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Sutton Village Church Puppets
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In the autumn of 2006 Christine and some of the children from the church, attended a puppet theatre workshop run by Coverdale Puppets. The session gave an insight how to set up, manage and stage puppet performances. It included hands on (should that be hands in?) time and gave some useful advice as to how to operate the puppets. Christine saw this a great way to evangelise to children and approached the leaders of the church as to how to go about getting funding to enable us to set up our own puppet theatre. The leaders applied for financial assistance from “Green shoots”, part of the Baptist Union, and fairly quickly received confirmation that we had been awarded a grant that would enable us to start our own puppet theatre. |
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Around this time one of our leaders at the church, Jack Robinson, sadly passed away. He loved the youth ministry that had been set up at the church and was happy to come and sit in at Friday Club and chat with the children. Jack bequeathed some money to further the youth work and this was used for additional puppets and also paid for the staging material. As a reminder of Jack’s generosity, the staging carries Jack’s initials. |
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In March 2008, a number of us from the church attended Spring Harvest in Skegness and on the Saturday afternoon, spent nearly two hours at the puppet exhibition. As it was church money we were spending we wanted to make sure that we made the right decisions. We decided how many puppets we would need, and then also placed an order for the staging, compact discs, books and additional props.
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The staging
duly arrived and with great anticipation, we set about erecting it for
the inaugural performance at Friday Club.
Christine had chosen “Daniel in the lions den” as our first presentation.The worship group assisted by recording the narration and Then it was down to Christine and her band of puppeteers to get the show on the road.
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| After Friday Club had finished, the stage was moved downstairs into the main church hall for the show to be performed during the following Sunday morning service. There was a buzz of anticipation as the congregation started to arrive and wonder what had invaded the space at the front of the church. | |||
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The show was very well received and the general consensus was that we couldn’t wait for the next show. Word started to circulate that SVC had a puppet theatre. We received an invitation to perform in special anniversary service at Stubshaw Cross Independent Methodist church in Aston in Makerfield. The service was in the afternoon so we had enough time to grab a burger after SVC in the morning and get to Ashton in good time to set up the stage. |
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| This time the story was “The lost sheep” and again the sound track was pre recorded for us by the worship group. We still don’t know which part of Scotland “Jock” the Scottish shepherd is from but Rob is an expert on regional dialects so maybe he can let us know. We also told the story of David & Goliath | |||
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After we had finished, Christine was presented with a bouquet as a thank you for all her hard work. On Saturday 20th September, we held our first “Open Day”. We invited local residents into the church to see what went on in our “Seven days a week church”. We had numerous exhibitions to show all the varied clubs and activities. Free refreshments were laid on and the worship group provided entertainment. We were pleased to welcome the Mayor and reserved him the best seat in the house to view both the lost sheep and a musical medley of popular songs with a Christian slant. |
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We are continuing to write new material and are happy to accept invitations to visit other churches to perform either during their regular service or at special events they may be planning.
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If you would like to contact us regarding booking the Puppet Theatre please email: |
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