Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection, for which our leader is the Rev Moira McDonald, the minister of Corstorphine old parish church.
I wonder, do you like cheese toasties? Scientists have said that cheese toasties in particular make such a satisfying snack because, together, cheese and bread bring just the right amount of salt, sugar and carbohydrates to provide a warm, satisfying and easily made—if not very healthy—meal. White bread and orange cheese, melted together, the warm cheese oozing against the crispy toasted bread—it is impossible to eat without getting grease on your chin or crumbs down your front. The humble, the unexpected and the easily overlooked all coming together to make just the right scientific and gastronomic combination.
The reason I ask about your toastie preference is that, every Thursday during school term, churches in Corstorphine join together to make and serve toasties to pupils from Craigmount high school. We called it, after a lot of thought, toastie Thursday. In the space of two and a half years, we have gone from a standing start of 50 pupils to welcoming nearly 300 pupils over two sittings every week.
It is a highlight of the week for many people: for the pupils, who enjoy the food, the fresh air and the break from school; for the staff at Craigmount, who feel the busyness of the school easing a little as pupils disappear to the church hall; for the parents, who normally provide packed lunches but find that they do not need to on Thursdays, although they do have to find £2 from down the back of the sofa; and for the volunteer toastie makers and servers, who have bonded over the challenges of serving 300 teenagers and have discovered friendships and possibilities in the process—which friendships and possibilities are reflected in the relationships formed between the pupils and the volunteers, between the churches and the school and with our local shops and supermarkets, where we buy the supplies. As we borrowed the idea of toastie Thursday from our colleagues on the south side of Edinburgh, so other churches have asked us for advice, as they have set up something similar in their own part of the presbytery.
There have been a few logistical hiccups along the way—occasional moments of drama when the toastie machines have blown the church hall fuses or the supermarket has run out of cookies—but nothing that we have not been able to cope with. The combination of unexpected ingredients—teenagers, shopkeepers, schoolteachers, volunteers and ministers—has come together and good things have developed. Who would have thought that all of that could come from the humble cheese toastie?