Newsletter - November 2025

This month we share the sad news that Elizabeth Shroff has died, only weeks after her 101st birthday. Elizabeth came to St Philip’s for many years and really loved the welcome she found here. Hers was a remarkable life of service and an inspiration to us all. There will be a memorial service for Elizabeth in church, most likely later this month. If you’d like to know the date, please email me at: vicarspr@gmail.com and I’ll let you know as soon as it’s arranged.

On a happier note, there was a great runout for the Confirmation service at St Mark’s Reigate on Sunday 19 October, when 18 candidates from across the Deanery were confirmed by Bishop Rosemarie. Four of the candidates were from St Philip’s – Frances, her twin sons Max and Arthur, and Anya, who was also baptised. It was a joyful and uplifting service and we offer our warmest congratulations to Frances, Max, Arthur and Anya.

I’m delighted to announce that we’re now affiliated with the 5th Reigate Rainbows and so look forward to welcoming them to services such as Remembrance and Harvest. Rainbows are the age group below Brownies. We were delighted to welcome back the 4th Reigate Brownies for our Harvest Festival.

Finally, while we’re celebrating our young folk, we were greatly impressed by the enormously long paper chain created by our Sunday School children a couple of weeks ago. They were focussing on the day’s Gospel reading abut gratitude, and so on each individual link, wrote something they were grateful for. You’ll be able to see the paper chain which will feature in our Christmas decorations next month.