We have been asked, as Families of Parishes, to find ways of working together in order to better serve our mission as a Church – to share God’s love with the world. 

Consultation meetings were held, resulting in many fine suggestions for cooperation between parishes. 

We can’t move forward on all of them at once!

There were simply too many. We can only move forward on those where there are enough people willing to step up to offer support.  Having listened carefully to all the suggestions, the Deanery Synodal Council has picked out six areas on which we think we can move forward quite quickly.   

Recently, we held 2 meetings in November at Holy Family and Sacred Heart. About 60 people attended these meetings, the purpose of which was to follow up the summer consultations about ways to promote inter-parish collaboration in the Deanery, so that we could serve more effectively our mission as a Church – to share God’s love with the world.  The aim of the November meetings was to facilitate the forming of teams, each of which would adopt and take forward one of six priority areas emerging from what parishioners had said in the summer meetings.  

These were 

·      Communication and administration across the Deanery & Families of Parishes
·      Adult faith formation
·      Church music collaboration
·      Engaging young people & children
·      Strengthening our outreach, charitable work and support for the vulnerable
·      Enhancing provision for those with special needs

The meetings began with prayer, a reading from and a reflection of scripture and a hymn and ended with prayer and a hymn.  Five groups were established, where participants’ experience and contact details were shared, immediate needs were identified, initial plans for future action were proposed and next steps were agreed.  Members of each of the groups receive a more detailed account of their deliberations and plans.  

Parishioners who could not be present are warmly encouraged to contact the relevant coordinating persons (listed below) to volunteer their services or to convey their interest. 

Adult faith formation - 12 team members.  Contact persons: John Sullivan (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Veronica Curtis (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Engaging Young People & Children - 11 team members. Contact person: Ben Miller This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

Communication and Administration  - 13 team members. Contact persons: Athena Kwasnica (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) and Ben Miller (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)

Strengthening our outreach, charitable work and support for the vulnerable – 11 team members. Contact person: Erica Gibbon (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
 

Church music collaboration – 11 team members. Contact persons: Karen Groves & John Moffat (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.)
 
Special needs – team still being formed. Contact person: Pauline Collier (This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.) Pauline is conducting an investigation into current provision in the parishes of the Deanery for those with a range of special needs.

Parishioners who could not be present are warmly encouraged to contact the relevant coordinating persons (listed above) to volunteer their services or to convey their interest.  

YOUR CHURCH NEEDS YOU!

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