New beginnings for a new decade with Fr David McHardy becoming priest in charge in July 2010, creating a number of firsts, namely: a much needed new sound system, the first Messy Church, a new website and our first post on Face book. Fr David led his first pilgrimage to Cyprus.

In 2012 our Scottish priest instituted our first Burns Supper held in St Francis, which was great fun and now is a favoured tradition. In March 2012 our first children’s pilgrimage to Walsingham took place and it too is an established tradition. St Francis Church ever keen to reach out to young communities launched 11th North Staffs Boys Brigade & Girls Association in May 2012. In June the Queen’s diamond jubilee was celebrated by a Parish meal, and most enjoyable it was too. In October the pilgrimage was to Northern France. In 2013 we held a most successful Festival Weekend in July that was very well attended by many people from our local area.

In the autumn we installed eco-friendly and cost saving solar panels on the south facing roofscape, which has proved to be a wise investment and paid for by a generous legacy. This legacy also enabled us to install in 2014 an electric under floor heating system throughout the church, which has proved to be cost effective and as importantly actually makes St Francis warm and comfortable for services and other activities like the Burns Supper in the middle of winter. Hitherto, with our conventional heating system with gas boiler and radiators going full bore, we barely achieved 10°C compared to 20°C + now.