Social at St Peters on Sat 16th April with brilliant raffle prizes

Raffle Prizes to be drawn on Saturday 16th April 2016

On Saturday 16th April the Knights of Saint Columba present a celebration of Indian culture through food, film and music at Saint Peter’s Mazenod Parish Hall, Eastwood, Essex. It will be a two course Indian buffet to include vegetarian options, followed by ice cream priced at £10 per person. Wine, beer, juice, tea and coffee will be on sale. 

It is a chance for people across the parishes with the Southend Deanery to get together with members of the Knights and to enjoy a fun social evening together with several parishes all together.

During the evening, our raffle will take place once all ticket stubs have been collated and placed into the draw, and then one ticket at a time will be drawn for each prize.

Because of the generosity of several businesses, individuals, and organisations, we have had donated a large array of prizes for the draw. There were too many to list on the tickets sold so we have had to produce a list on the internet for participants to view.

Below is the current list last updated on Friday 25th March.

There are still gifts and details to be confirmed which will be added to the list below as we get them.

If you wish to buy any tickets, please contact us on the above details:

RAFFLE PRIZES (last updated on Friday 25^th March)

·      42” Toshiba Television

·      Picture Perfect Pro – Professional photographer – Family portrait printed onto 16” x 12” canvas  worth £150

·      2 Tickets for a show at the Cliffs Pavilion (details of show to follow)

·      2 Tickets for the Odeon Cinema

·      Bottle Whisky

·      Bottle Brandy

·      Bottle Champagne (x2 prizes)

·      2 People for Sunday Lunch at Ashiana Restaurant, Southchurch

·      A Limited Edition Print (details to follow)

·      Bottle Red Wine (x3 prizes)

·      Bottle White Wine (x 3 prizes)

·      Tomassi’s Restaurant Voucher

·      Strand Productions – A Days Course – “Script Management” worth £200

QUIZZYLIMPICS COMES TO SAINT JOHN FISHER'S IN PRITTLEWELL 

This was a long time coming after this quiz had changed venues and dates on more than one occasion but after advertising this in the bulletins around the five parishes and seven churches locally, the Knights of Saint Columba finally held this event in the Borough of Southend-on-Sea on the evening of Saturday 20th February and a very enjoyable evening was had by all present. This regional quiz was contested with a chance to reach the grand final as part of an initiative by the Brentwood Catholic Children's Society (BCCS) and was free to enter which made the evening very attractive.

The teams set about choosing a name for their tables and if points were awarded for the names they all picked then the scoring would have been high before the quizmaster had even asked the first question.

Sitting at the top table helping the quiz to function along its merry path can certainly give you a relieved feeling when you see the questions and think 'Oh I know that', and then when the answer is finally given, you realise that what you thought was a name of a type of tortoise was in fact one of the most deadly snakes on the earth. Yes I was having a bad day and lucky for the teams that I wasn't placed on one of their tables!

With that confession out the way, the quiz was highly contested with two teams tying for last place and two teams finishing joint first. Thankfully the two teams that came first represented two different churches so they qualified to both go forward to the BCCS Quizzylimpics final on March 18th in the hall at Brentwood Cathedral.

We held a mid quiz raffle with some fantastic prizes on offer; well it wouldn't be the same if we didn't and a retiring collection for the BCCS ensured that as a fundraiser the whole evening was a worthwhile exercise.

New Member joins Southend-on-Sea 192

The parish of Saint John Fisher has a new member of the Knights from within their community

Today, on the fifth Sunday of the Church's year, and after the Gospel where we heard Simon leaving his fishing boats to become a fisher of men, a new brother; Brother Duncan, joined our Council during Mass at Saint John Fisher's Church in Prittlewell.

Father Lee, who is parish priest at Saint John Fisher's, and is also a Member of Honour spoke some very kind words about our work and support locally, and after the solemn declaration, initiated Brother Duncan into our Order which was followed by a round of applause from parishioners. Brother Duncan, has pledged to support the clergy and the Church and has already been a great help with the work of the Knights this year and we wish him many fruitful years ahead.

Chairman Liam welcoming Brother Duncan after Mass had finished

Most of the Knights present took advantage of the sumptuous cake and coffee on sale in the hall after Mass on the last Sunday before Lent begins. A much needed energy boost ahead of the forty days of Lent to come!

Coffee morning with a 'bang'er!

Today's coffee morning was a great success so it goes without saying, a BIG thank you to all the parishioners and visitors who came in for coffee, a chat and some decent food at Sacred Heart, Southchurch after the 11am Mass.

The proceeds from today is to be spread across our charity funds and to help with our operating costs and we are supporting Missio, Nazareth House and B.E.E.F. (Brentwood Ecclesiastical Education Fund) for the training of new priests. We raised over £160. Thank you again to all who supported including our chairman Liam and his wife Sandy who were the first in and last to leave as they often are.

The teas and coffees, sausages in baguettes, and cheese baguettes proved very popular with a queue for the food stretching half way down the length of the hall at one point. Knights member for nearly sixty years and retired master chef Brian Dillon was asked to look after the sausages and cook some onions, and for something as simple as onions drew many a favourable customer comment saying that the onions were perfect. Just goes to show that if you know what you are doing then whatever you do you do it to the best of your ability.

We had thirteen prizes for the raffle, nine members in attendance, and every kind of relish, sauce and pickle you could think of to put in the baguettes. It had even stopped raining by the time we had cleared up and left to head home, and yes, the sausages sold out!

Knights of Saint Columba Southend-on-Sea 192 - Coffee Morning at Sacred Heart Hall, Southchurch

Sunday 31st January, after the 11.00am Mass at Sacred Heart. Sausage baguettes or a ploughman's for only £1.50 each. Fantastic raffle prizes. Proceeds to KSC, Missio, Nazareth House and B.E.E.F. (Brentwood Ecclesiastical Education Fund) - charities supported by your local Knights during 2016. Your support is much appreciated! 

QUIZZYLYMPICS – Saturday 20th February 

Organised by the Knights of Saint Columba (KSC) of Southend-on-Sea in aid of Brentwood Catholic Children's Society (BCCS). Free to enter to anyone, please bring a team to Saint John Fisher Hall to compete in this topical quiz where the winning team will advance to the Diocesan Final to be held in Brentwood later in the year. If you do not have a team don't worry, we can form individuals and couples into groups. Doors open at 6.30pm for a 7.00pm start – there will be a raffle during the interval in aid of the KSC and a retiring collection in aid of BCCS. 

KSC192 See A Way to Support Vision Aid Overseas

Supporting Vision Aid Overseas

Following an appeal at our quarterly countywide meeting, the Knights from Southend-on-Sea agreed to support a collection of used spectacles for the charity Vision Aid Overseas; a charity that were supported both nationwide and locally by the Knights back in 2009 to 2011 as our then current National Action Project.

Vision Aid Overseas runs a nationwide spectacle collection scheme which operates to raise money for Vision Aid Overseas. Recycled spectacles are not sent overseas and Vision Aid Overseas ensure spectacles are recycled in an environmentally-friendly way and income generated from recycling is used to support their programmes overseas.

With posters provided by the charity we prepared collection boxes all nicely packaged and labelled up and quickly asked a handful of different Catholic and Anglican parishes around the borough of Southend-on-Sea for support for a collection in their respective churches and parishes. The response we received was amazing especially considering we were limited in the amount of boxes and posters we had available to spread around.

Collections took place in the Catholic parishes of Our Lady of Lourdes in Leigh-on-Sea, Saint Helens in Westcliff, Sacred Heart in Southchurch and Saint John Fishers in Prittlewell along with the Anglican parishes of Saint James the Great in Leigh-on-Sea, and Saint Lukes in Prittlewell. With the two deliveries of spectacles taken to Williams Opticians in Elm Road, Leigh-on-Sea, in total we collected close to 300 pairs of used spectacles for Williams Opticians to pass on to the charity and they were very accommodating and supportive of the whole appeal. This was a fantastic way for many people in the Southend area to come together to show Christian unity and solidarity for those less fortunate.

First batch collected in October - almost 70 pairs

We could have opted to take the collections to a national chain of opticians who also work with Vision Aid but locally Williams Opticians have a great reputation. We asked them about their work with the charity and they responded, "Williams Opticians are pleased to continue their association with Vision Aid  Overseas. It is a worth while cause offering those less fortunate the chance of sight, something that we take for granted. This donation of 230 pairs goes together with hundreds already collected in the past."

Handing over our second batch to the owner of Williams Opticians - Paul Gallivan

The collection took place over a number of weeks in the run up to Advent, but in many of the parishes, the support has kept coming even after the posters and boxes had been removed which goes to show the charity that can be found around Southend-on-Sea especially at a time when most people were pre-occupied with their Christmas celebrations and preparations.

Vision Aid overseas can be found on the internet at www.visionaidoverseas.org

Williams Opticians can be visited in person at 90 Elm Rd, Leigh-on-Sea SS9 1SJ and
online at www.williamsopticians.com