On Sunday 13th October we celebrated our Harvest Festival and auction of produce at Woodlands. It was a beautiful autumn day and this photograph shows inside the chapel before it filled with neighbours and friends, bringing with them more produce to place on the harvest table. The Chapel is still one of the local community hubs and it is a joy to meet up with many who have been associated with the Chapel for their whole lives, or even for generations.
We ourselves came to live locally over 30 years ago and preparation for Harvest then was quite extensive and involved quite a number of families, with cleaning, flower arranging and catering. Working alongside Pat Cottrill, she told me that in her mother in law’s day it had been much more extensive still. Maurice Cottrill used to cut hawthorn along the lane, and we have maintained that tradition filling the window sills with branches and berries. Another happy memory of those days was arriving to arrange flowers and finding buckets of flowers left by Mary Birkinshaw waiting for us.
Traditionally the auction should have been on the following evening, but this year the Snake Pass road was due to close for repair work to be undertaken, so we held it immediately following the service. Richard Cottrill was our auctioneer, following on from his father Maurice who had entertained generations of children and adults alike with his banter and sweets for the children. We raised much needed funds for the chapel and shared our jams, chutneys, baking and produce amongst each other. One special item that was auctioned this year was a book of children’s stories by Norman Frith. Norman has preached in the Peak Circuit and been a member of Woodlands for many years. He donated his own copy of the book and it raised a goodly amount!
Julie challenged us to think about the parable of the rich fool and about reaping what we sow and Neville Richards achieved wonderful things on our old harmonium.
We are grateful to everyone for their support and fellowship.
If you would like to know more about Woodlands, then we do have a blog and a facebook page, set up in our 150th anniversary year to collate information from those who had links back in time. You can also find service times and all are welcome. Our next service will be our Advent Carol Service on 8th December at 2.30.
https://www.facebook.com/hopewoodlands/
https://woodlandschapel.wordpress.com/