Peterhead Old Parish Church Guild

The Guild meets on the 3rd Wednesday of the month during September to May, with a variety of informative speakers on subjects of social interest, usually in line with current national Guild themes.  Guild membership has been maintained in spite of fortnightly meetings of a Senior Ladies group and, on average, around 30 ladies enjoy a lively meeting and chat over a cup of tea. The January and May meetings take the from of a Scottish evening and Daffodil tea respectively, with the evenings also being attended by members of the other Churches in the town.  Funds raised at these and other fund raising events are distributed between other Church organisations and Guild projects.  Guild ladies are also actively involved in the Church sale of work and many other activities within the Church.

Magazine article (June 2008)

Whose we are and whom we serve.

The 2007 – 2008 Guild session is now completed and over the months since last September we have shared much fellowship and enjoyed and learned from our speakers.

Our Annual General Meeting took place on the 19^th of March and at present we have 30 members.  We are very pleased to welcome back on to the committee Mrs Isobel Carle and Mrs Sheila Marshall.

At the AGM our speakers were the Guild Secretary, Mrs Sena Allen and the Guild Treasurer Mrs. Hazel  Ross.  Sena gave us an insight into her time at the General Assembly in 2007, and Hazel’s topic was the day we spent at the Annual General Meeting of the Guild at the Caird Hall, Dundee in August 2007.

 In April the Daffodil Tea took place at the Palace Hotel and was a very happy evening.  Many thanks to everyone who contributed to the success of the evening,  We were delighted to have Mr Adam Horton and the choir  to entertain us as the Daffodil Tea was only one of quite a few events the choir had been practicing for.

The Annual General Meeting of the Buchan East Presbyterial Council took place in the St Fergus Church in March, where the speaker Mrs Fiona Punton gave us a talk on the role as Information officer at 121 George Street.

 The Buchan East Presbyterial Council invited members to a coffee evening at the Church Centre in New Deer in April and we were well entertained by a group of young singers  “Inspire”, from Whitehills after which  Mrs Rose Wiseman brought us up to date on the Guild Projects.

The Guild will next meet on the 17^th September and we are present working on the syllabus for 2008 – 2009, continuing the theme of Lets live, body, mind and soul and we shall be concentrating on the soul.

Rowland Prothero wrote “The Psalms are the heart’s Prayer Book and the soul’s provision for the great march on which we are all set.”

In Psalm 23 verse 3 we read “He restores my soul.”  The psalmist tells of his faith in God’s goodness, comfort and love.

It is in this faith we look forward to meeting again in September.

Amelia Tunley (June 2008)

Our History

(taken from Centenary year book of the Buchan East Presbyterial Council, 1987)

Our (Woman's) Guild was founded as far back in 1916, we are fortunate in that almost all of our Minute books have survived intact over a long period.

This first Meeting was held during the long ministry of Rev. Douglas Swan.  Mrs Swan remained President of the Guild until her husband retired, and thereafter she was appointed Honorary President as a mark of esteem for her devotion to her Woman's Guild.

During her long Presidency many changes are apparent from perusal of the minutes.  For instance, the cost of a return rail fare from Aberdeen for the very first guest speaker was twelve shillings, and the Capitation Fee was sixpence.

Speakers in the years before the war had their talks serious subjects in some way connected with the church, and were frequently missionaries home on leave with lantern slides to illustrate these talks.  Annual Guild donations were given almost exclusively to the Women's Foreign Mission, Home Mission and Jewish Mission.  Now, with television and foreign package tours so prevalent talks to missionaries are rare.  Gradually after the was speakers dealt with more social subjects such as gas cookery, home nursing and flower arranging, though still including serious topics.

There was more inter-visiting among the Guilds in the early years, and our Guild prospered greatly in Mrs Swan's time.  There was an Afternoon Work Party, an Evening Work Party, a Girl's Club and Junior Guild, with the Guild of Friendship run by the Church Sister.  These ladies and girls al worked tirelessly for the Annual Sale of Work, and later applied their diligence to providing knitted comforts for the troops and seamen during the war years.  Being a seaport, Peterhead was well aware of the hardships suffered by men in the navy and mine-sweepers.

Our own church hall being occupied by solders, we met in other Guilds' halls (in the afternoon to avoid the blackout!) and it must have been difficult to produce the ritual cup of tea and cake from such small rations of tea, sugar and fats!  And yet we also had weekly meetings for evacuee mothers so that they could chat over a cuppie.

Mrs Swan's presidency had seen so many changes but the Guild, a very large one, was full of enthusiastic, dedicated ladies who had readily adapted to these changes and were willing to undertake new activities, such as choir and drama group.

In 1956 there arrived another energetic and persuasive Guild President - Mrs Jean Morris, wife of Rev Dr William Morris.  In her time the Young Wivies' Group was formed, the number of monthly meetings was increased to eight, and in 1966 our Guild celebrated its Golden Jubilee, with guest speaker Mrs Whitely, wife of the Minister of St Giles, congratulating us on our large numbers and many activities..  To mark this occasion it was decided to present to our church a fine stain glass window, and it now its colours glow like jewels on a sunny day.

In recent years Guild members have dropped form the early days when attendances often numbered over one hundred, but we now have the Senior Ladies' afternoon group and of course the Young Womens' Group, all of whom used to belong to the early Guild

Nevertheless, we in the Woman's Guild aim to maintain our tradition of service to our church and of fellowship for one another.  And if we are searching for new ideas for fund-raising or evening topics, we need only look back through those old Minute Books - our predecessors had some pretty novel ideas!