The Spire Magazine
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The cost of the magazine is paid by the PCC, which sets an annual budget, but this is, in effect, largely offset by voluntary donations. The Spire aims to have as wide a variety of material as possible, including not only church notices and reports but also articles reflecting the lives of parishioners, the wider community and national or global issues. Besides the magazine’s necessary factual content - who to contact for particular needs and how to find them, days and times of services, etc. - there are features which are helpful or interesting to as wide an audience as possible. Each issue, six hundred and fifty copies are delivered to the many volunteer distributors, all around the parish and beyond, who deliver the copies to houses in the parish. Copies are also sent out each time by post to a wide variety of people - past clergy, former parishioners, local churches, the Bishop of Kensington and Archdeacon of Middlesex, as well as the local newspapers, schools and hospitals. There is now also a growing group of people who receive their copies by email. If you would like to do this please see below. The distribution was reviewed some years ago and as a result more copies were placed in the High Street, at the Post Office, library, Medical Centre and dentist with the response being "outreach at its best". Then followed another successful year and the distribution rose so much that copies sometimes ran out. With the PCC approval we now have an extra 50 copies making 700 for our usual distribution and in church. It was then decided that we should try to deliver the Spire to every house in the parish as a trial. The PCC agreed that we could print extra copies of each edition to make this possible. The Spire TeamThe magazine is produced and distributed by a group of parishioners, the Spire Team, who believe that good communication is essential to the understanding and spreading of the Christian faith. The Spire Team is small group, essentially the editorial committee, who meet early each month either to plan the next edition, or three times a year when we produce a double issue, we still meet to plan ahead for the next six months. During the following two weeks, the editors gather the material, decide on and create the layout, drafts are proof-read, sent to the printer and the magazine is ready in church by the first Sunday of the relevant month. We are so lucky to have Nick Bagge who does all the layout, sources photos if necessary, and uses his journalist experience to very good effect. We also have some very talented people in the congregation who are prepared to write articles for us. We try to plan well ahead to give people time to write their articles and Nick has produced guidelines to help with planning articles. We are always open to any suggestions for articles and love it when people actually offer to do one for us! The Spire Team works well together and appreciates all the comments from parishioners and the wider community. We enjoy co-ordinating each edition – some a bit more stressful than others – but we always aim to produce a good quality, balanced, and interesting magazine for the church parishioners and the wider community. Receive the Spire by EmailTo receive the Spire by email sign up here. Find out more2019 Appeal Letter (document)
ContactJanet Nunn on 020 8979 6325
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