All Change!

Watch a short video update from Christoph and Edda here…

From Sunday, 25 July: 

We can sing again in church! At a time when Covid numbers remain high, we are taking careful steps to ensure that everyone feels safe when they come to church:

We will continue to keep all our hygiene measures and social distancing in place. By reducing the distance between individuals and ‘bubbles’ to about 1m we can increase our capacity at St Mary’s a little.

Please continue to sign up beforehand. We will keep some free seats for those who turn up and are not aware of this arrangement.

Being able to sing was at the top of your list in our survey a couple of months ago. To make sure we keep one another safe, we are asking you to continue to wear a mask inside St Mary’s Church. Of course you don’t have to wear a mask if you have a medical exemption.

You can choose where to sit.

We will refrain from shaking hands when sharing the peace and at the end of the service.

We will delay sharing the common cup at Holy Communion while Covid infection numbers remain high.

As soon as we have established a new coffee rota we will serve coffee and tea after the service – probably at the back of church to avoid a bottleneck in the vestry. Please let Victoria know if you want to help with coffee.

From next Sunday, 1 August:

The 9.30am service at St Mary’s will move to 10.30am.

The service will be streamed live from the church on Youtube.

Only the front of church (chancel and sanctuary) will be visible on the live-stream. If you want to avoid being seen on the video (which is publicly available on the internet), please do not walk into the vestry from the church five minutes before the service or immediately afterwards. Please speak with our parish secretary Victoria if you are on a rota to read, lead, pray, etc. and do not want to be visible on the internet.

The month of August will be a time of experimentation – we will learn a lot and probably make a few mistakes. Your feedback is very welcome!