The big screen to come to St Michael’s Church in Perranporth

When it comes to fundraising for the church, St Michael’s Church at Perranporth have had great success over the last few years.

Work started on the church four years ago following the quinquennial report that took place noting that the windows in the church hall were in a state of disrepair with unsuitable putty and rotting frames.

It was agreed by the PCC that a grant should try and be obtained and in 2012, with a grant for £5,860 from the Lottery, St Michael’s were able to replace 14 of the windows in the hall, the main door and install a new fire door.

2015 saw another successful application for a grant from Big Lottery Fund which enabled St Michael’s Church Hall to upgrade the toilet area and the electrics. Three new toilets were installed including a disabled toilet along with baby changing facilities. At the same time, new electrics were installed including a LED security emergency exit. The Church Hall received the maximum grant available from the ‘Rewards for All’ Lottery, the total grant being £10,000.

These new facilities have inspired the congregation to look into other ways the church and church hall can be used by the community and they have now focused their efforts on creating a Community Cinema.  A ‘T’ Loop hearing system was installed in both St Michael’s Church and St Piran’s Church in 2012 with a grant from the Diocese.

Following on from this, the Curate at the time, Revd Casper Bush generously funded a roll-up projector screen and projector in St Michael’s. Interestingly, Revd Casper was an ex-dairy farmer and when the time came to sell his cows, he repeatedly asked the church to pray for his herd, hoping they would be free from TB. When he received the full price for his herd, he decided to repay the church for their prayers and donate the extra money to pay for the equipment to be able to use the screen and Power Point during services, indirectly helping with the plans to set up the community cinema.

The next stage of getting the cinema up and running was to refurbish and replace 10 windows in St Michael’s Church. They successfully applied to Cory Environmental for a grant for £3775.00 and the work has recently been completed.

The next and final phase, will be to fit black out blinds to the windows of the church. Funding for this has been sourced from the Cornwall Community Foundation and a local tradesman is booked in to carry out the work once it has been agreed with the PCC.
Treasurer Ron Holland is leading the project along with his wife Marion, who is also the Church Warden. They believe the ethos behind the new cinema is to ‘reach out to help the local community as working together as a team these days is so important.’