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Friends of Gordon ChapelNEWSLETTERwww.gordonchapel.org.uk
No. 21
Charity number SCO01009
February 2014
A grand finale: the last Friends’ Christmas Concert at Johnstons
The last Friends of Gordon Chapel Christmas Concert at Johnstons of Elgin took place on Friday, 20th December. The audience was treated to a wide-ranging repertoire from Fiona Gordon, Isobel Burnie (Angus was unfortunately unwell and could not attend), Feis Moreidh Clarsach group, the Recorder
Ensemble from Aberdeen Chamber Recorder Orchestra, led by Ed Friday, and Amy and Friends (pictured).
After many very successful concerts at Johnstons, the Friends have decided to try some different events in coming years. Watch this space, as they say, for more information. Our final concert raised over £2,000 for the church and the raffle made over £500 which was donated to the Scottish Association for Mental Health.
The Friends would like to express their sincere thanks to Johnstons, to 1
all the musicians and performers and to our loyal audiences who have supported the Christmas Concert so steadfastly over the last fifteen year.
Newsletter Editorial HAPPY NEW YEAR from everyone at Gordon Chapel (if it is not too late to say that). I hope that you enjoy this latest Newsletter which contains the usual mix of articles and news.
Frances has had a very tough time since last summer with various health problems and has been much in our thoughts and prayers. We all hope that she continues to make good progress and that, in time, will be able to undertake a phased-return to work. Please continue to remember her in your prayers. Everyone at Gordon Chapel has been very grateful to the Visiting Clergy and Lay Team who have stepped-in to conduct our services.
We had a lovely range of services over Christmas including a Christingle with Nativity. This was co-ordinated by Amy Souter and featured a large cast of children young and grown-ups. Mr James Forshaw led the service and doubled as Herod, and very nasty he was too.
You will find, enclosed with this edition of the Newsletter, the renewal of subscription form. We do hope that you will be able to become a Friend of Gordon Chapel again this year. The Friends, through their subscriptions and their other support, play and incredibly important part in helping to sustain the chapel and we are immensely grateful to each and every one of you.
I am grateful to the contributors to this edition, Myra, Susan and Gillian. I have written an article about my work as an academic which I hope you find interesting (I have to have some gainful employment to keep me off the streets). There is also a short piece about some building work which we hope
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to undertake at the church. There will be more on this in future editions and we will keep you up-to-date with developments. Please do keep the stuff coming! I’d love to hear from our Friends ‘doon sooth’ in England so if you have anything at all you would like to share with fellow Friends of Gordon Chapel please email me on [email protected]
Peter H Reid (PHR)
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C.S.Lewis celebrations at Holy Trinity Church, Headington Quarry
The celebrations started with a four day festival from 19-22nd September. There were two talks on different aspects of Lewis’ life, two performances of a play ‘Through the Wardrobe Door’ which used extracts from the Chronicles of Narnia to tell the story of Lewis’ life, guided walks around Headington and the Nature Reserve next to the Kilns and a day of children’s activities which led to the church path being decorated with painted cardboard cut-outs of Aslan, the wardrobe and other characters from the Chronicles.
There was also an exhibition in the Coach House which acts as our church hall and refreshments served. People came from far and near to attend some or all of the festival. It had been well publicised online and in the local papers. As the church is down quite a long path and not visible from the nearest main road many local people were discovering the building and churchyard for the first time.
The local pub, the Masons Arms, brewed a special ale Jack’s Delight for the occasion and ran out of it after two days. C.S. Lewis, or Jack as he was known, and his brother Warnie were regulars at several of the pubs in the area.
The weekend finished with a special Evensong where the Bishop of Oxford preached. The stage for the play had to be cleared ready for the service which started a little later than advertised.
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As well as feeling that we had learnt more about our famous parishioner, the festival was a truly community event. For example only the actor who played Lewis was a professional actor. The remainder were members of the congregation and their friends. I spent the performances backstage in the vestry keeping the actors quiet, holding doors and most importantly it seemed keeping the place in the script. The vestment chest proved just the right height for the horse to get his stilts on and off though it would have been better if he had removed the chasuble before he sat on it!
Then there was a lull in activities until the week of the actual 50th anniversary of Lewis death on 22nd November 1963, the same day as J.F. Kennedy was shot and Aldous Huxley died. If you were listening to the Morning Service on Radio 4 on 17th November at 8.10a.m. it came from HTHQ. Angela Tilby who led the service and Alastair McGrath who preached were imported but the choir was only slightly padded out, our organist conducted the choir and congregation so there was a visiting organist. Our Vicar led the prayers and gave the blessing.
Five days later on the 22nd itself, as you may have heard, a plaque was unveiled in Poet’s Corner in Westminster Abbey to C.S.Lewis. A coach party travelled from Oxford and sat in the North Transept so had an excellent view even if something happened to the sound during the anthem. It was a memorable service with the only BBC recording of Lewis, Douglas Gresham his stepson reading from ‘The Last Battle’ and Lord Williams of Oystermouth (Rowan) preaching. As a church group we were then able to take an audio tour of the Abbey and what struck me most was that the tombs of Elizabeth I and Mary Queen of Scots are on either side of the Lady Chapel. An interesting juxtaposition. Mary I probably
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comes off worst as she is under Elizabeth and does not have a tomb of her own.
If you would like to find out more about the celebrations you can go to the church website at www.hthq.org.uk where there are pictures and recordings.
Gillian Hood
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The great flood…
This picture shows the back corner of Peter’s garden wall on 5th December. His summerhouse can be seen top right.
Like many coastal areas, Port Gordon was badly flooded on Thursday 5th
December 2013. The combination of strong winds and very high tides resulted in both Stewart Street and Lennox Place being deluged. Roy and Hilary Vincent had their hallway flooded and Peter Reid’s garages and summerhouse were all inundated but fortunately not the house itself. Although he remains in something of a sotter.
Left: Looking from Garden Lane, Port Gordon towards the sea wall as the water receded. The wall on the left is Peter’s garden and this spot is usually lovely green grass.
Pictures courtesy of Colin Symon, Port Gordon.
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Our own Myra Murphy’s daughter, Elizabeth Breakley has recently been ordained as an Anglican Priest in Australian. Here is an article about her journey to ordination from the Melbourne Anglican.
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WHAT DO PEOPLE DO ALLWHAT DO PEOPLE DO ALL DAY?DAY? Richard Scarry’s What do people do all day was my favourite book as a child and I’ve given it to many other children as presents. I thought I would give you an indication of what an academic does. It’s nice when people thing that I get lots of holidays (true to an extent) and that my job revolves around the students being present (it doesn’t).
As Head of Department, the students’ presence makes little material difference to what I do, other than having teaching. It may come as a surprise that I only do about eighty hours of face-to-face teaching a year in classrooms. I do, however, do double that online to our distance learning students through our Virtual Campus. More than two-thirds of my Department’s student are distance learners, spread across the globe. My main teaching is Managing Library Services and I’ve just finished marking the distance learners’ assignments.
My main role as Head of Department is running the department and managing the staff team. This involves annual planning, budgets, staff workload and timetabling, curriculum development, staff appraisals and the daily ‘fire-fighting’ of issues. It also means being the Department representative on a number of committees such as our Faculty Senior Management Group and the Quality Enhancement Committee. I also represent the Faculty on some committees of the University such as the Academic Regulations Committee or the Visiting Professors Appointment Committee. Every year there are working parties which I’m asked to join looking at specific issues. This year these include the Professorial Roles Review working party and the Cultural Regeneration working group.
A chunk of my time is taken up supervising my Masters and PhD students who are scattered across the world too and are investigating a bewildering array of topics. When I can, I do
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bits of my own research. This is centred around library history or historical bibliography, local studies librarianship (basically how libraries serve the local history field) and increasingly this includes the use of digital technology. My other big area of research is public library management and quality and last year I conducted two large projects for the Scottish Library and Information Council (on behalf of the government) to review and revise the quality standards used for Scottish Public Libraries (this received regular mention in the press in locally because of Moray Council’s recent deliberations over libraries). The new Quality Framework will be launched shortly and we believe that Northern Ireland are interested in adopting the same mechanism.
Of course, I am also the ‘public face’ of the Department and undertake a lot of external roles. I am Chair of the Board of Trustees of the Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals in Scotland; External Examiner at the Universities of Strathclyde in Glasgow and Northumbria in Newcastle (for library science courses). I am a member of the Arts and Humanities Research Council Peer Review College (which means I get grant applications to review and grade); I am a member of the cross-university group Information Science Scotland and involved in the Economic and Social Research Council’s Scottish Doctoral Training Centre. I referee articles for journals, am on organising committees for various conferences, examine PhDs at other universities. The list goes on…
This year, I have an enormous extra activity which is participation in the Research Excellence Framework (REF). This happens every six to eight years and assesses the quality and impact of academic research across all universities in the UK. There are 36 subject panels which are made up of the leading a academics in each of those subjects. I am on panel 36 which covers Communication, Cultural and Media Studies and Library and Information Management.
Universities departments in those subject areas make submissions as part of the REF process. These submissions
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include a ‘narrative’ about their strategy for research, their income, doctoral student completions, and a host of other aspects and also submit the top publications of their research-active staff (journal articles, monographs, book chapters). The panel members are allocated a number of submissions to assess (this can mean reading, in addition to the narrative, up to sixty publications per submission, before agree rankings with the other assessor allocated that university). REF is hugely importantly as a means of assessing the quality of academic research but also for funding and for the ubiquitous league tables. My involvement runs through to October with meetings, all over the UK, every six weeks or so and much of the rest of the time away from the University, slowly ploughing through the submissions I’m allocated.
So, yes, I’m always doing something.
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I am very grateful to Susan Anderson for this poem, Miss me but let me go. Susan received this from a friend when her brother, Bert, died and it has some lovely sentiments which are well worth sharing. No author is attributed to it.
When I come to the end of the roadAnd the sun has set for me,I want no rites in a gloom filled room;Why cry for a soul set free?
Miss me a little, but not too longAnd not with your heads bowed low.Remember the love that once we shared;Miss me but let me go.
For this a journey we all must faceAnd each must go aloneIt’s a part of the Master’s plan;A step on the road to home.
When you are lonely and sick of heartGo to the friends we know,And bury your sorrows in doing good deeds Miss me but let me go.
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Some very grand designs…We are currently in the process of applying for Planning Permission to build an extension to the Duke’s Stairs (the west transcept tower) to house a lift. One of the unique features of Gordon Chapel is, of course, that it is upstairs; but this inevitably presents enormous difficulties in terms of access for those less able. The notion of installing a lift has been a long-cherished goal and we see it as essential. Should planning permission be granted, a major fund-raising campaign (involving grant applications to various bodies) will begin. The extension will, of course, be entirely in keeping with the style of the building and suitable for a Grade A listed building.
On another front, we have finally had the new clear stained-glass window installed at the back of the church (over the main door). This was a false window until we moved the organ during our renovation work a couple of years ago. We now have excellent levels of light at the back of the church as well as a lovely view down Duke Street to the Square and the Bellie Kirk.
View from the new window (on a gye dreich Sunday morning in January) looking down Duke Street to the Bellie Kirk. By coincidence,
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one of the grandsons of Mr & Mrs Macaulay who lived in the White House on the right works in the same Faculty as I do. PHR
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Friends’ Prize Draw winnersThe winners of the Friends of Gordon Chapel Prize Draw for December were as follows:
£100 Mrs Sally-Rose Gordon Lennox£75 Master Oliver Souter£50 Mr James Sugden£25 Mrs Lorna Logan
Congratulations to the winners.
New Vestry The Gordon Chapel Annual General Meeting was held in December and a the Vestry was duly elected.
Officer Bearers
Lay Representative Mrs Janet PhilpottAlternative Lay Representative
Mrs Jean Grimshaw
Secretary Mrs Daphne StevensPriest’s Warden Mrs Margaret ForsythPeople’s Warden Mrs Lorna LoganTreasurer Mrs Ethel SargentAssistant Treasurer Mrs Sandra Smart
Elected MembersMrs Fiona GordonMrs Moira MiddletonProfessor Peter ReidMrs Amy SouterMrs Mary Thomson
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Gordon Chapel Priest Rev Frances Forshaw 01343 829094
Sacristan Janet Philpott 01343 820196
Vestry Secretary Daphne Stevens 01343 821731
Priest’s Warden Margaret Forsyth
People’s Warden Lorna Logan
Friends’ Team Fiona Gordon, Co-ordinator 01542 833213 Inchbroom, Cairnfield, Buckie, Banffshire, AB56 5EL
Professor Peter Reid, Newsletter Editor 01542 83158617 Stewart Street, Port Gordon. Banffshire AB56 5QT
Audrey Abelsmith, Membership Secretary 01343 82068053 Mossmill Park, Mosstodloch, Fochabers, IV32 7JX
Brian Shepherd 01343 8421792 Elsher Close, Lhanbryde, Elgin IV30 8FA
James Smart 01343 820074Whiteleas, Nether Dallachy, Fochabers, IV32 7QX
Marion Bateman 01343 83047139 Forsyth Street, Hopeman, IV30 5SY
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We would appreciate items from Friends for inclusion in the next newsletter. Please send to:- Professor Peter Reid, 17 Stewart Street, Port Gordon AB56 5QT or email: [email protected]
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