OFF THE ISLAND Many churches have their own pages on the Internet, often because the parson is pursuing an electronic hobby. One of the more interesting church sites I’ve come across is one for the Anglican parish of Badger’s Quay - Pool’s Island in Newfoundland. If you want to look it up, just go to www.revjohn.com. It was created by the Rev. John Watton. Among its many functions is that of a notice board for parishioners. You can check to see who is on duty as a reader or server on any given Sunday. It’s quite remarkable, when you think about it. Imagine the Emmas and the Harveys in a little fishing port in Newfoundland rolling out of bed on a Sunday morning and switching on the computer to see if they’re on duty that day! There’s a piece of history on the site worth noting. Listen to this story and see if it doesn’t sound familiar. Historians say that Badger's Quay was settled because Pool's Island could no longer accommodate its growing population. One of our senior parishioners tells a story of how sixty people met one evening on Pool's Island to discuss a community problem. There was no more space upon which to build homes, sheds; no place for new gardens, and such as was needed to provide hearth and home. Names were drawn from a hat to decide who would move "across the Tickle." Thus began one of Newfoundland's first resettlements. In other words, they had a draw to vote some people off the island. Where have we heard this story recently! Waverley United Church Decoration Day Service August 19, 2001 Speaker: Orland French Continued For my wife Sylvia and me, a sense of community is an important element in a church congregation. Her family background, like mine, includes a rural church and a church-organist mother. If I can refer to our experience in living in Toronto, we didn’t find a real sense of community until we joined Kew Beach United Church which has a very strong social club associated with the congregation. We had “shopped around” for a church. You can do this in the city, where there are a number of choices. We tried attending one of the big “Cathedral Churches” which we enjoyed for its music and majestic presence. But... we felt like part of an audience, not part of a congregation. When we moved to Belleville, once again we went church shopping. The first church we tried had a strong odour of Geritol and, in fact, closed shortly after we arrived in town. Again, we tried and declined to join the city’s “Cathedral Church”. Then we found Eastminster, which projects a strong community image. Compared with Waverley, it is a relatively young congregation, started only 45 years ago. Today it has more than 600 families and has just hired a second minister. We are within a couple of years of paying off a million-dollar mortgage. The church building incorporates its modern sanctuary into an edifice designed to serve a busy community. The church has a number of meeting rooms, all of which are booked and in use almost every day and every evening by church and outside community groups. There is no end of work to be involved in, and we are actively up to our elbows, literally, in soap suds sometimes, helping out. I don’t think I could belong to a church where the only expectation was to show up once a week on Sunday morning. A lively church congregation is a lively community experience. In the United Church, this sense of community is a large part of the soul of the congregation. As we noted earlier, my career in words continues in different directions. Recently I have been trying to develop a small company which produces local history and heritage books. I have also developed an accompanying web site which promotes local history books. In doing so, I have gained a great appreciation for people’s desire to get back to their roots and to track down their family connections. The Internet is an extremely powerful tool for linking up with people who may share your genealogical and historical interests. Here’s an example. I am currently working on a project to produce a heritage book for the town of Bancroft. One night I posted a notice on the Internet that I was looking for any information, photos and so on about people who had a background in Bancroft. Next morning I received an e-mail from a man in California who claimed to be the great-great-great-great-grandson of the woman for whom Bancroft was named. He had the evidence to back up his claim. Since you’re probably curious to know, Bancroft was named by Senator Billa Flint, a local entrepreneur, after his mother-in-law, Elizabeth Ann Bancroft Clement. There can’t be many towns in Ontario named after mothers-in-law. MORE HOME | SITE MAP | ORDERING INFO | AUTHOR SIGNUP | ADVERTISE | CONTACT US