Amos Vision and progress

The vision of the Amos Scripture Care Trust was one of teams, and the forming of a charity, to spread God's word and make it available to folk outside the church. New advances in computing and colour printing made it possible to produce material in small or large quantities at low cost.

The first cards were produced at my home and made available in St. George's West Church. They proved popular and within the first two months, £100 had been donated. However, we also needed to find out whether members of the public would take up the cards. The opportunity arose when I had a chance meeting with Rev Gordon Strachan who was preparing an exhibition of his paintings at the Edinburgh Festival. Together we worked on a series of designs and chose appropriate texts which were available at a cost of 50p. 

St George's West Church

Neville Chamberlain of St John's approached me and asked if we could produce cards for a special service they were having to celebrate 200 years. Bishop Holloway preached at this service. Anne Robinson, Susan Cuthbertson and Annie Grant MBE, working from their homes, produced these cards. 

It was clear that the project, as yet unnamed, was viable. The next step was to set up a charity. Balfour Manson were approached and within several months we were established as the 'Amos Trust' The same week as we were officially established as a Charity, Bishop Holloway requested that we produce 8000 cards for the Episcopal Autumn Mission. It seemed very much like a blessing from God, because it solved a problem that had been troubling us. The vision was teams, not individual producers, but how could we establish teams until we had sufficient orders to keep them occupied weekly. Two teams, one from St John's and St Cuthbert's and another from St George's West, were formed and the order was completed in due course.

continued