Day of Action Raises £10k
In October
we reported on FHL’s National Gathering held at St Francis in Kenilworth. The
culmination of this ‘Day of Action’ included renewed commitments by both supporters
and the Kenilworth office to continue to raise awareness of the challenges faced by
Christians in the Holy Land.
Since
then we have seen a huge amount of activity and estimate that in excess of
£10,000 has already been raised based on ideas and initiatives shared at the
Gathering. This is truly amazing and we thank you all for your efforts.
Progress on actions tasked to the office are shown below:
Links with schools
and colleges.
A
key request related to the need to encourage youth pilgrimage by forging links with
schools and colleges. Work in this area had already started in earnest
following the part played by Pat Revans in promoting and encouraging attendance
on the 2017 Shrewsbury Diocese Youth Pilgrimage. Since then FHL's Maria
McCaffery and retired teacher Gail Brown, of the Wyre Forest Group, have worked
together to create presentation materials on the subject. This project has
generated a significant number of youth pilgrimage enquiries, including a
commitment by the Bishop of Shrewsbury to hold a biennial youth pilgrimage to
the Holy Land. We are very excited about these initiatives and look forward to
sharing pictures and stories on them in months to come.
Facilitating contact between supporters
The
office was also tasked to provide contact details to facilitate liaison between
different FHL groups based locally to each other. This has been done in relation
to the specific enquiries received, and we are happy to continue to do this as
requests are made known to us.
Case studies
Work on
case studies continues, as we know how important this is as a method of sharing
our impact. Marion, our Communications Manager, has recently created a set of PowerPoint slides that include photographs of beneficiaries and key messages.
These slides are available on the Resources section of the website and can be
downloaded here.
Increasing the number of talks
and pulpit presentations
Another
request was that there should be more presentations and approaches to churches
to hold talks accompanied by olive wood sales. Since the National Gathering,
there has been a number of pulpit presentations and talks at parish churches
and a template for a typical 5-minute presentation has been established. Should
anyone wish to see a copy of this text please contact the office on 01926
512980 or email office@friendsoftheholyland.org.uk
To
feedback on any of the above areas of action please contact the office on 01926
512980 or email office@friendsoftheholyland.org.uk