All Saints Pavement, York

Another year passes and we need to bring you up to date with the news from Claremont Terrace in York.

Joan has stepped up to become Pastoral visiting co-ordinator at St Michael le Belfrey. A voluntary yet challenging job within the church. She is still working as a Learning Facilitator at York Museums Trust and has even set foot back in the classroom at her old school for a bit of supply teaching.

The housing charity Restore has expanded rapidly in 2012. It now gives 16 men a home in four shared houses in the city.

Wesley and Deborah have both been promoted in their BBC jobs.

Matthew is working on an animated TV pilot and he and Laura are moving back to Cambridge.

Warwick visited both of his brothers this year on his own – with the help of his support workers.

Barrie delivered a series of workshops for York Stories 800 – gathering stories from the Armed Forces Community.

The Claremont Terrace Residents’ Association was born out of Neighbourhood Watch. Barrie is chairman and Joan is Social Secretary.

Our grandchildren continue to delight us – they came to stay in York in the summer to give mum and dad a rest. They had a great time and so did we with trips to Scarborough Beach and the Railway Museum.

Our holiday this year was as wet as Yorkshire – the Dales excelled themselves in precipitation.

So read on to find out more ->

So all that remains is to keep you in our prayers this Christmas and for good things for you and yours in the New Year.
We’re usually open for visitors and look forward to seeing lots of you before we write the next edition of Claremont News at the end of 2013.
The best way to keep up to date is to be our friends on Facebook. If you all did that there would be no need to publish this newsletter next year – it would all be old news. Go on – do it. Barrie – Joan It’s not half as scary as you might imagine.

Happy Christmas and God Bless

Love from
Barrie and Joan

Tel 01904 679097
Email: barrie@barstep.co.uk, joan@barstep.co.uk

The City of York is celebrating the 800th of it’s charter awarded in 1212 by King John. As part of the celebrations the City of York Council mounted a storytelling project to gather 800 stories from the people of the city.
Barrie was commissioned to run a digital storytelling project with the Armed Forces in York. The stories they created became part of the Illuminating York festival in October. They were displayed on a large screen in one of the city’s main squares as well as being available on a York Stories 2012 website.
He is now putting together a longer film about the main events of ‘Charter Year – York 800’ using the still pictures taken by the marketing team and a 20 minute narrative. It’ll also be shown on a large screen at the end of the year.

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The departure of the Pastoral Visiting co-ordinator to a new parish created an opportunity for Joan to step in. The church has many elderly and housebound members who love to have ‘official’ visits. People who go into hospital also expect a visit. So Joan is given a couple of days a week to make sure the visiting is done. She’s has started recruiting more people to join the team, making the visiting documents more businesslike, visiting with our Associate Minister, and, of course going out on her own to see people around the city.
Enough to says she’s getting quite a lot of praise for her efforts.

Barrie is trying to give up being the Team Leader for the Belfrey Groups because his work with Restore is taking up more and more time. So far he has been unsuccessful – but who knows what the new year may bring.

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After a number of years of maintaining a functioning Neighbourhood Watch in Claremont Terrace it has now become a fully fledged Residents Association – constitution, committee, AGM – the lot.
Barrie is Chairman and Joan, Social Secretary. We put on a Jubilee Street Party in June and a Bonfire Party in November. (It would have been silly for them to have been the other way round!)
They were both a great success despite the inclement weather. A real community spirit gripped the street; lots of people pulled together to hoist bunting, make banners, put up gazebos, provide food and make sure everyone had fun. Sadly two families have moved out of the street recently and we’re still waiting for some new neighbours to move in.

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