From the vicar...

I would like to say a big thank you to all of you for being part of St Mark’s Church, Newby. It has been a joy to be your vicar and a great encouragement to be part of the life of this ministry unit with St Luke’s Scarborough. Our joint PCC away day in July 2025 highlighted the following priority areas of ministry and mission; prayer, children, youth and families, community outreach and support, and worship. In each area it feels we have made significant progress, much of which is described in the linked report below.

In our statistics for mission for 2025 I’d like to highlight the following;

• Our average Sunday attendance was up by 6 with 39 adults and 5 under 16s.

• Easter and Christmas attendance was nearly double that of 2024

• There were 12 Baptisms and 3 members Confirmed

• There was 1 wedding during the year

• 9 new members were added to our worshipping community (those attending at least 12 times a year)

I want to give particular thanks to the ministry team – Rev Pauline, Rev Don, LLMs Margaret & Hazel – who offer leadership across both churches. Special thanks also to our Church Wardens Janice and Trevor, who are busy behind the scenes looking after so much of our church life. The Church of England encourages Wardens to step down after six years of service, which Trevor will do this year. I want to acknowledge publicly his leadership through two interregna and the significant work he had undertaken to improve our buildings and care for our congregation.

And many thanks to all of you who give of your time and energy; our PCC members, Treasurer, Safeguarding Officer, Mustard Seed Community Ministers, children, youth & family team, Drop-in team, coffee servers, house group and community group leaders, readers, intercessors, musicians and worship group members, Easy Worship (IT) team, rota organisers, ECO church team, furniture movers etc etc

Many blessings!

Revd Canon Mike Cansdale