Celebrating elders' anniversaries

On Sunday, we celebrated the anniversaries of ordination of four of our elders, and thanked them for their wonderful contributions and service as part of our church: Bill Swan, retired property convener, for 50 years of eldership; Percy Craigie for 43 years; Jim McDougal for 40 years; and Paul Sales for 33 years of eldership. John Macfarlane, Co-Session Clerk, presented them with certificates for long eldership, signed by the Rt Rev Dr Shaw Paterson, Moderator of the General Assembly.

Anikó, our minister, said: 'We are very grateful for your commitment, dedication, and for your often time-consuming service as part of and on behalf of our church, which nonetheless you carry out cheerfully and graciously.

Bill has looked after our buildings in Bolton and Saltoun and also after the manse for a very long time, and his expertise and creativity have been so helpful. Percy is always happy to help, be it with welcoming the school community into the church for an assembly, or with collecting shells at the beach for our all age services, and of course, in a lot of other ways, too, and we are grateful for his warm and happy presence. I’m pretty sure that Jim is the best pastor we have in our church; he looks out for others with care and concern, and we also appreciate his cheeky side. Paul often keeps himself quietly in the background, but does so much to help our church life run smoothly – from organising the door and communion rota to putting up posters in all our buildings to every week delivering service scripts to housebound church members – thank you for all you do.