Welcome to the April issue

We first launched at the Spring CRE in Esher in 1999. 20 years later, we are at CRE Manchester. Hope you can visit us at the show this week – it is at Event City, Manchester.

This month Parish Pump is celebrating a big birthday – we have just turned 20! What a journey it has been: from our very small beginning back at CRE in Spring of 1999 (one lady from Bookham joined – that was our entire membership!) we have grown so rapidly over the years – until thousands of you, from all the mainline denominations, have joined us.

You are part of a worldwide family! Parish Pump editors have been found from the Outer Hebrides right down throughout Scotland, England, Wales, Ireland (North & South), and on across the Anglican Communion, from Belgium, France, Italy and Portugal – on to Turkey, South Africa, Borneo, Hong Kong, Australia and New Zealand, and – coming on round the world, even Brazil, Las Vegas (?!), Kentucky, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

Here at Parish Pump we feel privileged to have worked with you for so long. We admire your willingness to spend hours of your free time each month putting together a magazine that will serve the needs of your church family and your community. There is so much you can share with them – articles to help them grow in their faith, snippets to amuse and inform them, cartoons to make them smile, and children’s pages and puzzles to keep them busy!

So as we begin our 21st year, we want to thank YOU for being a part of Parish Pump, and we want to keep working to help you make the most of your very important church magazine.

Just a final reminder – we are exhibiting at the Christian Resources Exhibition at Event City in Manchester this week – Wednesday and Thursday. Hope to see you there!

warm wishes

Anne Coomes and the Parish Pump Team