St Caths Plus Community Worker Post - Re-advertisement

St Caths Plus Community Worker Post

St Catherine’s Pontypridd are seeking to employ a Community Worker to head up their St Caths Plus project, reaching out to serve older people in the community of Pontypridd.

The St Caths Plus Community Worker will be responsible for developing our work with the range of older people in Pontypridd, from those who retire young to centenarians. This will include meeting their physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs. Working with older people throughout the wider community, the post holder will aim to enhance people’s older years by developing a range of social activities from lunches to tea dances, concerts and trips away, as well as putting on a variety of daytime clubs offering everything from Welsh lessons to keep fit, and ensuring a strong pastoral care network. Much of this work will be based in the Community Hall we own in the centre of Pontypridd.

St Catherine’s is a growing church with a simple desire to see people’s lives made better. The St Caths Plus Community Worker is a key leadership post at St Catherine’s and needs someone with creativity, initiative and a real desire to serve older people.

The post is a three year appointment, with a salary of up to £20,800 depending upon experience and qualifications. For details of the job description please click here, and for an application form please click here.

Please apply to Revd Marcus Green, the Vicarage, Gelliwastad Grove, Pontypridd, CF37 2BS, vicar@st-caths.org

Swydd Gweithiwr Cymunedol St Caths Plus

Mae eglwys St Catherine Pontypridd am benodi Gweithiwr Cymunedol a fydd yn arwain ein prosiect St Caths Plus gan estyn allan i wasanaethu pobl hŷn yng nghymuned Pontypridd.

Bydd Gweithiwr Cymunedol St Caths Plus yn gyfrifol am ddatblygu ein gwaith ymhlith yr ystod o bobl hŷn ym Mhontypridd o’r rhai sydd yn ymddeol yn ifanc i’r bobl ganmlwydd oed. Bydd hyn yn cynnwys diwallu eu hanghenion corfforol, cymdeithasol, emosiynol ac ysbrydol. Gan weithio â phobl hŷn ledled y gymuned ehangach, bydd deilydd y swydd yn anelu at ehangu blynyddoedd pobl hŷn trwy ddatblygu ystod o weithgareddau cymdeithasol o giniawau i ddawnsiau te, cyngherddau a theithiau yn ogystal â chynnal amrywiaeth o glybiau dydd yn cynnig popeth o wersi Cymraeg i gadw’n heini a sicrhau rhwydwaith gofalaeth fugeiliol cryf. Bydd mwyafrif y gwaith hwn wedi’i leoli yn y Neuadd Gymunedol rydym yn berchen arni yng nghanol Pontypridd.

Mae eglwys St Catherine yn eglwys sydd yn tyfu ac y mae gennym awydd syml i wella bywydau pobl. Mae’r swydd Gweithiwr Cymunedol St Caths Plus yn un arwain allweddol o fewn eglwys St Catherine ac y mae gofyn am rywun creadigol, dyfeisgar sydd â gwir awydd i wasanaethu pobl hŷn.

Penodir i’r swydd am gyfnod o dair blynedd a chynigir cyflog hyd at £20,800 yn dibynnu ar brofiad a chymwysterau.

Cliciwch yma am fanylion y disgrifiad swydd. Cliciwch yma am y ffurflen gais.

Dychwelwch geisiadau at: Y Parch. Marcus Green, The Vicarage, Gelliwastad Grove, Pontypridd, CF37 2BS, vicar@st-caths.org

APPLICATIONS TO BE RECEIVED BY: JULY 2^nd 2010

New St Caths Plus Community Worker Post

We are now seeking to employ a full time Community Worker to head up our St Caths Plus project, taking over from Esther who has been working two days a week since the summer, reaching out to serve older people in the community of Pontypridd.

The new full-time St Caths Plus Community Worker will be responsible for developing our work with the range of older people in Pontypridd, from those who retire young to centenarians. This will include meeting their physical, social, emotional and spiritual needs. Working with older people throughout the wider community, the post holder will aim to enhance people’s older years by developing a range of social activities from lunches to tea dances, concerts and trips away, as well as putting on a variety of daytime clubs offering everything from Welsh lessons to keep fit, and ensuring a strong pastoral care network. Much of this work will be based in the Community Hall we own in the centre of Pontypridd.

St Catherine’s is a growing church with a simple desire to see people’s lives made better. The St Caths Plus Community Worker is a key leadership post at St Catherine’s and needs someone with creativity, initiative and a real desire to serve older people.

The post is funded by the Lottery, and in our first round of advertising, we omitted to advertise in Welsh which we had promised to do. We apologise for this, and have agreed to re-advertise in order to keep the terms of the grant which the Lottery have very generously given us for this work. The new application date is July 2nd, and interviews will be on the weekend of July 17th and 18th, though if this is a problem candidates should simply let us know and we will find a way around it! The new links to more details, and to the Welsh version, will be here soon. For now, if you are interested, contact Marcus at vicar@st-caths.org. We hope the new holder of the post will begin with us on September 1st.

Happy Easter

A very happy Easter from St Catherine's! From our Maundy Thursday meal, with David Tazzini-Lloyd providing excellent entertainment with his superb magic show, and Lesley & Esther arranging a wonderful evening for all of us, through to Good Friday's profound and moving afternoon service led by Aled Edwards, not forgetting our prayer breakfast on Saturday morning and our read through of St Mark on Saturday evening, before all our Sunday services, we had a terrific Easter!

Easter Sunday was truly wonderful. The usual warm and caring 8am congregation heard a lovely Resurrection sermon from Gill Tuck, and were treated to breakfast afterwards by Val.

The 11am service had a little of everything - Trish spoke movingly of the power of Resurrection, and finished her talk with her daughter Gemma singing to us from John 3:16. Beautiful. The music, led by Dan, was excellent throughout - it's good to have the full band back!

At 6pm Marcus wove themes from across St John's Gospel into his Resurrection talk, with Gill and Andy leading us gently on closer into Jesus' presence. We also prayed for Karsten, back with us for the weekend and now hoping to be selected to train for ordination, and it was good to have Emma show us her sash and crown as Miss University GB before the service started too! Her work for the Joshua Foundation, serving children suffering from terminal cancer, is something her watching grandfather (and vicar's warden!) is rightly proud of.

Thanks too to all who worked so hard preparing the church for the weekend - providing flowers, cleaning the place, and setting out the amazing Easter bonnets from the children of Maes-y-Coed Primary School. Thank you all!

Above all, we were reminded again and again of the powerful love of God. Love that goes to any and every length that we might not be trapped in the brokenness of this world, but lifted up with the Rising Jesus to know God, the author of all love; love that is big enough to fill a universe, and personal enough to be just for you and just for me.

Funding Success!

Crack open the champagne because CFAP have awarded St Catherine's Church £300,000 towards the Church Hall renovations and link project. The money comes after many months of waiting and praying. Our application was successful on the second attempt; the difference being the fantastic support from the local community. So to all of you who signed the petition and wrote letters about the work we're doing, thank you!

We celebrated on Sunday by having a glass of Bucks Fizz and the children made this banner to praise God for his wonderful provision.

This money is only the beginning for us. The total target is £750,000. Wonderfully, we already have £50,000 left to us as a bequest from Miss Heather McGreggor who was a member of the church. We are in the process of applying to other funds for the remaining £400,000 - with nearly half the money secured, we are in a good position to get this.

But please keep praying! God has given us the vision to do something great for the community. We want to be a church who engages with our community and provides for people. Having a the right building to work from is essential and will enable the work to grow.

Have you seen the video mock-up of the architect's plans?

Click here to go to the youtube video and get a good idea of what it'll look like.

Carol Service 2009

What an amazing Carol Service we enjoyed this year at St Catherine's!

The church looked resplendent, with candles and trees on every window, and with the main Christmas Tree dominating from its now customary place in the pulpit. Nearly 400 people crammed into the building to join with us in the annual Pontypridd Carol Service - this year joined by Cllr Rob Smith, mayor of RCT, who made it his Civic Carol Service too.

The choir sang two pieces composed by Marcus, one especially for this service - a lovely, elegaic piece about Mary's feelings on being the mother of Jesus.Julie Davies and Esther Sowerby took solo parts in the other. Our usual musicians were joined by Evan and Chris, two members of MGQ, to add a little jazz feel to a couple of the congregational carols, and everyone sang with great enjoyment.

All the readers represented different strands of Pontypridd life, from the Rugby Club to health care, from the Market Company to the High School, as well as prayers from Revd Simon Walkling of St David's Uniting Church, and of course we had the choir from Ysgol Evan James add their own songs as well - including Stori'r Preseb, fast becoming a modern Welsh classic.

Marcus rounded the evening off with a moving reminder of the love of God "for all and for always" at the heart of Christmas, and then we adjourned to the Church Hall for mince pies and sherry as guests of the mayor of RCT.

On Christmas Eve we will be back for Midnight Communion at 11.30pm, with a wonderful Family Christmas Celebration at 9.30am on Christmas Day: come and join us!

Christmas Present!

Our application to the Big Lottery Fund has been successful!

We asked for £104,066 to complete our fund for salaries for the children's worker (St Catz Kidz) and senior worker (St Caths Plus) and the Big Lottery have granted us £109,106 - because they say we made an error in our National Insurance calculations, and so we need slightly more than we thought.

How amazing! More than we asked for!

The Big Lottery Fund has been more than helpful throughout the whole process, and though the application process is not easy, they have been fair and several times asked us again to check details - right up to the last minute as they were making decisions. We found them excellent.

And of course we are really grateful - to them, to everyone who helped us in the course of the application, to all who wrote in support of us, to political voices across the spectrum, and to our God who answers prayer. This is the most wonderful Christmas present.

It means that both workers are now secured for three years - full time. And as we have only just begun the St Caths Plus project, this is especially exciting there. We shall take time to make sure we are making all the right decisions and hope to have further news on that front soon. Our aim as a church with these projects is to make people's lives better in every way we can, and we are thrilled that this grant makes the work we are doing secure for the foreseeable future.

Jane Davidson, our Assembly Member, is also delighted with this award. She says:
“I am delighted that the team at St Catherine’s has received this much needed funding, and look forward to seeing the great benefits the money will bring. I would like to offer my congratulations to all those involved, and would encourage anybody interested in the facilities on offer to pay a visit to St Catherine’s.”

Esther Sowerby, who headed up the fundraising, is pictured here with Revd Marcus Green, holding the cheque from the Big Lottery Fund. She also runs the St Caths Plus pilot project at the moment, and today, as the news is announced, is taking 30 of the members of that project on a trip to see the BBC National Orchestra of Wales at the Hoddinott Hall in Cardiff Bay.

Revd Marcus Green says: "Over the first term of St Caths Plus project, up to seventy older people have benefitted from the work Esther and her volunteers have done - and that's from a project that has been running just two days a week. As we now consider how to make it full time, alongside Trish Tazzini-Lloyd and the very successful St Catz Kidz programme, we face an enormously exciting time. Jesus tells us to love God and to love our neighbour. We believe in caring for all in our community and hope these projects go some way to making life in Ponty better for many, many folk."

Christmas Programme Revealed

The 2009 St Catherine's Christmas Programme is now published! The annual postcard, with times of all the special services over the festive period, is available from the church free of charge.

The Christingle Service, our yearly children's Christmas preparation, is at 11am on December 13th. A joyful collection of songs and carols, with a reminder of the reason for the season - and this year a visit from Monty the Duck from the Meningitis Society which is the subject of our special Advent Collection. Badges will be given to all the children by Monty, as well as oranges & sweets for all!

The Pontypridd Carol Service is at 6pm on December 20th. This has become the essential Christmas service, with candles, carols, readings by members of our community, choirs, children, tradtional organ and a little jazz as well. Unmissable - but come early, as we will be packed to the rafters. There will be an offering for the Mayor's Charities, as Rob Smith, Mayor of RCT, has nominated this his Civic Service this Christmas.

Midnight Communion and Carols at 11.30pm on Christmas Eve is another favourite. The perfect way to usher in Christmas Day, with carols and in a party mood. This year we welcome back Revd Aled Edwards OBE, our very good friend, member of the All Wales Convention and the Wales Committee for the Equalities and Human Rights Commission, and most importantly Man United fan, as our preacher.

Christmas Family Celebration is at 9.30am on Christmas Day itself. This is a time for all the family - the youngest to the oldest - to come together and take an hour off from presents and cooking, and thank God for so many good things. Children are invited to bring a present with them and tell us about it, and then we focus on God's greatest gift - Jesus.

Around these, all our usual services take place as normal, but at St Catherine's we are always delighted to welcome in many guests and friends over the Christmas period. If you haven't been for a while - come and join us this Christmas, and remind yourself that Love is a gift from God that comes for everyone of us - no-one is left out.