Watlington Lunch Club

Watlington Methodist Church hold a Lunch Club every first Friday of the month at 12-30pm, open to all, and which features home made meals and a choice of puddings to follow. We also cater for vegetarians. Please visit us if you are in the area.

For the December Lunch Club, we invited two special guests, Phil Evans, Christian Aid's Church Engagement and Fundraising Officer for the Home Counties, and Freddie Van Mierlo, the Member of Parliament for Henley and Thame, our local MP (photograph attached). Their presence was part of Christian Aid's initiative to "Break Bread" with your local MP. Yes bread is served as a side with each meal! But also we concentrated in the epilogue on local and global actions concerning the "Let's End Poverty" campaign.

Watlington Methodists try to alleviate poverty financially, practically and spiritually, through fundraising and giving, totalling over £3000 per annum to Christian Aid, The Porch Oxford, Water Aid, Action for Children and Ripple Effect; with practical support through regular donations of food boxes to CEF (Community Emergency Foodbank) and Harvest Festival gifts to The Porch; and spiritually through weekly prayers for trouble spots around the world.

Phil Evans spoke of the many campaigns which Christian Aid support. In Watlington, we support Christian Aid together with St Leonards Anglican Church, Watlington. Freddie Van Mierlo spoke of UK's overseas aid, which in recent years has dropped to 0.5% of GDP, but there is support from the Government and the Liberal Democrats for this to return up to 0.7% GDP, focussing on alleviating poverty, rather than international aid. In addition he spoke of the push towards cancelling debt for many of the poorer, developing countries, as debt can cripple national budgets when interest rates are high. Freddie also spoke of poor families in UK, and the pressure on the Government to allow child benefit for families of more than 2 children. On opening the floor to questions, Freddie explained why he had voted "Yes" for the assisted dying bill, quoting that currently over 600 UK citizens per year go unaccompanied to Switzerland for an assisted death. If family accompany, the family would be breaking UK law. A further question re planning for solar farms expressed concern that the Secretary of State could over-rule local planning. Freddie explained that, coming from the background of a local councillor, he was in favour of local decisions being made by local people, with any State over-ruling being used very sparingly.

Our Lunch Club was a bit different in December, but as always we ended with prayer and the Grace."