Cluster News
8/9 August

Preparing to implement Phase 3: reopening our church buildings.

All three parishes have been busy organising themselves for our reopening on a restricted basis. The coordinators have been in contact with their teams and a great deal of preparatory work has already been done. Two funerals have taken place in St Gregory’s in the last fortnight and so it has actual experience of holding services in the building although the booking system was not used as this is the responsibility of the funeral director.

With this in mind, we think it prudent to start our reopening with St Gregory’s in the first instance. We hope that any practical issues, especially to do with the booking system, will be resolved in this way and we can then proceed to reopen the other two parishes shortly afterwards.

We propose to hold a Vigil Mass in St Gregory’s on Saturday 15th August at the usual time of 6pm. For this first Mass we are going to have a capacity of 35 including stewards.

All those who wish to attend this Mass will be required to do one of two things:

a) to complete an online booking form (preferred option)  or

b) to phone this number 07401 071 732 [Voicemail] if you are not able to use the internet.

This means that your name has been put on a list. You will receive an automated acknowledgement that you are requesting to attend, but you must wait to receive a notice of confirmation that you have been allocated a place before considering coming to the Mass. 

You will be contacted either online or by phone and if you do not receive confirmation then you are not on the list for those coming that weekend. You do not need to rebook however, as your name will be moved up on the waiting list for the following week. 

On-line and telephone bookings can be made from Monday mornings through to Fridays at 5pm. This will give booking staff time to finalise the list and to send a notice of confirmation to those on the list.

If it is confirmed that you may attend Mass on 15th it is important that you read and understand what is required of you before, during and after attending Mass. We have prepared some guidelines about this and they can be found here.

We are conscious that we are not reaching every parishioner since lockdown and we would encourage you to share this information with anyone you know or suspect may not have internet access. Let's stay connected!

Fr Mike and Fr Alex.