Vince once again treated us to an easy quiz which did result in some high scores and some very different winners. Well done Clueless in being the top scorers. The new hot contest is the end of the quiz tie breaker - this time involving how many tennis balls were used annually at Wimbledon - the result being over 20K less than needed but closely disputed by two answers only 800 apart! 51000 being the actual answer!
Thank you to all you quizzers for supporting us - with thanks to Vince our quiz master, Maxine at the Railway Pub for her support and all the ladies and gents in the behind the scenes organisational team for a very successful evening.

The church was beautifully decorated as we came together to celebrate our annual harvest festival. Rev Chris Giles led our harvest service.

Our Sunday service was lead by Rev Peter Bates and included the required hymn "we plough the fields and scatter." We have collected supplies for Tamworth foodbank which will be delivered this week and the church looked nicely decorated for the event.

The traditional harvest supper had a new lunch team on duty - thank you but continued with the same quiz master Vince. Our post meal entertainment came to a runners up question which needed you to guess the depth of Loch Ness (230m if your interested!) with the winners been "super seven" Our overall winners this year were "not a clue" but great fun was had by all who took part. Even our new minister got in on the act with one team including her in their name! Welcome Karen.
Thank you to the team who washed lunched cooked and cleaned not forgetting probably the same team who set up and put away.

​The harvest supper was a success with quizmaster Vince once again showing why his quizzes are the best. Our thanks goes to Vince, Christine, Malcolm, Sue, Colin and Valerie for their organisation and service for the Harvest supper as well as the super quizmaster Vince wowing us with a colour picture round and several other hard general knowledge themed rounds. Who knew who was Time Magazine featured lady of the year in 1952 amongst other items.

The church looks lovely with the flowers and the local produce and many people have donated dried and packet food for the foodbank collection. The service was led by Jill and lots of others helped with readings but especially Libby who gave a heartfelt speech about what it is like to be a modern dairy farmer. It put their jobs into perspective to help the rest of us understand the magnitude of the work these independent farmers complete day in and day out.

 ‘Our Life on the Farm’
Jill asked me if I would give a brief run through of our life on the farm, and in a moment of weakness I said “yes”, I just cant say NO to Jill !
No two days are ever the same, there are good days and bad days, so here is just an insight into our small traditional family farm.
We have a herd of 120 pedigree Ayrshire cows which are bred and reared on the farm alongside 180 young stock – some dairy, some beef cattle. On average each cow produces 7000 litre of milk every year, but for a cow to milk she has to calve every year.  Cows love nothing more than to calve in the early hours of the morning. Fortunately my husband Andrew has perfected the art of getting in and out of bed without disturbing me but occasionally he needs extra help. Seeing the birth of a new life is one of the greatest joys – one of which I don’t think I will ever tire.
Milking cows happens twice a days, 5am and half past 3 in the afternoon. It can be a quiet, calm atmosphere with only the beat of the milking machine, but during the summer months with the introduction of freshly calved heifers, irritated by flies and the heat, it does feel much more chaotic with cows kicking and newbies jumping as they are first introduced to their new regime.  Fortunately, they settle in quite quickly and a calmness resumes.
Once milking, which takes about 2.5 hours is over the cows return to the comfort of a deep straw bedded yard and an unlimited amount of forage to eat. However, unlike some herds, ours graze the grassland pastures as soon as the weather permits. Delighted to be free from the confines of their shed they frolic in the sunshine and graze the fresh spring grass.
With the workload easing as the cows go out, it is time to catch up with seasonal jobs whilst continuing to feed and care for the beef cattle. The early summer months can be stressful as we watch the forecast, constantly trying to predict the best time to cut the grass for silage.  It is critical that the grass is cut at its optimum stage in growth in order to produce the best silage – our winter feed for the cattle. Dodging the showers can be difficult – every year is different and the weather can be our friend or enemy. There's always a sigh of relief when the silage clamp is full and sheeted up, but then there is the straw to cart – the winter bedding for the cattle, followed by maize to harvest as more winter forage. Maize is an expensive crop to grow, and more sensitive to British climate than grass, so mistake can’t be made.
Together with the seasonal jobs of sowing and harvesting come the more mundane maintenance jobs such as weed spraying, fencing and deep cleaning of the parlour, whilst continuing to keep on top of the every increasing paperwork and the 6 monthly Bovine Tuberculosis test.
As I said in the beginning, there are good days and bad days. The safe delivery of a heifer calf from one of our favourite cows inevitably makes the hard work worthwhile but an old saying which I learned from a very young age was “where you have livestock you have deadstock”. As farmers we care passionately about our animas, administering medicines and preventative treatments when necessary. But despite our best efforts, we have to accept losses, but this doesn’t get any easier despite the number of years of experience we have had.
Life on our farm is at times tiring and stressful and we like many other small dairy farmers feel undervalued by our milk processors who continue to cut the price of our quality product whilst our overheads of feed, bedding, water, fuel and electricity continue to escalate!
BUT, we love our farming life, I couldn’t imagine living without our livestock. They enable us to live in the countryside and as a family farm, we work together, 3 generations – my 80 year old in-laws, ourselves, and 17 & 12 year old children.  Despite its challenges we are grateful to those of who support British Farmers and I hope and pray that God will continue to give us the strength to continue to do the job we so love to do.   
 
Libby Hall, local farmers

Today after a lovely service led by Fiona Beadle we had our postponed Harvest celebration. Originally due on the day of our late Queens funeral we altered the format to a bring and share lunch after our morning service. A lovely spread was ready complete with puddings and we all sat down to have a very convivial meal. Even our own minster Rev. Nick dropped in on his way home.

Today was our Harvest celebration. Both of our services were led by our own minister Rev Nick Jones. The morning service reminded us to not worry about all the things in life which might never happen and to trust in the way we are provided for as well as singing a number of traditional harvest hymns. The evening songs of praise service was joined by the choir and the hymns were a mix of newer and traditional ones along with Nick reminding us of the beauty of the morning skies relating to the hymn  "Christ whose glory fills the skies" by Charles Wesley. This was followed by the hymn "Lead kindly light amid the encircling gloom" which linked his dog walking early morning exercises to Cardinal Newman who is buried on Cofton Hill near to where he walks.  After the service we had tea and coffee.
As it is the eve of the State Funeral of Her Majesty the Queen Elizabeth we returned to the chapel for short prayer and two minutes of national silence at 8pm. Followed by the national anthem "God Save the King", many singing this for the first time.

An early harvest service today lead by Pauline. She gave us lots of facts about artichokes and how sharing our fruits, flowers and vegetables helped our neighbours and showed our care for others. We were also entertained by two local farmers called Silas and Amos who sang a short well known ditty to us all.

Sadly due to a rainy start we moved venues back to the chapel for our Harvest Festival service and lunch today. A good number of us praised God for the blessings we have with our food offerings being delivered to the Tamworth food back next week. After the service our now legendary question master Vince put forward another challenging and tightly fought quiz which had only points in each of the four teams before the picture round clinched victory for one team. Our thanks to all those who bought our food to share, the washing up and tea crew and of course our quizmaster Vince.

A very different service today reported on by some of our younger attendees.
"Today was harvest at church. Anne and Mike took the service. The people took fruit and vegatables. The food is going to Tamworth food bank."
Several boxes with a large quantity of donated tins and packet food is now being stored prior to being delivered. Many thanks to all those who have donated.