Church cafe serves Art on the River this weekend

May 28 2010 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

AT St Matthew’s Church on Tay Street preparations are well in hand for this year’s Arts Cafe which coincides with the Art on the River weekend which forms part of Perth Festival of the Arts.

This year the Perth landmark church will also be hosting in the Mission Hall the Festival exhibition of paintings by members of the Perthshire Art Association.

The Rev Scott Burton, minister at St. Matthew’s, said: “We are delighted to have the Perthshire Art Association displaying the work of local artists here in St. Matthew’s and hope that they will enjoy and attract the interest of everyone who we will be welcoming through the doors of our church and into the arts cafe.”

This is the third year running that St Matthew’s members will be catering for the art-going public who flock to Tay Street for the al-fresco exhibition.

The cafe opens at 10.30am serving Fairtrade teas, coffee and homebaking throughout the day and soup and sandwiches from lunchtime.

Art lovers and shoppers can take the weight off their feet and sit in at the cafe or take away to continue browsing the stalls outside.

Mr Burton continued: “Our doors are open, I want everyone to know they are very welcome to join us for refreshments and to see inside our church, use our facilities and visit the exhibition.

“Last year we had over 300 visitors, and every year the cafe gets busier and busier which is great for the festival and great for St. Matthew’s.”

This year funds raised by the cafe will be going towards converting the church’s main hall stage to a dedicated play and activity area for children.

Volunteers from St Matthew’s will also again be operating the highly successful trolley service travelling up and down Tay Street and providing sustenance to hard-working stall-holders and members of the public throughout the day.

“I want to say a big thank you to our team of dedicated volunteers who put such a lot of hard work into the Arts cafe,” added Mr Burton. “Our bakers and soup makers and our kitchen and front of house teams who help make everyone so welcome to our church.”

The Arts cafe is open from 10.30am to 3.30pm tomorrow and following the Sunday service from noon to 3.30pm.

The Perthshire Arts Association Exhibition closes at 4pm each day.