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Today

  1. Christian Aid week count in church
    • Start date: Fri, May 18th 2012
    • Start time: 18:30
    • End time: 20:30
    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE

Tomorrow

  1. Christian Aid: Cake Stall near The Post Office
    • Start date: Sat, May 19th 2012
    • Start time: 10:00
    • End time: 12:30
  2. Christian Aid week count in church
    • Start date: Sat, May 19th 2012
    • Start time: 18:30
    • End time: 20:30
    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE

Sun, May 20th 2012

  1. Holy Communion - David Ainge
    • Start date: Sun, May 20th 2012
    • Start time: 09:00
    • End time: 10:00
    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE
  2. All Age Service - Jo Hargrave & Helen Wright
    • Start date: Sun, May 20th 2012
    • Start time: 10:30
    • End time: 12:00

    • Please join us for coffee and tea after the service

    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE
  3. Hymn Service at Grove Court
    • Start date: Sun, May 20th 2012
    • Start time: 15:30
    • End time: 16:15
    • Where: Grove Court
  4. Holy Communion & Ministry of Healing - David Ainge
    • Start date: Sun, May 20th 2012
    • Start time: 18:00
    • End time: 19:00
    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE

Mon, May 21st 2012

  1. Week 21 of 2012
    • Start date: Mon, May 21st 2012

Wed, May 23rd 2012

  1. Pram Service
    • Start date: Wed, May 23rd 2012
    • Start time: 10:00
    • End time: 12:00
    • Where: St Mary's Room
  2. Chatterbox
    • Start date: Wed, May 23rd 2012
    • Start time: 15:00
    • End time: 16:30

    • Chatterbox is a new group for people who live on their own to meet together for tea and a chat and to make new friends. We meet at 3pm on the last Wednesday of the month. For more information please contact Rosemary Crowley or Margaret Hodges.

    • Where: Blue Cedars, Beaumont Hill

Sun, May 27th 2012

  1. Pentecost
    • Start date: Sun, May 27th 2012
  2. Holy Communion - Philip Tarris
    • Start date: Sun, May 27th 2012
    • Start time: 09:00
    • End time: 10:00
    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE
  3. Parish Communion - Philip Tarris
    • Start date: Sun, May 27th 2012
    • Start time: 10:30
    • End time: 12:00

    • Please join us for coffee and tea after the service

    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE
  4. Holy Communion @ Redbond Lodge
    • Start date: Sun, May 27th 2012
    • Start time: 16:00
    • End time: 16:45
    • Where: Redbond Lodge
  5. Pentecost Praise - Gerald Crowley
    • Start date: Sun, May 27th 2012
    • Start time: 18:00
    • End time: 19:00
    • Where: St Mary's church, Great Dunmow, CM6 2AE

Mon, May 28th 2012

  1. Week 22 of 2012
    • Start date: Mon, May 28th 2012
  2. Holy Communion at Alan Hasler House
    • Start date: Mon, May 28th 2012
    • Start time: 10:15
    • End time: 11:00

    • Arrangements have been made for the staff from St Mary’s, Great Dunmow to come to provide Services.

    • Where: Alan Hasler House

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Home » Blogs

Elsie Bouffler's blog

Just A Thought

published by Elsie Bouffler on Tue, 01/05/2012 - 00:00

I don’t have a good memory for names and I have found that after a certain time of knowing someone, one moves beyond the point where you can ask them their name yet again, so you have to coexist with them usually knowing yours and you avoiding having to use theirs - or is that just me?

There are all sorts of social rules we can find ourselves falling foul of, for instance that awful scenario when we join something new, then miss a week, then another week then so many that it just becomes too awkward to go back, so we let things go and don’t renew that membership.

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Just A Thought

published by Elsie Bouffler on Wed, 01/02/2012 - 00:00

Not long ago, I went to buy flowers to brighten up the table and, feeling a bit overspent, I chose the discounted bunch of white roses, thinking I had a real bargain. The first day they were on the table they looked perfectly good, but by the next day I began to understand why they were so heavily discounted.

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Just A January Thought

published by Elsie Bouffler on Sun, 01/01/2012 - 00:00

I wonder, after all the planning and all the effort, was Christmas perfect, did we arrive on the day with everything picture perfect, did the meal go perfectly to plan, were all the guests delightful, were we delightful?

Almost certainly things were not perfect, I hope they were happy but I am willing to guarantee that they were not perfect, because we are not still lives in a magazine, we are human with all the flaws and frailties that go along with being human. Yet we try so very hard.

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Just a Christmas Thought. . . On the Nativity

published by Elsie Bouffler on Thu, 01/12/2011 - 00:00

I spent a little time this year looking at nativity scenes by some of the greatest painters in history. Each has taken the scene and imagined how it would look, some have a narrative, other just paint the scene as they imagine it, but all have in common a sense of light in darkness and a portrayal of love.

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Just be Yourself

published by Elsie Bouffler on Tue, 01/11/2011 - 00:00

I am writing this as I return from a visit to the hairdresser, where, having arrived knowing I wanted something done but not quite sure what, I was engulfed in hair magazines all showing how I could improve my look or, and I quote, “borrow a look from the hottest A List celebrity.”

Having flipped through them I settled on one, and the hairdresser did her job well (those who know me know that it would take a great deal more than a haircut to look like the hottest A list celebrity) but my hair did resemble the picture in some ways.

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Just a Thought - Going through the motions

published by Elsie Bouffler on Sat, 01/10/2011 - 00:00

Given that I have taken a few flights up and down to Scotland recently, I could almost say the safety routine in the cabin in my sleep. Each time frequent flyers are asked to pay attention, I dutifully do, and within a few moments I am thinking about the day ahead - what my timing will be, or the article I just read in the paper, or anything except how I would actually fit my air mask and tie my life jacket.

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Just a Thought - September 2011

published by Elsie Bouffler on Thu, 01/09/2011 - 00:00

Over the past two months I have spent time in hospitals and dementia units where my mum is being cared for, and I think it has taught me a lot of things I didn’t expect.

I am very conscious that like mum, each of the people I see has a life full of memories, of families and friends, of roads travelled, careers worked at, homes cherished, children nurtured, of happy and sad times, and although they may not now recall these things each person has their own story. It has reminded me how precious our lives are and how important that we make the most we can of each day and treasure the relationships around us.

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Just A Thought

published by Elsie Bouffler on Mon, 01/08/2011 - 00:00

Do you ever use your holiday to contemplate? I wonder if like me you sometimes come back from wherever you have been with so many ideas of what you are going to do over the coming months and what changes you are going to make, but sadly as we slip back into the routine these impulses fade as quickly as our tans and in many cases just as well.

Sometimes however there is a nagging voice inside us which just won’t go away - we can bury it by being busy, we can ignore it and defy it, but none of that may actually stop it. Some will call it their inner voice, but I would call it God speaking to us.

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Just A Thought: Leaving a trail

published by Elsie Bouffler on Fri, 01/07/2011 - 00:00

We have an attachment to our camera now which includes a little GPS system and means that wherever we take a photograph, it will automatically place the location on the map, so no more sitting with pictures years later thinking “where was that taken?”, or laboriously noting the location on each photograph for future reference. A side effect of this is that when we have travelled somewhere we can see a trail plotted of the locations we were in according to where we took photographs.

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Just a June Thought

published by Elsie Bouffler on Wed, 01/06/2011 - 00:00

Recently as I took a walk around the fields in the sunshine, I sat down for a few minutes to enjoy the peace of it and look out over the swathe of yellow rapeseed into the distance, when I noticed a tiny blue wildflower growing at my feet.

So in an idle moment I wondered what it must be like to be the tiny little blue flower amid that vast expanse of yellow, did it feel overwhelmed? Did it feel overlooked?

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My Daily Thought

  • 18 May 2012
  • 16 May 2012
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Verse of the Day

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Christian News

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Word for Today

  • The Word for Today 17 May 2012 'Do You Love God's Word?'
  • The Word for Today 16 May 2012 'If You Persist, You Will Prevail'
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Dunmow Broadcast

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BBC News

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