He is, or was, the Norman bishop who built the first Salisbury (Old Sarum) cathedral in the 11th Century and founded our diocese but, more relevantly, he is the patron saint to whom our local parish church in Osmington is dedicated. He needs friends because his building (some parts of which are almost as old as him) frequently needs repairs and improvements to remain at the focus of the village community, where it has been for so many centuries.

Of course the church, through the Parochial Church Council, has an income from its regular members, which covers the day-to-day running expenses and routine maintenance, but it leaves nothing over for the major repairs which come up, let alone for improvements to the facilities. In the past, these needs had to be met through a seemingly endless series of emergency appeals to the public.

Hopefully, everyone in the parish - but they need a focus. In 1985 a group of parishioners (not all regular churchgoers) considered that a sustained regular fundraising effort would be better than recurrent special appeals, and formed a small working group to coordinate activities to this end. This group became the committee of the Friends.

To raise funds to help with the material repair and improvement of St. Osmund’s Church.

(We are not involved with regular maintenance or running of the church, which are the concern of the PCC.)

Our biggest annual event is the Osmington Fête, on the first Sunday in August, which involves lots of volunteer Friends from around the parish, and brings in hundreds of visitors. The 2004 Fête raised £2,800, but our record is over £3,000. We also run at least one other social event each year - in 2004 we held a Valentine dinner, and a Jazz evening in November which raised a further £300. We try our best to keep the "fun" in fundraising.

Our first major success in 1987 was to pay for restoring the church windows, which were in a very shaky state. Since then we have funded restoration of the organ, refurbishment and re-hanging of the ancient bells, repairs to crumbling stonework, and a number of lesser projects, such as the non-slip resurfacing of the church path. In the near future, we are committed to funding the repair of the floor and the stonework at the top of the tower at a cost of about £4000. We are also paying £2050 towards the architects' fees and WDCC costs of the modernisation plans.

We have a massive commitment in helping to raise the community’s share of the cost of the project to bring mains services and toilet facilities to the church, for which planning permission was granted in 2003. How much this will amount to will depend on the level of grant aid that the PCC can negotiate, but it will dominate our efforts for at least the next year or two.

Future events planned so far are:

Saturday 12 February 2005 Valentine’s Night dinner & entertainment. Cost £10. Tickets available form any committee member.

Sunday 7 August 2005 Osmington Fête.

The Friends committee currently consists of:

Gilly Weaver (Chairman) Tel 832387

Bill Norman (Secretary), Tel 832378

Tom Pomeroy (Treasurer) Tel 832124

Betty Abbott

Pat Mc Manus

Sandra Miller

Val Pierce

Phil Bardswell Tel 835674

Let any one of the committee know that we can call on you as a volunteer to help organise and run events or, if you can not help to run them, turn up to support our future fundraising occasions and enjoy yourself in support of a good cause!

To contact the Friends by e-mail, click the link below: