Essex & Herts Air Ambulance (EHAAT) is looking for dedicated volunteers to join their team at the recently opened charity shop at 14 The Forum in Stevenage, which has been welcoming the community since July. They need enthusiastic individuals to help support this vital life-saving service.
EHAAT’s charity shops are essential in raising funds to keep their helicopters flying, providing critical care across Hertfordshire, Essex, and surrounding areas. As a shop volunteer, you’ll assist with tasks like sorting donations, pricing items, serving customers, and creating vibrant displays. It’s a great way to develop retail skills, meet new people, and make a meaningful impact on your local community.
Whether you can volunteer a few hours a week or more regularly, they’d love to hear from you. No experience is necessary – just a positive attitude and a willingness to help!
To learn more about becoming a volunteer at the Stevenage shop, visit ehaat.org/volunteer or stop by the shop to chat with the team. Your time could help save lives!
Remi LS Beauty – Stanstead Abbotts based beauty business – is excited to announce that it has been shortlisted in the UK Hair and Beauty Awards in the following THREE categories:
Nail Technician Of The Year Beauty Therapist Of The Year Make Up Artist Of The Year
‘This is probably the proudest I have been for my little business so far, I couldn’t be happier to be part of this!’(Remi Hodges)
The UK Hair and Beauty Awards community come together each year to celebrate the hair and beauty industry in style. The annual VIP Red Carpet event entails of a once-in-a-lifetime experience with celebrity guests, hosts and entertainment, and can only be attended by invitation only.
The UK Hair and Beauty Awards mission is to support businesses of all sizes, and expose all candidates to new opportunities via social media and in the hair and beauty world, no matter their financial or social status. HBA are breaking down barriers to support smaller industry businesses, helping contestants build followings and recognition – even if they don’t win. That’s why they’re celebrating the entire process of the competition and all the amazing talent that has entered.
The Stanstead Abbotts Concert Society have some exciting events coming up in February, March and April!
The Wilderness Yet – 18th February
Deep-rooted in a lifetime love of traditional music, The Wilderness Yet continue to grow with the seasons as they explore the many branches of song from the British Isles. Their latest studio album, What Holds The World Together, was played on BBC Radio 2, 3 and 6, as well as entering the Official Folk Albums Chart. Singer Rosie Hodgson and fiddler Rowan Piggott are joined by guitarist Ben Filmer-Sankey in this new line-up for 2024.
George (Granny’s Attic) on guitar and vocals and Matt (Dovetail trio) on mandolin and vocals have teamed up to form a perfect folk duo. When asked about their repertoire they say: ‘We both have a really strong love of folk songs and all the stories, history and people involved. Broadly speaking, we sing songs about love, heartbreak, revenge, death, geese, and the US postal service. Classic folk song stuff really.’
Nancy Kerr and James Fagan are one of the best known duos in British Folk music, and have been playing together since 1995. They have twice won Best Duo at the BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards (2003, 2011). Both highly regarded singers, they are also acknowledged as masterful players of their respective instruments of fiddle and bouzouki.
I am the Reverend Dr Sarah Forrest the new priest in charge of Great Amwell with St Margaret’s and Stanstead Abbotts…” I’ve been saying that for a whole year, but what a weird year it’s been!
I’ve met a lot of folk in the villages, but I’m so aware of the folk I haven’t met yet. I arrived with my family at the Vicarage in August 2020 and started working in September last year. We opened the churches for the first time since lockdown, and very carefully with socially distancing tried to restore that pattern of prayer and worship in the buildings which everyone had been missing so much.
November saw us in lockdown again, we reopened in December, and we were closed again for Christmas. The churches only reopened in the end of May so it hasn’t exactly been a normal start to being a priest in the Three Villages.
But although the church buildings have been quiet, the church hasn’t. We know that the church is really the people, the family of God, rather than just the building, and we’ve been meeting online, outside, and in church whenever we can.
You may have seen me walking to school in the morning with my youngest, and it’s been a great thing to be able to join the community as a mum as well as a priest.
The churches have continued to work in and with the schools, doing online collective worship, getting creative by using the school grounds and the churchyard as places to explore Christianity and to spend time seeking God in learning and worship.
You may have taken a stroll through St John the Baptist churchyard and found our Experience Easter Trail, and been able to explore the Easter story. We’ve had to be creative about how we do things!
We’ve also got practical, and we opened the 3 Churches Foodbank Hub, delivering food to those in need in the Villages from the Hertford & Ware Foodbank.
We have been working to welcome people coming into our villages to live in East Herts Housing’s interim accommodation at the Rectory, by supplying ‘Welcome Packs’ and general household items to people who have either been at risk of eviction or made homeless.
As Christians we believe that God walks with us in the good times and the bad, that he cares about everything that happens to us, because he made us and he loves us.
We are starting to do those things that really fill us with hope, like baptisms, weddings and celebrations, but not everybody is ready to celebrate yet. In the last 12 months I have conducted a lot of funerals, met with a lot of grieving families, and walked with people in the valley of the shadow of death. Church can be that important safe space to talk about our grief and to find God’s comfort.
It’s such a time of waiting at the moment, but waiting doesn’t mean we don’t have hope. We still haven’t quite got everything back to normal, and I guess we all realise that normal will have to be a ‘new normal’. I
t’s been a time of change for everyone, and as we wait and watch, we pray. We pray for our community, our schools, our neighbours and everyone, especially those who are sad, lonely, struggling, sick or in pain. We pray for God’s peace and healing, and then we go out and see what we can do to help!
The Three Villages 