cake with Shirley Wilkie.
Joan and Audrey enjoyed browsing through the memorabilia collected over the 60 years, including minute books, letters, photos and tea towels.
Rev’d Denis arrived back from takng a service at the Extended Care Unit of Swan Hill Hospital to partake of the delacasies and catch up with friends.
Marg Walsh and Marg Finnemore enjoyed looking at the spread of memorabilia collected and displayed.