Dear Prime Time member,

On Thursday afternoon I was joined on Zoom by a small group of Prime Time members who popped into the BHC Zoom Room to chat and share their week’s news.  I’m really enjoying these ‘Catch Up & Chat’ sessions. The chat flows very naturally and even though we’re all on screens, you can still discern a sense of friendship, camaraderie and community.

‘Community’ has taken on a greater significance over the past twelve months.  As the nation first went into Lock Down, communities were talked of as ‘pulling together’ and much was made of ‘community spirit’.  We certainly witnessed this is both Busbridge and Hambledon; as by the end of the first week of restrictions, a small army of volunteers had stepped up – prepared to help with shopping, collecting prescriptions, posting letters and making phone calls to people who needed support.

It was evident from the news reports at the time, that the community mobilisation we were witnessing in Busbridge and Hambledon was being replicated across the length and breadth of the country.  I like to think that this will be a lasting, positive legacy of the pandemic.  Looking out for each other, being aware of neighbours who might need an extra bit of support – even in some cases  just being aware of who your neighbours actually are; all are simple things to achieve but yet will help foster that sense of ‘community spirit’ that collectively the British public went on record to acknowledge had been lost in many places prior to the pandemic.

The dictionary definition of ‘community’ is given as; ‘the people living in one particular area or people who are considered as a unit because of their common interests, social group, or nationality’.  I’m sure we’d all agree on that, but as a definition it’s very sterile.  However, if you add the word ‘spirit’ after ‘community’ it hints at something different. If a neighbourhood is described as having ‘a real sense of community’, the same dictionary defines the neighbourhood as having  a ‘caring and friendly feeling’; therefore, what we might identify as this elusive ‘community spirit’.

It is this ‘caring and friendly feeling’ that I pick up at our ‘Catch Up and Chat’ sessions.  Prime Time is not a community because it is not a defined geographical location.  Prime Time members do not all live in Busbridge and Hambledon; we have a couple who live over the border in Hampshire and a few who reside in the opposite direction within the Borough of Guildford.  But Prime Time can be called a community because it’s members all belong to the same social group; every Prime Timer is of retirement age or over.

There are occasions, however, when the term ‘community’ is used interchangeably with ‘family’. Within the church you may hear the term ‘church community’ used to collectively describe the members of the church.  You might equally hear the term ‘church family’ used to describe the exact same group of people.  It does not mean that all members are blood relations, but rather it describes the close relationships that are forged through areas of commonality. Applying the term ‘family’ to a church also reflects the generational make-up because as with our own families, the church family is comprised of many generations and its members are of varying ages.

‘A father to the fatherless, a defender of widows, is God in his holy dwelling. God sets the lonely in families’. (Psalm 68, Verses 5-6)

Prime Time is a community, but it is also very much a family.  It matters not how you came to be part of our ‘family’, what matters is that you are one of our number.  We share life’s ups and downs together, celebrating the ‘ups’ and offering a reassuring hand to grip onto during the ‘downs’.

Like all families we share memories; some will be collective memories of activities we have done together while others will be individual memories, but sharing a context of time or place with other family members.  Some may wish to preserve these memories somehow in case the memory fades, while others may seek to record the memories for future generations to find and therefore understand a little more about their heritage.

‘Children's children are a crown to the aged, and parents are the pride of their children’  (Proverbs Chapter 17, Verse 6)

Prime Time is currently involved in a project to preserve our memories of Lock Down; a kind of scrapbook in which we can stick items that we associate with this very strange period of our lives.  It will be a diary of the year we’ve just lived through but also a reminder of some of the things that have helped get us through.  Thank you to everyone who submitted your Lock Down recipes last week, if it was something you meant to do but never got around to, there’s still time; so please don’t feel that you’ve missed the boat on this one.  This boat won’t set sail for a few weeks yet!

Today I’m asking for photographs please.  Every scrapbook needs some illustrations, so I’d love to add in to our scrapbook any photos that you have taken during Lock Down.  Maybe you were particularly proud of your garden last year and not being able to have friends and family round to see it in person, you took photos of your prized specimens to send to them instead?  Maybe you snapped some wildlife visiting your garden or you took some images of the snow that blanketed the area for a few days in January?  Or perhaps you joined in some of the BHC Covid-safe Christmas activities such as the Advent Walk or the Christmas Eve Drive-In and took your camera along with you? I would love to see your photos and include them in the book, so please do send them through.  You can either email me the digital image or I can take copies of printed photos and then return the originals to you.  Photos can be posted to me at the Old Rectory, Old Rectory Gardens, Godalming. GU7 1JT

Don’t forget that the contents of our Scrapbook are always part of the discussion at our ‘Catch Up & Chat’ sessions on a Thursday afternoon.  It’s amazing what we can cover in half an hour.  Yesterday our conversation ranged from the apparent national shortage of cat food pouches to my need for a haircut, and everything in between!

You’ll find me in the BHC Public Zoom room between 3.30 and 4pm every Thursday afternoon between now and Easter – do come and keep me company!

To join the meeting via your browser:  https://zoom.us/j/9463914833

or type 946-391-4833 into the Zoom ‘join a Meeting’ window.

In both cases enter the password 2021 when asked.

Remember to look out your Lock Down photos this week, (and send them to me!)

Until next Friday,

Penny x

Penny Naylor

Primetime Befriending Co-ordinator