Starting from Tuesday 7th November, the Toddler Church will take place at St Bartholomew’s Church in the centre of Meltham. Toddler Church welcomes pre school aged children with their carers every Tuesday, 9am – 11am (during term-time only).

We have been based at Helme Church for over a year but, as a team, we feel that the time has come for Toddler Church to leave Helme Church and set up our new base at St Bartholomew’s Church.

We are very grateful for the support that we have received from the Helme congregation but there are certain realities we have to face……

Due to the increased cost of heating, we had to reduce our meetings in the first quarter of 2023 to just once a month (similar to the weekly church services). This meant that any continuity was lost resulting in us losing some of our families who did not return after we resumed meeting weekly.

We would prefer to be able to run our weekly Toddler Church throughout the year (term time only). Heating costs continue to be high, and we are unable to make the church floor warmer. We cannot expect babies and toddlers to play on the cold draughty floor through the winter months.

Therefore we will be moving, after the October Half-Term break, to St Bart’s, and also changing the day to a Tuesday. This will enable us to slot into the current provision of work with toddlers, that currently takes place at the Methodist Church on Monday and Thursday mornings. Also, with the growing number of people worshipping at the Wednesday morning HC Service, then that also influenced us to holding Toddler Church on Tuesday mornings.

We firmly believe that it was the right thing for us to begin the Toddler Church at Helme. We have engaged with a few families in the area and hope they will continue to join us as much as they are able. We have grown as a team, as we work together, the morning sessions now run in a seamless way.

The team are looking forward to this next chapter in the life of Toddler Church, we would be grateful for your prayerful support as we seek to reach out to the young families in our village with the Good News of Jesus.

Chris Dronsfield