NEWS

The Sue Ryder Prayer Fellowship very much regrets that it has been necessary to cancel the 'Ave Verum' Polish Choir concert on 4th July.
We apologise to those who had been looking forward to attending the concert, and we particularly apologise to the Choir who had of course put in a great deal of preparation for the event.

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HISTORY OF PARMOOR BOOKLET
Our ‘Brief History of Parmoor’ booklet has had a makeover.  It is now 12 pages long and gives more information on the families and organisations that have owned or lived at Parmoor. There is also some fascinating information about famous people who have visited and stayed at the house.  Among others, these include Einstein, General de Gaulle, Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Ghandi.  Want to know more?  The booklet is yours for just £1.

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY
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Saturday 20th November 2010 -We are planning a Murder Mystery Evening. 

More details coming soon

REFURBISHMENT

It has taken two years, but at last we have achieved our target of putting en suite bathrooms into all of the St. Katharine's guest rooms. Along the way we also refurbished two public bathrooms in St. Katharine's, two staff bathrooms, two bathrooms in St. Joseph's and installed an extra shower room in St. Joseph's. Chris, our plumber, has been fantastic in finding solutions to the many problems which the house has thrown up and in working around our bookings. We are now hoping that he can work similar miracles on the heating system and even-out some of the hot and cold spots.

bathroom--------- another bathroom

 

 

www.easyfundraising.org.uk

If you shop online you can raise money for us at no cost to yourself – in fact you may even get extra discounts and save money.
Over 600 of the UK's best-known retailers including companies such as Amazon, Next, Argos, John Lewis and HMV, participate in this scheme and when you access their sites through easyfundraising up to 15% from every purchase you make is donated to the cause you choose to nominate.
Click on the link above to register with the easyfundraising site (which costs nothing) and nominate your charity – this is the hardest part because there are thousands of charities to choose from.  However, they are arranged alphabetically and we are registered as Sue Ryder Prayer Fellowship.  There are several Sue Ryder Charities there, so make sure you get the right one!
When you want to go shopping go to the easyfundraising site and see if the shop that you want is there, if it is then you can go straight to it and a small percentage of what you spend will come to us.  Many of the sites have special offers for easyfundraising customers – so you can save money yourself as well.

 

FRIENDS OF ST. KATHARINE'S

"To visit St. Katharine's is to fall in love with it"

Many visitors seem to feel this way about St. Katharine's and they often express a desire to help in some way to keep the house running. This has prompted us to form a 'Friends of St. Katharine's' group to enable people to offer their talents and skills to us.

Activities include working party days when members can get together and enjoy a sociable day together while doing something useful such as cleaning brass. On these occasions they can identify projects which they would like to take on and perhaps find like-minded souls to share the task. These might range from arranging china in a cabinet to creating a small garden. You do not have to make a big time commitment if you don't want to.

Working Party Days in 2009 included brass and silver cleaning, gardening, table stripping and creating a display of convent artefacts. Our final session of the year saw us in our new workroom (the former butler's pantry) repairing and refurbishing pictures which were then hung in some of the bedrooms.

cartoonBrass cleaning

workers drinking coffee

working party

working on pictures

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Workers Needed  

             These are some of the areas where we think the Friends may be able to help:

  1. The library needs cataloguing and rearranging into some sort of order.  You don’t have to be a qualified librarian (although if you are that would be wonderful), just have an orderly mind and an interest in books.                                        
  2. We have a lot of papers, photographs etc. relating to the Order of St. Katharine from before and during their tenure of Parmoor.  We need an archivist, or someone who is interested in history and archives, to put these into order so that they can be preserved properly.
  3. We have lots of pictures, many of which need reframing or remounting.  Some of the nastiest pictures are in the nicest frames and vice versa.  There are a number of framed photographs of people connected with the history of the House which we would like to hang, but they need a little TLC before they can go on display – is this something that you are good at?
  4. Picture hanging - After all the filming and redecoration all the pictures have become muddled up or simply haven’t been rehung.  We need some people to assess all the pictures and all the rooms, including the bedrooms, and decide what should go where – and then hang them for us.
  5. Display Cabinets – all over the House there are ornaments and pieces of china, some lovelier than others it has to be said.  We need someone with an artistic eye to weed out the truly awful bits and arrange the rest in our display cabinets in a tasteful and attractive way. 
  6. Gardening – close to the house there is a tiny enclosed ‘secret garden’ which currently contains an apple tree, some overgrown brick paths and a lot of weeds.  Would you have the vision and the stamina to turn it into a shady arbour?
  7. Upholstery – we always have furniture in need of reupholstering or just a little TLC.