The Friends of St. James Church, Stirchley

The Friends of St. James Church, Stirchley To promote and care for this historic church and churchyard, sharing knowledge of its long history

10/06/2026

The Friends will be holding their next meeting tonight, 6.30pm at St James. All are welcome.

06/06/2026

Sorry guys, but I've decided to cancel this mornings volunteer session. The rain isn't hard, but it's been persistent and will continue most of today. Everything is soaking wet. We'll give it a miss this month and try again in July.

02/06/2026

This coming Saturday, 6th June, 9am to 12 noon is our next volunteer morning. Lot's of tidying around the churchyard and cleaning inside.

Please feel free to drop by and say hello. We're a pretty friendly bunch and would love to see you.

31/05/2026

Good morning everyone. I've noticed we have gained a few new friends on our page, so I'd like to welcome you all. I'm Creed and I am the vice chair of the Friends of St James, Stirchley. I organise the monthly volunteer mornings for the Friends. I also work for Stirchley and Brookside Parish Council as the Environmental services Officer and as part of my job I maintain the newer graveyard.

We haven't been around too long. I think the idea for the Friends came about just over two years ago, I started to get interested parties together around two years ago. Then appealed for volunteers and finally, after what seemed like an eternity, we actually had our first volunteer morning a little over 18 months ago (September or October 2024).

Getting any volunteer group together is never easy, but we have been very lucky to find around 20 excellent people that are regularly willing to give up their time for three hours once a month. Not everyone can make it each month and that's fine. We have had as few as 8 and as many as 14 on a session.

What do we do? Well, we help with the maintenance of the churchyard, clean inside and hold a few events on site a year. Our main focus has been outside, but that's probably because that's the bit I enjoy the most and there was quite a lot that needed doing.

We are very mindful that churchyards are important zones for wildlife. We haven't hacked back everything. Areas have been left wild as per T&W's maintenance plan and we have created new ones. We have taken neglected areas, cleaned them up, planted bulbs and flowers and transformed them into something, we hope, not only wildlife will enjoy, but that people visiting loved ones will appreciate.

How are we funded? Mainly we pay out of our own pockets, but at events we do take donations that are split between us and The Churches Conservation Trust (they look after the building). Dobbies has donated bulbs and Stirchley Allotments Association has donated compost and plants. Offers of anything that can assist us in what we do are always appreciated.

Lastly, our next volunteer morning is next Saturday, 6th June, 9am to 12 noon. I will put up another post later with more detail. Any are welcome to call in when we are there. Take a look around the churchyard or inside. Have a chat with us. We would love to see you.

Some of the work that the volunteers did this morning. Gates are all painted. Planters are all replanted. Lots of Weedin...
02/05/2026

Some of the work that the volunteers did this morning. Gates are all painted. Planters are all replanted. Lots of Weeding has been done.

The one photo shows one of the wild areas that have been left. We have been very careful to leave these zones to nature.

26/04/2026

Our next volunteer morning is Saturday 2nd May. 9-12. Please join us to help, or just have a chat.

We will be painting the gates, weeding and discussing the site plan.

26/04/2026

Good morning. The Friends are starting to gather stories and history of St James and Stirchley Village. If anyone has any old photos, documents, memories we would love it if you would share them with us. We're hoping to gather everything together, print it out and store it in folders at St James for us all.

21/04/2026

Good morning

Our AGM is this week on Wednesday 22nd April, 6.30pm at St James.

We would love to see as many as possible attend.

Creed

The Friends of St James Church, Stirchley

Agenda

Wednesday 22nd April 2026 at 6.30pm at St James Church

AGM

1. Welcome

2. Apologies:

3. Minutes of previous AGM 12th March 2025 (see below)

4. Review of previous year

5. Review of Finances

6. Election of Chair, Vice Chair, Treasurer and Secretary

Meeting

7. Approval of the Minutes of the last meeting (4th February 2026)

8. Matters Arising

9. Financial Report

a. Cash held

b. New bank account

10. Review of activity since last meeting

11. Future plans, including

a. Events for 2026

12. Policies & Risk Assessments

13. Any Other Business

14. Date of next meeting

AGM of The Friends of St James Church Stirchley

Held at The Sambrook Centre Stirchley

on Wednesday 12th March 2025 at 6:30 PM

Present: Mandy Ward, James Arnold, Nigel Harley-Holmes, Rob Breeze, Sue Tarr, Nigel Gilbride, Chris Prescott

Apologies: John Ford, Jo Farnworth, Sarah Underhill, Mark & Louise Sharples, Peter Rawlings, Ivor Davies, Lesley Catton.

Committee elected as follows:

Chair: Jo Farnworth Proposed by Creed. Seconded by Chris Prescott All in favour

Vice Chair: Creed Proposed by Rob Breeze. Seconded by Nigel Harley-Holmes All in favour

Secretary: Chris Prescott Proposed by Creed, Seconded by Rob Breeze All in favour

Treasurer: Sue Tarr Proposed by Creed, Seconded by Rob Breeze All in favour

Accounts to year end 31.12.25 was approved by all.

Rob Breeze wished it to be noted that John Forde is now recovering from a stroke, and he will be sending a get-well card to him from the Friends. We will keep John in our thoughts for a full and quick recovery.

Mandy Ward asked that a vote of thanks be recorded for all of the hard work Rob has put in as the outgoing Chair. Everyone was in favour of this.

06/04/2026

We would like to thank everyone that attended the Easter event on Saturday afternoon. We hope you all enjoyed it and were able to have a good look around the site. We would also like to thank Stirchley and Brookside Parish Council for their support.

Some photos from this morning. The volunteers have done a great job cleaning inside the church, tidying the paths, clea...
04/04/2026

Some photos from this morning. The volunteers have done a great job cleaning inside the church, tidying the paths, cleaning the gates and improving the path from the older graveyard to the newer one. Really looks cared for. Thanks to everyone that helped.

Address

St James' Church, Off Stirchley Road
Telford
TF31DY

Website

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