Our adult religious education groups are open to all and are designed to explore a wide range of spiritual, psychological and philosophical ideas and topics.
We run various "Engagement Groups" through which people can get to know themselves and each other better as they come together and enjoy participating in assorted activities. Long-running engagement groups at Essex Church include a creativity group and a reading group.
You're most welcome to come and join our activities. Do get in touch to find out more about what's on offer.
Patricia says: "At our next Creativity Group we will be learning to weave with weaving cards. My idea is for us to make big enough pieces to make a bag or a purse. For this we all need to collect yarn, ribbon and material. The material can be cut or torn into strips. There will be a requested donation of £2 per person for each of the weaving cards. We will all be experimenting. Do come and play with us!"
As usual, if the evening's activity doesn't take your fancy, you are most welcome to bring your own craftwork along, and simply sit with us in good company for the evening. There are usually biscuits and various other goodies to be eaten too... If you would like to know more about the creativity engagement group please do talk to Jane Blackall or Patricia Walker-Hesson. Photographs of work from several of the projects we've worked on over the last few years can be found on our website.
Following the success of the introductory session back in January, a regular Nia class has started here at Essex Church, on the second Sunday of every month from 2-3pm (usually the same day as "Songs and Silence for the Soul"). The cost is £7 (£5 concessions).
Nia is holistic movement for body and soul. It is an expressive movement practice promoting fitness, creativity and wellbeing. Fusing dance, yoga, tai chi and martial arts, Nia provides a holistic workout and leaves you feeling energised, relaxed and centred. It suits any level of fitness, age and experience, working from where you are now. Nia's barefoot, grounded approach maximizes body efficiency and teaches you to move consciously in a gentler way. Dance movements are mixed with subtle therapeutic suggestions and visualization techniques that help you develop awareness and heighten sensation. The result is a fusion of movement styles that is incredibly free and liberating. Moving between simple choreography (form) and freedom of movement (freedance), Nia classes combine the grace and expressiveness of dance, the power and explosiveness of martial arts, and the wisdom and stillness of yoga and tai chi.
An opportunity to sing chants from the world's faith traditions and to sit together in candlelit silence. All are welcome, no experience is necessary. A space in which to re-connect with yourself, one another and with whatever you hold to be divine. Suggested Donation: £2.00. Phone 020 7221 6514 for more information.
The reading engagement group's next topic of discussion will be "Suite Francaise" by Irene Nemirovsky. This book was chosen by Patricia Walker-Hesson and will be the focus of our next reading group meeting on Thursday 24th July.
Information from Amazon UK:
"In 1941, Irene Nemirovsky sat down to write a book that would convey the magnitude of what she was living through, not in terms of battles and politicians, but by evoking the domestic lives and personal trials of the ordinary citizens of France. She did not live to see her ambition fulfilled, or to know that sixty-five years later, "Suite Francaise" would be published for the first time, and hailed as a masterpiece. Set during a year that begins with France's fall to the Nazis in June 1940 and ends with Germany turning its attention to Russia, "Suite Francaise" falls into two parts. The first is a brilliant depiction of a group of Parisians as they flee the Nazi invasion and make their way through the chaos of France; the second follows the inhabitants of a small rural community under occupation who find themselves thrown together in ways they never expected. Nemirovsky's brilliance as a writer lay in her portrayal of people, and this is a novel that teems with wonderful characters, each more vivid than the next. Haughty aristocrats, bourgeois bankers and snobbish aesthetes rub shoulders with uncouth workers and bolshy farmers. Women variously resist or succumb to the charms of German soldiers. However, amidst the mess of defeat, and all the hypocrisy and compromise, there is hope. True nobility and love exist, but often in surprising places. Irene Nemirovsky conceived of 'Suite Francaise' as a four- or five-part novel. It was to be a symphony - her War and Peace. Although only two sections were finished before her tragic death, they form a book that is beautifully complete in itself, and awe-inspiring in its understanding of humanity."
All are welcome to join the book group. Please do try to read the books before the meeting if you're planning to come along. It would also aid discussion if you pick out favourite passages to share. Members of the group take turns in choosing books so we read a wide variety of material.
We will be having a relaxed creativity group session in August: you are invited to bring along your favourite art (postcards, books, photographs, artworks you have made or bought - anything you like!) for a "show and tell" session.
As usual, if the evening's activity doesn't take your fancy, you are most welcome to bring your own craftwork along, and simply sit with us in good company for the evening. There are usually biscuits and various other goodies to be eaten too... If you would like to know more about the creativity engagement group please do talk to Jane Blackall or Patricia Walker-Hesson. Photographs of work from several of the projects we've worked on over the last few years can be found on our website.
Last September, we launched a new community choir at Essex Church. This choir is open to all - you don't need any qualifications except enthusiasm - and we're actively striving to welcome in local people alongside members of the congregation. The new term starts on 8th September 2008.
The sessions are great fun. Jen Hazel, our choir leader, has been teaching us a wide selection of songs from diverse sources. Donations to cover the cost of running the choir are invited (£3/£6/£9 per session - a sliding scale according to your income).
In September we will be making mandalas with Patricia Walker-Hesson. Please check back nearer the time for more information.
As usual, if the evening's activity doesn't take your fancy, you are most welcome to bring your own craftwork along, and simply sit with us in good company for the evening. There are usually biscuits and various other goodies to be eaten too... If you would like to know more about the creativity engagement group please do talk to Jane Blackall or Patricia Walker-Hesson. Photographs of work from several of the projects we've worked on over the last few years can be found on our website.
The reading engagement group's next topic of discussion will be "The Green Knight" by Iris Murdoch. This book was chosen by Rita Woditsch-Ogle and will be the focus of our next reading group meeting on Thursday 25th September.
Information from Amazon US:
"Though it starts slowly, this philosophical novel soon envelops the reader in a Byzantine plot that weaves around nine characters. Peter Mir, the "Green Knight" of the title, is nearly killed when he intervenes to protect Clement Graffe from being murdered by Graffe's half-brother, Lucas. Mir mysteriously reappears and demands reparation from Lucas, provoking various responses from the two brothers and their circle of friends: Harvey Blacket; Bellamy Jones; the three Anderson sisters, Aleph, Sefton, and Moy; and their mother, Louise. As in other Murdoch novels, part of the exposition is a religious quest. Murdoch is skilled at keeping the reader turning the pages while allowing the characters to discuss and experience such weighty issues as guilt and redemption, revenge and transformation, and virtue and moral perfection. This is a superb novel, with great depth of plot and characterization as well as riveting suspense."
All are welcome to join the book group. Please do try to read the books before the meeting if you're planning to come along. It would also aid discussion if you pick out favourite passages to share. Members of the group take turns in choosing books so we read a wide variety of material.
In October we plan to have a group outing. We have not yet finalised the details but we are considering a visit to the National Portrait Gallery. Please check back nearer the time for more information.
As usual, if the evening's activity doesn't take your fancy, you are most welcome to bring your own craftwork along, and simply sit with us in good company for the evening. There are usually biscuits and various other goodies to be eaten too... If you would like to know more about the creativity engagement group please do talk to Jane Blackall or Patricia Walker-Hesson. Photographs of work from several of the projects we've worked on over the last few years can be found on our website.
The reading engagement group's next topic of discussion will be "In the Country of Men" by Hisham Matar. This book was chosen by Betty Evans and will be the focus of our next reading group meeting on Thursday 23rd October.
Information from Amazon UK:
"On a white-hot day in Tripoli, Libya, in the summer of 1979, nine-year-old Suleiman is shopping in the market square with his mother. His father is away on business - but Suleiman is sure he has just seen him, standing across the street...From a breathtaking new talent comes an utterly gripping, emotional novel told from the point of view of a young boy growing up in a terrifying and bewildering world where his best friend's father disappears and is next seen on state television at a public execution; where a mysterious man sits outside the house all day and asks strange questions; and where it seems his father has finally disappeared for good. Soon the whispers and fears, secrets and lies will become so intense that Suleiman can bear them no longer and in his terrified efforts to save his family may end up betraying his friends, his parents and ultimately himself."
All are welcome to join the book group. Please do try to read the books before the meeting if you're planning to come along. It would also aid discussion if you pick out favourite passages to share. Members of the group take turns in choosing books so we read a wide variety of material.
In November we will be designing a cover for one of our favourite books under the guidance of Juliet Edwards. Please check back nearer the time for more information.
As usual, if the evening's activity doesn't take your fancy, you are most welcome to bring your own craftwork along, and simply sit with us in good company for the evening. There are usually biscuits and various other goodies to be eaten too... If you would like to know more about the creativity engagement group please do talk to Jane Blackall or Patricia Walker-Hesson. Photographs of work from several of the projects we've worked on over the last few years can be found on our website.
The reading engagement group's next topic of discussion will be "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat" by Olivers Sacks. This book was chosen by Jane Blackall and will be the focus of our next reading group meeting on Thursday 27th November.
Information from Amazon US:
"A neurologist who claims to be equally interested in disease and people, Sacks explores neurological disorders with a novelist's skill and an appreciation of his patients as human beings. These cases, some of which have appeared in literary or medical publications, illustrate the tragedy of losing neurological faculties - memory, powers of visualization, word-recognition - or the also-devastating fate of those suffering an excess of neurological functions causing such hyper states as chorea, tics, Tourette's syndrome and Parkinsonism. Still other patients experience organically based hallucinations, transports, visions, etc., usually deemed to be psychic in nature. The science of neurology, Sacks charges, stresses the abstract and computerized at the expense of judgment and emotional depths - in his view, the most important human qualities. Therapy for brain-damaged patients (by medication, accommodation, music or art) should, he asserts, be designed to help restore the essentially personal quality of the individual."
All are welcome to join the book group. Please do try to read the books before the meeting if you're planning to come along. It would also aid discussion if you pick out favourite passages to share. Members of the group take turns in choosing books so we read a wide variety of material.
In December we will be having a repeat glass painting session with Caroline Blair. Please check back nearer the time for more information.
As usual, if the evening's activity doesn't take your fancy, you are most welcome to bring your own craftwork along, and simply sit with us in good company for the evening. There are usually biscuits and various other goodies to be eaten too... If you would like to know more about the creativity engagement group please do talk to Jane Blackall or Patricia Walker-Hesson. Photographs of work from several of the projects we've worked on over the last few years can be found on our website.
 |
