Yesterday evening was the official opening ceremony for Basement Central, with Revd Chris Humble (Central Methodist) and Revd Matthew Porter (St Michael-le-Belfrey) cutting the ribbon.  Basement Central is already proving a valuable and fruitful location for youth and children’s work but yesterday was a chance to show the place to a few more people and celebrate how we’ve got to where we are.

Have a look at some pictures which give a taste of the occasion:

Gathering for the opening ceremony for Basement Central

People waiting for the opening ceremony

Lee Kirkby, head of youth and children’s work at St Michael-le-Belfrey

Revd Matthew Porter, vicar of St Michael-le-Belfrey

Revd Chris Humble, minister at Central Methodist

Joy as Chris and Matthew cut the ribbon to declare Basement Central officially open

We enjoyed drinks and nibbles in the corridor

Exploring the main room

Games to enjoy (and we’re not telling you the score of the table football game between our minister and senior steward!)

Update (24.6.13): the opening ceremony has now been covered by our local newspaper, The Press.  Click here for a link to the report in The Press.

There’ll be an opening ceremony for Basement Central on Wednesday, 19th June from 6pm. Feel free to pop in and see for yourself the transformation in Central’s basement led by our friends from the Belfrey.

Click here for more information.

We apologise that there is not yet any step-free access to the basement.

There will be a concert at Central this coming Saturday (25th May) at 6.30pm, featuring a number of choirs visiting from Norway alongside the York Philharmonic Male Voice Choir.  This is part of a Scandinavian choral festival: we have been welcoming choirs from Norway for some years now at Central and it always gives us great pleasure to hear them sing.  Click here for more details in the local press.

On Saturday 11 May 2013, 2.30-5pm at Central Methodist Church, we held an Iona-style Big Sing with Margaret McLarty, church and community musician and former Iona Abbey musician.

We learnt songs from around the world and the Iona tradition. Much of it sung in harmony and unaccompanied – we made a glorious sound with just our voices. There was a special focus on songs appropriate for Christian Aid Week (which started on 12 May). We used some of the songs  in our Sunday morning service for Christian Aid week the following day.

Here’s the songs we sung:

You can find out more about what happened at our previous Big Sing at www.centralmethodistyork.org.uk/bigsing2012/