We were treated to a thoughtful and delightful service for Pentecost, presented by our Brownies and Guide Leaders. They referred back to our Easter service when the congregation were each given a sunflower seed planted in a small pot and asked to nurture it. There were mixed reports of how well the sunflowers had fared – some having failed to germinate at all and others set up as fine examples at the front of church, starting to grow tall and strong. As Christians our growth may be ‘patchy’ – we may struggle at times to ‘grow’.
The church was already decorated with a string of doves and we were invited to write our prayers on the flames that the brownies distributed to all which were then read out and attached to more doves to make another row to hang up.
We moved then from sunflowers to strawberries and this time small strawberry plants were given out to all. We thought about the strawberry runners like the members of the early church spreading out to reach others.
Well done Brownies and thank you to the Guide leaders for your input too.

We were treated to a delightful service this morning led by the guides and brownies. Their theme was the Suffragettes as they have recently been working to achieve their Suffragette badge. This of course coincides with 100 years since votes for women were granted. We had a lot of fun and learnt a lot.

Did you know that locally during the campaign, there had been a rally on Shipley Glen with thousands of people attending? When Winston Churchill came to Bradford to speak at St George’s Hall, suffragettes hid under the stage before coming out to disrupt the talk. We were all surprised to hear that the reservoirs at Chellow Dene had been died violet with dye from the local woollen mills.

The congregation were put through their paces with a quiz about women in the bible – we didn’t do too well. It just goes to show how often important women are pushed to the background or lack a clear named identity.

The guides’ presentations on women of inspiration were well received. They included talks on Malala Yousafzai, education and rights for women campaigner and peace activist; Katherine Johnson NASA mathematician, one of 3 women of colour on whom the book and film Hidden Figures was based; and  Sally Ride who in 1983  was the first American woman in space on the space shuttle Challenger.

We were shown the stained glass panel the guides had produced in the colours of Green, White and Violet which stood for Give Women Votes.

The new flags for the brownies and the guides were dedicated at this service.