Dates for your Diary:

See also calendar for the year

Friday 1st 10am - 3pm and Saturday 2nd September 10am - 2pm in the Church Hall
Book Sale

The next booksale will have a selection of long-playing records, both classical and popular, at only 50p per record. All have been confirmed as playable condition. Our books will remain priced as before: 80p for non-fiction; 20p for children's books, and novels will be 40p each, or four for a pound!

Gordon Johnson

Sunday 10th September at 12.45 pm in the Church Hall
TRAIDCRAFT STALL
This stall sells Fairtrade tea, coffee, sweets, biscuits, sugar, pasta, cocoa and dates. All top quality items.

Tuesday 12th September 2.0 - 4.0 pm in the Church Hall
Our Befriending tea room will be open again. The usual team will be on hand to meet and greet. There is always an open invitation to any member of St John's congregation to come along for the afternoon.

Friday 15th September 10.0 am - 4.0 pm
Sit & Stitch Day in the Church Hall
All aspects of stitching welcome. Be inspired and encouraged by the company and friendly chat. An opportunity to finish cross stitch kits or learn a new skill like patchwork or even take up a hem or two. Tea and coffee on tap. Bring your own packed lunch. Please phone Lyn to book a table - 07890 902816. £5 a day

Wednesday 20th September at 7 pm in the Church Hall
Land of Fire & Ice - Yellowstone in Winter
This month's Wednesday evening with .... we will welcome back Ken Crossan to give a talk and slide show. Ken will share his experience of visiting this National Park in the most hostile of winter months and we will see his collection of most stunning images of the animals and the environment that they live in. This is the last in the series of six fundraising talks in aid of our toilet fund. Your last chance to enjoy a delicious Lidl's supper. Admission £4 to include refreshments.

Lyn Ball

Saturday 30th September from 10.30 am - 12.0 in the Church Hall
Autumn Themed Coffee Morning
All the favourites will be available including freshly made milky coffee, homemade pancakes, tempting home baking stall, the never ending raffle and some harvest surprises. The ever faithful coffee morning team will be on hand to welcome you and serve you some tasty delights.

Victoria Denley-Spencer

Visiting Wick this summer? Or discovering your own town?

Our Church will be open for anyone to visit on Wednesdays, 12noon - 3pm, from May to September. This interesting building, on the corner of Moray Street and Francis Street, has commemorative wall tablets and decorative windows, as well as the normal church furnishings and equipment. It is open to believers and non-believers alike. You can come to see it as interesting architecture, a place of worship, or a place of quiet contemplation. One or more church members will be on hand to offer a guided tour if you wish, but there is a self-guide leaflet if you prefer, or you can just sit in one of the pews, or a soft chair, to absorb the quiet atmosphere.

As an added attraction, this year we are offering second-hand books for sale at less than a pound each. They are of all types, not just religious, so come on a Wednesday and have a look.

Gordon Johnson

Future dates for 2017

Crafts Festival:
26th, 27th and 28th October
As part of our toilet fundraising programme this year we will hold a three day Craft Fair in October. The church will buzz with crafters sharing their skills and enthusiasm in a variety of mini workshops. Kits will be on sale and experts will be on hand to guide participants in trying their hand at Crochet and patchwork and other crafts yet to be confirmed. In conjunction with the activities in the church, the hall will be the centre of hospitality offering for sale, home made soups, scones and bread and home baking. This event will be open daily from 10.30am - 4pm on the week days and on the Saturday between 10.30 - 2pm.

Book Sale:
3rd and 4th November

Coffee Morning:
25th November

Recent Events:

Wednesday evening with...

Life as a Music Conductor

August saw us welcome Susie Dingle as our guest speaker. Susie has been associated with the St John's Singers for almost as long as she has lived in Caithness. She took on the role of their musical director about five years ago. The singers could not believe their luck that such an experienced conductor of choirs was eager to take them on and even more so as they discovered her musical history.

On settling in the county she and musician friend Katrina Gordon, who lives in Thurso, set up their own business Caithnessmusic.com. They were aware that as Music was being removed from daily school life there was a gap that they could fill knowing the importance of the health benefits that Music brought to children and, for that matter, adults alike.

Susie talked with enthusiasm and passion about her determination to have a career as a conductor. She told of how she naturally conducted to music she heard from an early age and followed a musical path to Sheffield University and beyond. Her earlier career was in musical administration, but the need to become a conductor was so strong that she raised funds herself to enable her to go and study this exclusively at the State Conservatory of St Petersburg for two and a half years. Here she was a student of Ilya Musin and Aleksandr Polishchuk. She very quickly realised she would have to learn Russian and paid for private, one to one tuition. This was essential not only for her studies with one particular professor, who spoke no English, but also for everyday living.

She reminisced about weeks of just wrist, lower arm and then upper arm exercises, before ever being allowed to pick up a baton and even then of spending much time on perhaps two or three bars of music, gaining the skill to impart how she wanted those few notes of music to be interpreted by the orchestra or choir in front of her solely by her hand and arm movements.

As a result of this time in Russia and at the Royal Scottish Academy of Music & Drama here working with Martyn Brabbins, jobs as a conductor arose working with many youth orchestras and choirs over the years until her path crossed with Katrina Gordon as she adjudicated at the Caithness Music Festival some years ago. They discovered they had the same philosophy about teaching music and that there was an opportunity to work together in Caithness and the result is Caithnessmusic.com. The impact of their work in the county is very noticeable and has changed the lives of many youngsters and adults in Caithness. Everyone in the audience remarked that Susie's approach to teaching and leading music was full of kindness, honesty and encouragement that shone through in all the groups and projects that she was involved with.

Lyn Ball