By a Staff Reporter
The story of how the Anglican diocese of Blackburn has, under the direction of its bishop, raised a total of £125,000 for its own schools is told in the current issue of the Church Times. Here is how it was done.
The plan, begun last summer, was to enrol as many Bishop's workers for the campaign as possible. The slogan was " The Bishop will need forty thousand workers next year."
No one knows how many he did get, but it was estimated that he shook hands with, and thanked, some twenty thousand of them at the end of the appeal—and they were only a representative selection.
The clergy were primed. then the Bishop, the director of religious education and the organiser of the appeal visited every deanery chapter and had discussions with the clergy of each.
And here is what Blackburn's Anglican laity did for their schools.
THE LAY EFFORT
" They knitted, they wove, they made sweets. they sold things at a profit." One small girl made artificial flowers and sold them from door to door, then pincushions, doing the same with them. " Net profit: f24."
A woman who for eight years had been bedridden with an injured spine knitted a blanket, then ran a guessing competition on the number of stitches in it.
Thirteen thousand collecting boxes were brought into action, schoolchildren devised their own moneyraising projects.
When the money had at last to be counted 16 large squads of men from 10 rural deaneries were required for the job.