The Dorset Guild of Weavers, Spinners and Dyers are holding an Open Day on Saturday 27th September 2025 from 10.30am – 3.00pm.
During the day Guild members will be demonstrating and teaching their crafts.  You will be very welcome to have a go at whatever catches your eye.  There will be a Sales Table and Refreshments. 
Entry to the event is free and will be held at Holy Trinity Parish Hall, (rear of Sunninghill Preparatory School), Culliford Road North, Dorchester, DT1 1QG.  For further information please email us at dorsetguildwsd@gmail.com, visit our website: dorsetguildwsd.org.uk or call us on 07979 296734

Monday 13th October: 7.30 pm Storehouse Church

Wednesday 15th October: 9.30 am St George's (coffee and pastries)

Thursday 16th October: lunchtime at St Peter's

Saturday 18th October: 9 am Salvation Army (breakfast)

Sunday 19th October: evening service at UCD

Join us for our annual Memorial and Thanksgiving Service on Tuesday, 28 October at Dorford Baptist Church. Everyone is welcome to remember and give thanks for those who we have loved and lost. 
The service will feature music, poetry, a brief talk, and a time for reflection. There will also be an opportunity to add the name of your loved one on our ‘memory tree’.Tea, coffee and cake will be available from 6.45pm with an opportunity to talk to our chaplains, staff, and others with shared experiences. The service will start at 7.15pm. The theme of this year’s service is 'remembering'. 

There is ample free parking (after 6pm) close to the venue at the Top o' Town car park. If you are unable to attend but would like to add the name of a loved one, please email chaplains@dchft.nhs.uk and we can do it for you.

Taize at St Mary’s Church – A Taize service of song, silence and meditation has been held in St Mary’s at 6pm on the first Sunday of the month for many years.  On Sunday 2 November at 5pm it is planned to show a short film, before the service, about the Taize Community in France.  The film describes the emergence during the Second World War of this innovative international and ecumenical community, and its subsequent service and ministry to the young people of Europe.  Everyone is welcome to come along to see the film which will be followed by refreshments. Any who wish are then very welcome to stay for the monthly Taize service at 6pm.

St George’s Church Bingo Evening
Friday 7 November in the church hall
Doors open 6pm and Eyes down at 6.30pm
All are welcome.
 

The coffee, cake and stalls event has become a popular fundraiser for the Dorchester Committee of the Children’s Society.  It is taking place on Saturday, 8th November from 10 am till noon in the United Church Hall, which is at the lower end of South Street.  Entry is free, with coffee and homemade cake for £2.50.  There will be a variety of stalls and a tombola.  We hope to see you there.

Date:     Saturday, 8th November

7pm 
£10 Members (THS/TELS/SSF/ETF/WPA)
£15 Non members
St Mary's Church, Dorchester

The Thomas Hardy Society in conjunction with the War Poets’ Association present a concert for Remembrance.

The performance brings together the words of First World War poets and Thomas Hardy with English song composers of the early twentieth century, echoing the lived experiences of composers and poets affected by the Great War.

Composers and poets who were killed in action, such as George Butterworth, Wilfred Owen, Edward Thomas and Arthur Graeme West; composers and poets who wrote as they fought in the trenches, such as Ivor Gurney and Siegfried Sassoon; Poets and composers that worried for and grieved lost loved ones from home, such as Katharine Tynan and Gerald Finzi; poets and composers who advocated for peace, explicitly like Thomas Hardy or implicitly like John Ireland, are all given voice through words and song.

Dr Natalie Burton (speaker), Colin Howard (tenor) & Peter Oakes (piano) perform a sequence of words and music exploring themes of war and remembrance in their many and varied aspects — courage, despair, patriotism, loss and sacrifice. The stories, experiences and reflections of individuals are woven within a broader historical tapestry as the poetry and songs move us from the onset of war through the terror of battle to peace and remembrance.

The striking church of St Mary The Virgin, Dorchester, whose building was completed just before the outbreak of World War I, provides a fitting venue for this intimate, reflective occasion.

The concert is included in the THS War Poetry Conference weekend ticket, but can be booked separately.

On Sunday 23 November at 3.00 in the afternoon, St Mary’s Church in Dorchester will be filled with the glorious sounds of choral music, as the Occasional Singers perform a programme of Advent songs and carols. Taking us from 1597 through to the present day, composers will include Victoria, Elgar, MacMillan and many others. Admission is FREE with a retiring collection in aid of Citizens Advice. Everyone is most welcome.