"the church in a suitcase"- not any more!
This is how we are referred to by several visiting mediums - the contents of the church used to be transported to and from the building each week in 2 suitcases - but within 10 minutes we are up and running and ready to go.
The Centre has been running for just over 8 years. We started out at Manor Farm House under the name of "Manor Farm Spiritualist Church", we then had to move out of these delightful premises due to renovation work being carried out, plus the fact we had outgrown the space available. On moving to Kings College Pavilion in Kings College Road we decided to revamp our image and became the Friendship Spiritual Centre. There had been a church previously at Manor Farm House on a Wednesday evening called the Starlight Temple and once that closed there was no spiritualist church in the area. It was after a break of about 2 years that we decided to start the church up again at the old haunt in Manor Farm. Jan Walsh, and Liz Freeman are the organisers. We started off with 15 people the first week which dived to 8 the second week (including us 2) but within a few weeks we had a regular 20 people attending. We had revamped the music being played - a little unsettling for some to begin with but many years down the line everyone agrees it is far more uplifting.
We reached a peak a couple of years later of 80 attendees each week which although very nice was a little daunting, trying to find seats being the least of our worries. Eventually it settled down to a regular 40ish people each Tuesday. It has become as much a social occasion as a spiritual event. Having grown in confidence over the years we offered such things as one day workshops on a variety of subjects, Psychic Suppers, Coach Trips, and much more and these events are very much looked forward to. Owing to the increase in rent we had to curb our activities for the last year at Kings College.
Now as you will have seen from the previous pages, we are at our new (albeit temporary) premises in Montesole Pavilion and we hope that while we are here we will be able to offer more workshops, hopefully kicking off the new year with the always popular Aura Photography. More news on this to come.
So why not come along and give us a try - I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the atmosphere which is friendly and fun.