The Church Hall at Christchurch, Northampton was packed on Saturday morning, 16 February 2008, when more than a hundred people had an opportunity to learn phrases in more than six different languages at an International Coffee morning.

The event was hosted by Christchurch as a way of helping the Church and community to get to know its neighbourhood better and to respond to a changing population.

During the morning local people and members of the congregation learnt a few easy phrases in some of the new languages spoken in the town. There were Polish, Romanian, Somali and Swahili speakers and others also wanted to offer their language skills with lessons in Spanish, Welsh and Urdu.

A TV crew from Anglia Television came to film the event, which featured in their Saturday and Monday evening news bulletin.

Parish Priest, Fr David Wiseman said, “Many towns have new communities that have arrived in the past few years and we wanted to show that we were making an effort to welcome them. It is important that new arrivals should learn English but we thought that our faltering efforts to speak another language would be an encouragement.”

For more information contact Revd David Wiseman on 01604 633254.

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