Update May 2013 - work has started on St Nicholas' roof repairs. Many thanks to all who have help us so far, more help is still needed.

 

At the beginning of 2011 the PCC agreed a set of proposals called Embrace the Future to develop our church buildings to make them more responsive to the worship and mission of our church life.

In February 2012, to start our fundraising we held a prayer vigil and gift day, the truly amazing sum of £237,000 was promised by the members of our community. This is a great start towards our goal of raising £725,000 to repair and develop our buildings, and has given us tremendous confidence to move ahead with our work.

In April 2012 we yarnbombed Portishead, wrapping some the town's public art, and other items, see the videos and pictures here. In May 2013 we placed 12 keys around Portishead to draw attention to the next part of our campaign - development of St Peter's Church. To see the 12 keys see here, and for information about the key campaign, click here.

Tenner a Tile Challenge

Our Embrace the Future committee are setting us all a challenge.  Their aim is that our Tenner A Tile campaign should raise £40,000.  To achieve that we need everyone involved with our church to each get ten people to sponsor one tile.  And as there are over four hundred people on our Church Electoral Roll that will bring up the target!

So here is the challenge – please will you find ten people to sponsor a tile?  And of course if you can find more than ten or get them to sponsor more than one tile…that would be wonderful.  By all working together we can meet this challenge.

 Wondering who to approach?  Why not consider

• asking colleagues at work
• leafleting everyone in your street
• encouraging those at any groups you attend to sponsor tiles
• suggesting friends sponsor tiles instead of birthday or   Christmas presents
• invite everyone on your e-mail address list to sponsor a tile using the on-line donation facility on our church website.

 Let’s all keep thinking of different ways we can support this campaign and so ensure we can help St Nicholas’ Church enjoy another one hundred years serving the town. 

For information about the work needed on St Nicholas roof, and how to sponsor a tile, please see the Tenner a Tile page.

Our Mission

We want St Peterʼs and St Nicholasʼ churches to be at the centre of the life of our growing town, to be available to all who wish to use them. These historic buildings need to be well maintained, welcoming and accessible, with good community facilities, reflecting the 21st century needs people have when visiting and using our buildings. Built for the greater glory of God we want our churches to be places where the best possible worship can be offered to God and in which and from which we can continue to serve the people of Portishead.

 

Welcome & Hospitality

We want to make our churches more welcoming and be able to provide better hospitality.  Towards this we want to provide better signage to our churches, improve the entrances and welcome areas, provide better facilities for providing refreshments, enhance our church heating and provide accessible toilets.

 

Participation

We want to improve people’s participation in our services.  Towards this we need to improve the sound system at both churches, introduce an audio visual system at St Peter’s and also bring the altar forward to improve its visibility to those in the North Aisle.

 

Space

We need to provide a variety of different spaces to respond to the different events that happen in our buildings.  At St Nicholas’ we intend to enlarge the Narthex to give us a larger meeting room for the parish.  At St Peter’s we want to create an improved children’s area in the North Aisle and create a small meeting room under an extended gallery.   We also need to explore how we can make St Peter’s feel less cluttered whilst also increasing the seating capacity for our larger services.

 

In addition to these improvements there are repairs to the stonework required at both churches and also need to replace the roof at St Nicholas’ Church.  The total cost of all these works is estimated at £725,000 of which the St Nicholas’ roof is the largest single item.  The development programme is being developed as a series of projects which will be undertaken as funding becomes available. The first project completed was the introduction of a new sound and audio visual system to St Peter’s, which was completed in the autumn of 2011.

 

Further details can be found here of the works at St Peter’s and at St Nicholas’.

If you would like to make a donation, please contact the Church office, or you can donate online using our page on the CAF web site.