Thank you, everyone who had a hand in bringing about, once again, an excellent outcome to Christian Aid Week. For a variety of reasons it is not always possible for people to collect year after year. For this reason, some of our roads within the Parish were left unvisited by this year's collection. The result, none the less, was extremely good. A total of over £3000 was collected including tax back: only a little less than the record amounts achieved in the Parish in the recent past.

 Who knows?: perhaps next year will see us returning to some of the roads left unattended at this year's collection.

 Alan Morris

 Here follows a letter from Christian Aid's Peter West, known to many of us at St. Mary's:

To Christian Aid local organisers in South London

9 July 2003

Dear Alan

Many thanks for all the work you have done over the past few months in your role as local Organiser. From the early returns for Christian Aid Week across the country our finance people are predicting that income will be nearly 5 percent up on last year, so getting on towards £14.5 million. This includes the income we expect from Gift Aid, where we can claim back the tax on people's gift.

This is a very good result, and thanks for all you have done to contribute to that total. On top of that were all the efforts to lobby local Members of Parliament at the end of June in favour of greater fairness in International Trade. Over 500 MPs were “spoken to” by their constituents, and Christian Aid supporters were well involved with that.

I have also now received the figures for committed regular giving to CA from all the postcodes in South London for the year April 2002 to March 2003. In your area:

135 donors living in SW19 gave a total of £21,248.

When you make any report to your local churches about their contribution to Christian Aid's work, please include these figures, because this regular income is a very important and valuable part of our ability to offer long-term support to Partners throughout the world.

And please encourage churches to continue to pray for our work (perhaps by using the Prayer Diary). As you know, this coming November I hope to visit some of our Partners in Senegal, and I'd be glad to come to talk about that visit if you fix a date.

Thank you once again. Enjoy the rest of the summer!

Best wishes,

 Peter West
Area Co-ordinator, South London

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