The Anniversary Committee is the recurring planning team for HBC’s annual anniversary celebrations [Current chair — to confirm]

The Anniversary Committee plans HBC’s annual anniversary celebration each year — the service, the special guests, the meal, the music, the look back over another year of the Lord’s faithfulness. The committee has been the engine behind every major anniversary the church has marked.

The pattern of how the committee works is best illustrated by the 125th Anniversary in July 2015, when the planning team, coordinated by Church Secretary Deaconess Sonia McCatty and Sister Marjorie Whyte, put together a full week-long programme:

Wednesday 1 July 2015, 7:30 pm — Special prayer session for the anniversary

Thursday 2 July, 7:30 pm — Games and quiz night

Friday 3 July, 7:00 pm — Youth and Talent night

Saturday 4 July, 7:00 pm — Anniversary concert

Sunday 5 July, 11:00 am — Anniversary service, preacher: Rev. Peter Wortley

Sunday 5 July, 6:30 pm — Evening worship, preacher: Rev. Vic Lambert

The pattern goes back to the Centenary in 1990, when Brother Bruce Buckingham and B.J.B. wrote the centenary history and the committee organised the centenary year programme: a Junior Church Event in June 1990, the Sunday School Party and Young People’s Barbecue in July, a Church Outing to Bournemouth, a Men’s Fellowship Anniversary at 11 am, a Harvest Supper at 7 pm, Harvest Services, a Week of Meetings in September, and a West Indian Christmas Meal in December.

The committee is now planning the October 2026 Thirty Years celebration of Pastor Cornelius Mereweather-Thompson’s ministry at HBC — the second-longest pastorate in the church’s 136-year history, after Rev. Benjamin Thomas’s twenty years (1894–1914).

Sources: [125th] pp. 3–4 (125th programme), 5 (planning team acknowledgement); [Centenary] p. 27 (1990 events); [Web History] (Oct 2026 thirty-year plans).