{"id":33538,"date":"2025-03-24T17:27:45","date_gmt":"2025-03-24T17:27:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33538"},"modified":"2025-03-24T17:27:45","modified_gmt":"2025-03-24T17:27:45","slug":"abingdon-on-thames-civic-service-celebrating-inclusivity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/?p=33538","title":{"rendered":"Abingdon-on-Thames Civic Service: Celebrating Inclusivity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025032402.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nOn Sunday, 23rd March 2025, the Church of Our Lady &amp; St Edmund hosted Abingdon-on-Thames&#8217; Civic Service for the year 2024\/25. Led by the Mayor, Councillor Gabby Barody, the service celebrated inclusivity and community groups.<br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025032401.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe Civic Party entered to &#8220;Crowded Table&#8221; by The Highwomen. Father Jamie McGrath opened the proceedings with prayers, followed by a welcome from the Mayor. Reflections were shared by the Mayor&#8217;s multi-faith and humanist chaplains: Deacon Selina Nisbett, Dr Hamid Al Shejni, and Pat Winslow (read on her behalf by the Mayor). The church choir performed <em>Guide Me, O Thou Great Redeemer.<\/em><br \/>\n<img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/imag25\/2025032405.jpg\" \/><br \/>\nThe Mayor introduced local groups making a difference, including Host Abingdon, Pranic Healing, Thames Valley Roller Skating Club, Abingdon Breastfeeding Caf\u00e9, and Open Doors.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you to Martin Wackenier for the photographs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Sunday, 23rd March 2025, the Church of Our Lady &amp; St Edmund hosted Abingdon-on-Thames&#8217; Civic Service for the year 2024\/25. Led by the Mayor, Councillor Gabby Barody, the service celebrated inclusivity and community groups. The Civic Party entered to &#8220;Crowded Table&#8221; by The Highwomen. Father Jamie McGrath opened the proceedings with prayers, followed by [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[133],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-33538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=33538"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33538\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.abingdonblog.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}