About 150 people attended the blessing and official re-opening of the St Barnabas Centre on Sunday - find below a copy of Canon Mark's speech of thanks.

"It’s so important to celebrate. Just yesterday in St Barnabas we celebrated a life well lived at 10am and at 12.30pm a young couple celebrated their marriage. Yesterday was my grandson's birthday. Life is marked by celebrating milestones.

And today we celebrate an important parish milestone. The completion of the strengthening and refurbishment of the St Barnabas Centre. So many people have worked hard on this project. It is impossible to name them all. From the roofers, to the glaziers, to the scaffolders, to the electricians and plumbers, to the computer guys, the fire engineers, to the structural engineers, the carpenters and plasterers, the dry wall installers to the gib stoppers and the rondo crew and the painters. There was the guy who installed the hand rails so beautifully, and the sign writers, the window blind installers and the carpet layers. I’m sure of missed someone – but the point is that there were so many – and we thank them all.

Special thanks to Nigel Hogg our structural engineer, Chris Wilson our architect, Jason Young and John Parish of Hanham and Philp, Hanham and Philp QS Aaron Tangney and our tremendous site manager George Birt. Thank you everyone.

And we also thank previous generations of St Barnabas parishioners who gave generously to build this Sunday School as it was originally called in the early 1960s. And also to the St Thomas’ parishioners whose building was demolished and land sold and some of the proceeds used for this project.

However special thanks must surely go to our own Don Mackenzie, Greg Brown and Braden Ramsell who have put in a lot of voluntary hours planning and guiding this project.

And let’s not forget why this project is so important for us. The St Barnabas Centre will be a central place of ministry and mission. Imagine our spaces being used to help people learn and grow in their skills – learning English and finding out about the Christian faith – or doing a parenting course or singing in a choir or having a Children’s Ministry lesson.

Imagine the things we will be able to do with these safe, warm and functional spaces with great audio-visual facilities and connectivity. Imagine the film evenings where people deepen their faith. Imagine the training sessions for our pastoral carers, or small group leaders. Imagine the youth gatherings and the elder care meetings. Imagine the relationships that will be enhanced, and the community strengthened.

So that’s way this project was so important – to have a safe, compliant, modern, energy efficient, functional, low maintenance building that we can use for growing our parish family. And we’ve got it. Thanks be to God.