Foodbank News: Please mark your diaries! On the 8th August we have been given the opportunity to do a “Food Drive” at ASDA Farnborough for the #AshVillagesFoodParcelsProject. How amazing! Please pop along and encourage the team, donate a tin in our trolley if you can, or why not contact us and offer to volunteer on the day? Thank you! (Please like, share and tell your friends!)

Huge thanks to everyone involved today! Charlie and Jan were awesome serving pancakes to the community, and the foodbank team did us proud, raising awareness and fundraising an incredible £235 for food to go into the next round of foodbank parcels. Massive thanks to everyone who helped, everyone who donated tombola items, those who popped a donation in our tin, the brownies and youth group who decorated the banner and made posters, those who volunteered, collected donations,

Toddler Group reminder – change of venue this week! To anyone planning to be at #LittleLambsLibrary this week, they are not at St Mary’s this time. Instead they are visiting us here at The Chapel – the one near the doctors – on Wharf Rd, GU12 5AY. We will have gazebos and paddling / water play in the garden to keep cool, and also an indoor space for those who prefer to be inside. Nice to be in a church building with high ceilings to keep cool on a hot day! See you at 10am, th

It’s time to book your places for Picnic and Play in the holidays 2026! PICNIC and PLAY dates for the holidays: 29 Jul / 5 Aug / 12 Aug / 19 Aug Wednesdays in the Summer Holidays 11:30 – 15:00 Text to book! 07730 609446 (Phone / Text / imessage or WhatsApp) We need your names and sandwich choices asap please, to secure your places and ensure we can cater for everyone. Sandwich options are: Ham / Cheese / Houmous / Vegan Cheese / Jam / Chocolate Spread. (Please let us know if

Bug Hotel Project: As part of Picnic and Play 2026 we have a fabulous project planned to build a large bug hotel, at The Chapel on Wharf Rd, with the help of a wonderful visitor from the Wellesley Woodland team. We need please: moss, lichen, straw, bamboo, bricks with holes in, sticks, twigs, and your kiddos to help put it together! This will be a wonderful addition to the Chapel Garden helping beneficial mini-beasts to thrive. We also need bug-hunting kits! Do you have a mag

Wow wow wow! These kids are unstoppable! The Foodbank Youth Group, plus friends and family had an amazing night last weekend. They played badminton all night long from 7pm to 7am, to raise money for the Ash Villages Food Parcels Project. Their original target was £280 (enough to buy 1000 tins of beans), but they have absolutely smashed it! The sponsor money is still coming in, but as of today they have raised £477 online, plus more offline, and their latest total is £811.50 –

We had a wonderful visit from the Ash Vale Brownies this week! They were working towards one of their badges by learning about the foodbank and making a difference in their communtiy. They learned what goes into a food parcel, how a foodbank works, and they even went shopping to practice some savvy shopping and made their pennies stretch to a lovely crate full of donations! When they got back they created a super banner for the next foodbank bottle tombola fundraiser. Huge th

We are battling to support families in difficult times. Ash Wharf is a recognised area of deprivation in Surrey. The surrey-I website shows in the 2024 data that Ash Wharf ranks 19 th for overall deprivation out of 709 areas in Surrey. (1 being the most deprived / 709 least) https://cdn-wp.datapress.cloud/surrey/20240722115840/July-2024-Guildford-010C-in-Ash-Wharf.pdf It means that in hard times like these, a large number of local residents are really struggling. For exam

Thursday 2 nd April - Maundy Thursday Service and shared meal at St Mary’s. 6pm for a 6:30pm start (St Mary's on Vale Road GU12 5JE) Friday 3 rd April—Good Friday Walk of witness starts at St Marys 9:45am. We walk down to Ash Wharf for the 10:30am open air service at Ash Wharf with Churches Together, and NWCLF, then we have fellowship, tea and hot cross buns afterwards at The Chapel. (The Chapel is here, Wharf Rd, GU12 5AY) St Mary’s church (Vale Rd) will be open from 2pm

The Ash Villages Food Parcels Project began as a local response to hardship, during COVID-19 in 2020, and has evolved to become the local foodbank for Ash, Ash Vale, Ash Green and Tongham. Our footprint covers recognised areas of deprivation including Ash Wharf. We jointly run the project as a partnership between St Marys Church Ash Vale (Revd Neil Lambert) and the Ash Villages Support Circle (Cllr Carla Morson). The Project Manager is employed by St Mary’s Church on Vale Rd

Cries in The Desert A series of 6 short films which, together, create a 30 minute experience that redefine perceptions of AlUla, Saudi Arabia. This is a new artwork by international artists musson+retallick and Wilderthorn which reaches across cultural boundaries to connect past, present and future. Join us on Wednesday 18th March 2026 at 7pm. Artist in Residence Jono Retallick will be showing his latest work “Cries in the Desert” right here at the Chapel.

We are delighted to welcome you to Chapel Cafe on Mondays at The Chapel here on Wharf Rd, GU12 5AY. Here are the dates for the spring term 2026. We open at 9:30am, simple lunch is served at 12:00, and we close at 12:30pm. It is free / by donation, come and enjoy what's on offer, have a chat, and catch up with friends old and new. 5th January - open 9:30-12:30 12th January - open 9:30-12:30 19th January - open 9:30-12:30 - Citizens Advice Outreach attending 26th January - open

Did you see this wonderful project Exeter Cathedral? From the Vow made is a contemplative sculptural installation. Jono Retallick and Neil Musson ran multiple workshops, resulting in 1000 votives made by 1000 people in the community, suspended to create a beautiful installation. Each votive expresses gratitude, a personal giving of thanks by its creator. You can read more about this project in the attached leaflet, or visit mussonretallick.com

Did you know? The Chapel is home to a Home Ed Art Class, led by our Artist in Residence Debi Retallick. Here are some of the beautiful fruits of the home ed class on Monday this week. The group are looking forward to another 4 children joining from next week. I wonder what they will create next? Interested to know more? Contact Debi: debiretallick@googlemail.com

The Ash Villages Food Parcels Project would like to say a huge thank you to the Ash Hill Evening WI Meeting members. Alex Sanderson (Project Manager) reports… What a wonderful evening we had yesterday! I was very kindly invited to visit the WI for their January meeting at St Mary’s. The welcome was very warm, and it was lovely catching up with friends old and new – and some of our wonderful volunteers past and present as well! I was delighted to give a talk about the Foodbank

If you’ve been to the Chapel lately you will have noticed our beautiful new front door. What do you think? We absolutely love it! As part of our journey to net zero, and to make sure we can always offer a Warm Welcome, the Chapel Team is working hard to minimise drafts, make the building energy efficient and keep making the place future proof, step by step each year. Imagine our delight when Cllr Carla Morson agreed to help support our application to the YFS small projects fu

We have just finished adding up all the foodbank data for 2025 for our project reporting, and thought we should let you all know what an amazing community you all are! Huge thanks to everyone who has donated items, given funding, packed parcels, sorted veg, helped with packing, gone out delivering, collected donations, helped with fundraising, given prayer support, cleaned the fridges, spread the word, and all the various aspects of making it all happen. While we are sad that

Here’s whats on this term at St Mary’s (Vale Rd) and The Chapel (Wharf Rd) Open Planning Meeting for toddler groups takes place at Chapel (Wharf Rd) this Wednesday 7th Jan 10:30am Monday Chapel Cafe / Mondays 9:30-12:30 at the Chapel GU12 5AY (Starts 5th Jan) Warm Welcome Venue Little Lambs Library - Tuesday 10:00-13:00 at st Mary’s GU12 5JE (Starts next week 13th Jan) ChapelKids - Wednesdays 11am-2pm at The Chapel (starts next week 14th Jan) Friday Community Cafe - Fridays

#ChristmasFoodbank we have just a few days to go before the Ash Villages Food Parcels Projects volunteer team delivers the Christmas parcels to local people in need this year. If anyone is yet to donate, we are ok for mince pies and cranberry but we still need Christmas puddings, custard, treats and lots of stuffing mix please. We will also be needing over 200 tins of all the basics (beans / sweetcorn / tomatoes / tuna / meat etc) so all donations will be very gratefully rece

It’s party time! 🎄💕🎅🏻🤩🥳😇🌟✨ It’s our last Little Lambs (Tuesday at St Mary’s) and Chapel Kids (Wednesday at The Chapel) of the term this week, bring&share Christmas snacks, and why not wear your Christmas Jumpers? We look forward to welcoming you. *Remember to book for the Christingle Journey event on Saturday 20th* so you can make your Christingle, have a drink at the inn, make s’mores with the shepherds, visit baby Jesus and enjoy Revd Neil’s amazing food! #Christi