Guild members kick-off another busy year

Duns & District Parishes Guild - over 100 years young and the largest in the Scottish Borders - began our new session with a live streaming of the Annual Gathering which was held in Perth this year. The event is always filled with interesting and inspirational speakers and a tremendous amount of enthusiasm for the work of the Guild Projects. This year was no exception, with an address by the Moderator of the General Assembly Rt Rev Rosie Frew and a talk on the work of TASH Ukraine who are doing an amazing logistical job of sending humanitarian aid on enormous lorries to Ukraine.

Sunday 14th September was our annual service of dedication where we pledged ourselves to serve our Lord, and in the service of others.

Every three years our National Guild follows a theme and four new charity projects are chosen. Our present theme is “Let us build a house”. In the first year we focused on building “Sure foundations” as we thought about Jesus as the cornerstone. During this session we will consider ourselves to be “Living Stones”, coming in all shapes and size we are all needed to build God Kingdom, and part of how we demonstrate this is by raising funds to help those in need. Our main fundraising is for the four chosen projects.

1. Bear Necessities (Bulgaria)

2. Release International

3. Scottish Bible Society

4. Crossreach/ Playful Beginnings

• Bear Necessities a charity supporting social and educational projects in Bulgaria, and for us in particular helping the local minister with “Build my Church” working in the heart of a large residential area.

• Release International who work with persecuted communities around the world, we are focusing on small Christian communities in Upper Egypt where they face extreme poverty and marginalisation.

• Scottish Bible Society with their aim of offering a book to all new born babies on their first and every following birthday until the age of 5, through this initiative children and families are encouraged to read together and are introduced to age appropriate Bible stories.

• Finally we are supporting Crossreach and Playful Beginnings where in both Glasgow and Edinburgh there are initiatives to support vulnerable families.

The combined total raised from Guild activities across Scotland from 31 Jan-31 August 2025 is £102,189.97!

Our first meeting of the new season was on Wednesday 17th September and this informal open meeting was a wonderful gathering of regulars, alongside new friends from the neighbouring parishes of Greenlaw and Chirnside. There was lots of friendly chat, catching up with one another after the long summer break and a most interesting talk from a very talented local silversmith Katie Watson, who is based at Marchmont House. Our meetings will continue every two weeks, on Wednesdays at 2pm in the church hall. We are keen to welcome new members or visitors to any of our sessions and our varied syllabus.