Faithfulness celebrated

I drove to St Saviour's in Splott this morning to celebrate the Eucharist, and on this occasion it was a Requiem Mass for Margaret, a member of the regular worshipping congregation for many years who had died. St Saviour's on Tuesdays is always a-buzz with activity, as it's the morning for food bank distributions, combined with a social time, as well as the weekday Mass. A heart warming experience at the best of times. but even more so on this inevitably sad occasion, when over thirty people came to commend Margaret to God and give thanks for her life with the local community. 

Former Vicar, retired like me, Fr Alan Rabjohns, drove up from Swansea with his wife to take part and he administered the chalice at Communion. Although only an occasional visitor, I could picture Margaret, the way I remembered her, as a cheery faithful member of the church choir. I recall hearing she'd taken a decision not to fight back with chemotherapy, once the seriousness of her diagnosis was revealed, content to have lived her span, ready to return to her Maker. It's good to celebrate that kind of trusting faith, and not to let it be undervalued in this scientific miracle hungry modern world.
 

Partnership progress

After a brief catch up session with our chairman, the Cardiff Business Crime Reduction Partnership Board met again yesterday afternoon, with me resuming the secretarial role. We had a full turn out of members and got a pleasing amount of business done. This in turn generates follow up work for me, but I don't mind. Getting the Board up and running has been a long term project of mine, fraught with difficulties due to the legacy of the initial efforts before my time to set up an effective organisation. It was a long process of learning by trial and error, due to differences in expectation and officer changes by participating partners, but that turns into worthwhile experience once things are working properly.

This morning,  before going to her study group, Clare took me to Splott to celebrate the Eucharist for a dozen worshippers at St Saviours. I arrived early and found the church hall open and cheerfully busy with preparations for a food bank distribution after the service . It was a quietly impressive and encouraging sight. I was fortunate to get a bus from the stop opposite the church, soon after taking my leave, which took me conveniently all the way back to Canton and then home to write up the record of yesterday's meeting.

 

It's a couple of years since I last took minutes. I was relieved to find that my short term recall isn't yet deteriorating with age. By the end of the afternoon, I'd sent the draft to the Chairman, and received in return a framework job description to adapt. Hopefully a speedy agreement on this will enable the recruitment of a Business Crime Reduction Manager by the end of summer. This will mark a huge leap forward in the Partnership development process.