Good News from Bromborough

by Pete Wildman | Nov 25, 2025 | Circuit News

Church Services during Advent include for a “Service of light” on the 30^th November to be led by Rev. Barbara Banton remembering those no longer with us. There will be two Carol Services on Sunday, 21^st December. The morning Service will be traditional and led by Peter Colyer and the evening will be an “All age Service” which will be conducted by Emma Sofayo. A reverse Advent Calendar Poster will be in our Welcome Area in support of the Foodbank.

The Friendship Group continues to meet every fortnight on a Tuesday afternoon with different speakers or activities as part of its programme. The following was a highlight during the current year:-

VE DAY CELEBRATION AT BROMBOROUGH

On 13^th May we celebrated VE Day by decorating the outside garden and our meeting room. We had some memorabilia/medals etc. on display and members who were very young at the time told us of their memories and stories of family members who had been away from home.Rita Evans played the music and all joined in the songs of the time and afternoon tea was much enjoyed. We normally have a Quiz or local speakers come and talk to us, which we find very interesting.  – Barbara and Norman Green

1st Bromborough Boys Brigade 

Boys’ Brigade continues to meet each Friday and we held our first Enrolment Service in Church since pre-Covid times when membership cards were issued for the current BB Session and promotion Certificates for boys moving up to the next Sections (one from the Junior to the Company and two from the Anchor to the Junior Section). We have been working for and have just achieved the RHS level 3 Certificate for the work carried out by boys and staff in our garden. It was a fruitful year with a full plum tree harvest and crops of carrots, strawberries, leeks, chives, tomatoes and several potted flowers.

The Company has continued with our normal activities over the past year but with the closure of the Wirral & West Cheshire Battalion we are now officially a member of the Liverpool & District Battalion as from 1^st September 2023. We look forward to working with other Companies across the Liverpool area. We were invited, as Officers, to attend the District presentation of the last Queen’s Badge Awards at All Saints Church, Childwall. The next group of young people in the District will now be working for the Kings Badge having had the award officially approved.

Our Senior boy, Tom Warren, gained the President’s Badge which is the second highest award in Boys’ Brigade but has recently left the Company to study at Sheffield University so we wish him well in his academic career and hope to see him back with us from time to time. Tom made “Chocolate Bouquets” as a badge activity which were presented to various people at our awards evening and later to our District Officials.

Our programme continued with trips over the past year to St. Helens World of Glass Museum, the two Cathedral’s in Liverpool and the National Waterways Museum at Ellesmere Port. Each of these became part of a Badge Activity or Project.

As we enter the time of Advent we praise the birth of Jesus and our Company has welcomed two new members, one whose father was a BB member in Brunei and gained his Queen’s whilst a member.

Boys’ Brigade is now 141 years and celebrates Founder’s Day on the 4^th October. In the last year Ryan, one of our Anchor Boys, gained a “140 Badge” by designing a 140 from various materials

“Old Toy-New Adventure” was an activity to collect near new plastic toys for a Charity to send them on to countries where children have no toys to play with.

We are planning similar activities and trips for the coming months ahead. – Ken Chalton (Captain)

“Sitting Down” as a Local Preacher after 64 years ‘on the plan’

by Pete Wildman | Nov 25, 2025 | Circuit News

June to August 2025 was the last time I took services ‘face to face. In June I was joined in my service at Bromborough by two of my fellow preachers Peter Collyer and Andrew Clough), a good experience

I was recognised as a fully accredited local preacher in Sheffield in 1961 before we moved to Bromborough in January 1962, but I preached my first sermon when I was 16.

1953 was a memorable year for me. Of course, we all remember it as coronation year of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II; but personally, I had just finished O levels (GCSE), and had a breathing space before I entered the sixth form to start work for my A levels. Then my church steward, Mr Fisher, who was also Sunday School Superintendent at the church where I had grown up, said to me “Pat we’ve not got anyone to take the service at the end of August, it’s time you  started – go away and think of a text and prepare a sermon and then come and talk to me and ‘Auntie Nellie’, and we’ll look it over”. Forerunner of ‘Own Arrangements?

I was 16 and a member of a small church – Kent Road in Brunswick circuit in Sheffield – I was a Sunday School teacher and a member of Christian Endeavour, and ‘Auntie Nellie’ was our leader. She and Mr. Fisher her brother-in-law were preachers in the circuit. After the service, they on behalf of the church submitted my name to the circuit and I was duly given a ‘note to preach’. Certainly a different expression of a ‘Call to Preach’.

My ‘On Note’ and ‘On Trial’ were duly carried out in that circuit, but took longer, first because I was away at college for two years (55-57) and then after Keith and I married in September 1959 we moved to live in Germany, so I was given permission to study for exams by correspondence course, and exam papers sent to Keith to invigilate in Germany. He was a tough invigilator! Fortunately, all that was completed by the time we returned to Sheffield, and my final service and interview took place, and my recognition service arranged before we moved to Wirral in October 1961.

The rest, as they say, is history. I arrived in the then Bebington circuit and have very happy memories of the churches in those days, Over the years I have been privileged to preach in all the churches in the Wirral circuit, as well as many in Liverpool. One of the questions that was asked about us when we were presenting ourselves for Recognition, to be admitted to the company of the preachers, was “Do they have the gifts and graces?”  Preaching is a privilege and a high calling.

Pat Jones

Public Issues Action Stations

by Pete Wildman | Jan 25, 2024 | Circuit News

Christmas in Ellesmere Port

by Pete Wildman | Dec 11, 2023 | Circuit News

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