SVP Festival Meeting at Crawley

Last Sunday we went to the A&B Diocese’s St. Vincent de Paul (SVP) charity Festival Meeting at the Friary Church of St. Francis and St. Anthony in Crawley. The friary closed in 1980 but the church remains, a pleasant brick and concrete structure from 1959 with a long nave, its ceiling painted in an unusual hexagonal pattern.  

(The usually reliable Tom Tom misled us and dumped us a street away from the church – with a huge and impassable building between us and the church. I don’t know what it is about Crawley but the place is challenging for travellers; it’s like the maps of the middle ages that had legends warning ‘Here be dragons.’ In Crawley, it’s roadworks, one-way streets and churches that mysteriously dematerialise and re-appear in unlikely places).    

 

There were about 80 SVP members present and the meeting began at 3.00pm with Mass, celebrated by Bishop Kieran. He reminded us that the Prodigal Son parable is not about the son but about the father’s love and forgiveness, and we should reflect that love and charity to those we meet, especially those in need. The singing was excellent, the mature age of the congregation was no doubt responsible for the tuneful and word-perfect rendition of the Latin parts of the Mass. Bishop Kieran remarked several times on the contribution of the choir but, although I peered several times over the heads of the people in front of me, all I could see was one gentleman sitting in the choir area, trying to sound like a full choir. Puzzling...

Afterwards, we went to the hall for refreshments. Festival meetings at Crawley are always memorable for the catering, there were fewer cakes this time but the quality was high; the carrot cake was particularly lovely.

In the absence of Central Council President Ingrid Phillips, Past President Peter Wells brought the meeting to order and introduced the first presentation, by John Wild, on his recent tour of North India, to review the charitable work funded by SVP conferences throughout the UK, including Arundel & Brighton.

Much of the emphasis was on supporting education, from sponsoring schoolchildren to go to school for £15 a year each, adults (such as trainee nurses, fitters, electricians) to undergo vocational training at £30 a year, or to sponsor doctoral or engineering students at £60 a year. Other projects included provision of solar lanterns so children could study at night; bicycles so they could get to school; medical clinics and pharmacies; housing etc.

The second presentation was given by Dominic Ion, President of Shrewsbury Central Council, on the SVP’s new computer system, SIMMS (Society Information Management and Membership System). He made what could have been a deadly dull subject as interesting as he could and we’ll just have to wait and see whether the modules are delivered as scheduled.

An enjoyable and interesting day - happily we escaped from Crawley without mishap!