A new phase of our community music work starts this week. Sal McDougall and Catherine Beattie would be delighted to see you at the St Francis Centre on Friday afternoons from two until three to join them for a cuppa and some rousing communal singing. Initially the sing-along’s will run from this Friday (15th May) until 19th June but if they prove popular we hope they will return after the summer.  Sal says: “We’re calling the sessions “Giving it Laldie” because that’s what we hope people will do.  This is not about being in a stuffy choir; it’s more about letting your inner Barbara Streisand or Tom Jones out! We’ve got a great range of popular music to sing so if you enjoyed “Mamma Mia” we hope you’ll love this!”

After many false starts and a lot of delay and uncertainty, it really looks as if our new building, in a more central site, and designed to be a community facility with a sanctuary, is about to get started!

The General Trustees of the Church of Scotland, who own all church buildings, have come forward with a substantial grant, which, added to the funds already available, make it possible for things to move at last. Hopefully, the old building can now be sold and demolished (to make way for houses), and work can begin in the next few months to prepare the ground for our new one.

Watch this space - but don't stop breathing for the moment!

Sal McDougall, church musician with Gorbals church, is now being employed by the church to work part-time in the parish as a community musician.  Building on a tradition of church musicians from Gorbals church doing similar work in the 1990's, Sal will be working with children in the community through the schools; using music to get alongside Asylum Seekers in the ecumenical project Bridging the Gap; exploring links with the Community Team from the local Citizens theatre; and seeing if a local community choir can be started. Sal says: "We plan to start the choir with the more mature residents, and work downwards!"

Paul Chapman, a member of Gorbals Church and a former Theological Seminary Professor from New York, is the moving spirit behind a Poverty Truth Commission which will take place in the City Chambers in Glasgow on Saturday, March 21st.  This event, modelled on similar events held in South Africa, New York and Northern Ireland, aims to bring together people living in poverty and public figures from civic society, so that the real truth about poverty in our city can be heard, and hopefully action will follow. The event is open to the public free of charge, and runs from 2.0 till 5.00 on March 21st.

This was the startling headline in the Daily Record a couple of weeks ago! What happened was that Prime Minister Gordon Brown was in the middle of an official visit to the Skills Academy in Norfolk Street, where Gorbals church meets on a Sunday at the moment, when the call came through from newly-elected President Obama in Washington. No record exists of the conversation, but who knows - maybe Mr.Brown remembered to mention that he was standing in sacred space!