Short notes from the parish office.
Four times a year the trustees write a quarterly dispatch — a single sheet of cream paper, posted to subscribers and tucked into the porch of St John's. The archive below collects each dispatch and the longer pieces it has prompted.
Sunday Doors: thirty-one kitchen tables this winter
What we found behind doors we have knocked on for thirty years — and three new doors that had never been knocked on.
The 1830 Deed, in plain English
A reading of Mary Wrench's original deed of gift, set out in modern English for the first time, with notes on what each clause has come to mean.
Winter Coal Fund · what £2,420 paid for
A grant-by-grant ledger of the 2024-25 winter distribution: nine households, four boilers, one electricity meter top-up, and a single replaced kettle.
The November tea: a quieter table than usual
Why our November coffee morning brought twelve fewer through the door than the year before, and what the trustees took from the difference.
A note on signposting: when a grant is not the right answer
We worked through the past year's referrals and counted: of twenty-four asks, the right answer was a Quiet Grant in fourteen and a signpost in ten.
Stephen Lee on his first eight months
A short note from our newest trustee on what the cashbook has surprised him with, and the one habit of the trust he would like to keep unchanged.
Eleven uniform parcels and three winter coats
The autumn 2025 Cranford School Fund report from the school pastoral lead, in summary: eleven uniform parcels, three winter coats, no names exchanged.
A full nave: £314 for the Winter Coal Fund
The 2025 carol service raised £314 for the Winter Coal Fund, the second-highest take since the pandemic. A short letter from the chair.
Why we keep our papers on a wooden shelf
The honorary archivist on the decision to keep the trustees' papers in cream cardboard, in the vestry, rather than commit them to a digital service that may not outlast us.
Tatton Street's open garden raised £482
The fiftieth-anniversary year of the open garden weekend on Tatton Street raised £482 for the trust, almost all of which has already been allocated to the Coal Fund.
A welcome basket on a Saturday morning
A short story from the Sunday Doors round: a young mother newly arrived in the parish, a folded woollen blanket on a doorstep, and a kettle that had not had one.
A line in the chairman's letter we found hard to write
An open paragraph from the trustees on something we got slowly wrong in 2024, and how we plan to do better this year.
A single cream sheet, four times a year, in the post.
No appeals, no asks; only the small news from the parish office.